MONTREAL — The offseason can be difficult for NHL fans as they try to figure out how to spend their newfound spare time.
Montreal has plenty of options, from festivals to soccer matches, but one way to avoid boredom over the summer is to sign up for a battle with a world champion wrestler. That’s something unofficial team mascot METAL! is almost surely going to have to learn the hard way after infuriating TNA Wrestling’s Jordynne Grace online.
The feud began last week, when METAL! wrote (via his roadie—the blue dude doesn’t communicate, after all) a series of stream-of-consciousness remarks about the state of wrestling now as opposed to his heyday at the Montreal Forum.
It was primarily the inane musings of someone with much too much free time after the NHL Draft and the team’s development camp a week earlier. The themes varied from a suggestion for a new (but strangely familiar sounding) persona to a shout-out to a hockey-themed wrestler from the 1990s, but one tweet in particular piqued the interest of the TNA Knockouts World Champion.
Grace takes issue with the notion that “METAL! is definitely too metal for wrestling today” in a post claiming that METAL! could defeat anyone at the TNA Wrestling shows at Verdun Auditorium on July 20-21.
See the wrestler, powerlifter, and bodybuilder’s responses below.
The end result is one of the largest arm-wrestling events to hit town since Sylvester Stallone’s Over the Top debuted in 1987.
Fans are encouraged to witness the score being resolved live outside the Bell Centre in Canadiens Plaza on Friday, July 19 at 12:30 p.m. Entry is free for all, and fans are advised to arrive early to guarantee their seats.
All that needs to be seen is whether METAL! outperforms his previous encounter with a professional wrestler in December.
