PROVIDENCE — Thursday night’s headliners at the Providence Performing Arts Center will be of the unprecedented sort.
Four college wrestling teams will invade the 90-year-old building for two matches, with in-state Division III rivals Johnson & Wales and Roger Williams squaring off alongside Ivy League foes Brown and Harvard.
It’s uncertain if Jackson Browne, Van Morrison or any members of Fleetwood Mac have any knowledge of a full nelson. What they do know is the stage upon which the mats will be rolled out for the 6:30 p.m. start of what is being billed as the Downtown Showdown.
“I’ve been trying to get it off the ground for two years,” JWU coach Lonnie Morris said. “It was just a matter of trying to find the date and getting it done.”
“It’s going to be a great experience for the athletes and the fans,” Brown coach Todd Beckerman said. “It’s something we were kind of looking for — something different, something that stands out.”
The fourth-ranked Wildcats and 20th-ranked Hawks have emerged as two of the region’s power programs, with JWU spending time at No. 1 in the nation earlier this season. The Bears and Crimson are among the oldest of conference foes, meeting for the 90th time. They seemed to be two natural matchups to take out of the smaller campus gymnasiums and expose to a larger audience.
“For me, it was just about connecting with our student body,” Morris said. “Get them excited about something they probably normally wouldn’t come to.”
Brown is used to this sort of showcase. The Bears partnered with their gymnastics team on Sunday to host their fourth annual Beauty and the Beast event at the Pizzitola Center. Morris took note of the buzz Brown was able to generate when it started the coinciding dual meets in 2015 and hoped to capture some of it to promote his own program.
“[Beckerman] does a lot of creative things, too,” Morris said. “When he saw what we were doing, he was like, ‘Hey, let me in on that.’”
“Looking at different venues where we can try to host events — not the normal venue — can get someone else out,” Beckerman said. “Once they come to an event like that, next thing you know, they’re coming to another event in the future.”
Students from all four schools will be admitted free, and general admission tickets cost just $5. Bouts will alternate between JWU-Roger Williams and Brown-Harvard, with the NCAA granting special permission to utilize the integrated format. It’s that kind of innovative thinking Morris hopes will come to the forefront more often in the sport’s future.
“Sometimes in the sport of wrestling we’re our own worst enemies,” Morris said. “We want to stay with tradition and we don’t want to step out of our comfort zone and make it more showmanship.”
“Having it on the stage, we’re all getting excited,” Beckerman said. “We’re kind of fine-tuning it now and will be ready to put on a show on Thursday.”
—bkoch@providencejournal.com
On Twitter: @BillKoch25