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If you go What : Pro wrestling When : Thursday; doors open at 6 p.m. and preliminary bouts kick off at 7:30 Where : Medford Armory Tickets : $16 for ringside seats, $12 for reserved (rows 2-6), $10 for general admission and $8 for kids 12 and under Wrestling: tights, fights, a ringside night Pros hit the mat Thursday in Medford By DON HUNT Is it the hype? The violence? The sexual innuendoes? The shouting? The staring? The sweat? The scowls? Good vs. evil? Pro wrestling -- and its allure -- is all of that, Portland promoter Jeff Kafoury readily admits. And Medford residents hankering for a close-up view of the wild and wacky world of pro wrestling will get their wish Thursday night at the Medford Armory. The main event will feature Steve "The Gigolo" Rizzono of San Francisco against C.W. Bergstrom of Milwaukie. Kafoury and his father, Ivan, have been promoting pro wrestling in Oregon for 18 months and have been taken aback by its popularity. Thursday will mark their first trip to the Rogue Valley. Medford car dealer and stock car racing promoter John Skinner is co-sponsoring the event. "I equate pro wrestling with a soap opera," Jeff Kafoury says. "There are plots, subplots, sex, violence and the anticipation that the best action won't happen until the final act. "And the good guys vs. bad guys is a big part of it." Television ratings from the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling have outdrawn NBA playoff games and held their own against "Monday Night Football," Jeff Kafoury says. "It's just exploded in popularity over the past five or six years," he says. "And there are a wide range of people who enjoy it. You're just as likely to see an 80-year-old as you are an 8-year-old." Because Oregon has a law requiring pro wrestlers (and boxers) to undergo drug testing, the WWF and WCW won't bring their shows to the state. The wrestling federations claim their members are entertainers rather than athletes, and thus shouldn't have to subject themselves to drug tests any more than a rock musician or stand-up comedian. A bill to overturn the law is working its way through the state Legislature. Some of the wrestlers who compete for the Kafourys do have WWF or WCW experience, however, including Rizzono, Brian "The Rageman'' Cox and Buddy "Heartthrob" Wayne, who are also scheduled to appear on Thursday night's card in Medford. The Kafourys send 10 to 12 combatants to the mat on any given night and regularly employ about 25 wrestlers. They earn anywhere between $50 and $800 for a single event, depending on who they are and how big an audience they bring in, Jeff Kafoury says. "We'll pay them extra if a big crowd shows up," he says. About half of the Kafourys' collection of wrestlers have other jobs. The ones who wrestle full-time work the West Coast, Canada and even Europe. Greg "The Hammer" Valentine, who will meet the winner of the Rizzono-Bergstrom match at the Southern Oregon Dragway on Aug. 3 as part of Top Fuel Tuesday, recently worked 18 shows in 17 days while touring Europe. "Some guys work as many as 300 shows a year," Jeff Kafoury says. To help bring their rookies along, the Kafourys started a wrestling school earlier this year. Skinner, meanwhile, hopes that his first major promoting venture outside of racing in 15 years turns out better than the last. Skinner lost thousands of dollars promoting a closed-circuit broadcast of a heavyweight boxing match between Leon Spinks and Jerry Cooney in the early 1980s. But then, those fighters didn't tote chairs into the ring, paint their faces, yell at the audience or go by names such as "Gigolo" and "Heartthrob." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA