‘Subway Mania’ brings the cartoonish world of pro wrestling to commuters

For many New Yorkers, the city’s subways are the play spaces they encounter most often. Every day, dancers and musicians put on an underground revue that uses public transport as a stage.

In recent years, this moving festival has included “Subway Mania,” a tribute to one of the most popular periods in professional wrestling: the late 1990s to early 2000s. About three times a year, costumed performers take on the snarling, rousing roles of fan – favorites like Kane, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker and squeeze the compelling storylines and acrobatic spectacle of wrestling into a single metro.

On a Sunday evening earlier this year, the cosplay wrestlers gathered at the Lexington Avenue/59th Street station in Manhattan, dressed in shiny costumes and robes and carrying homemade championship belts.

The scene caught the attention of Shyama Venkateswar, 57, who was on his way home to Forest Hills, Queens. Her sons, now young adults, had watched World Wrestling Entertainment shows growing up, she said, so she followed the wrestlers aboard the train and left on her journey home.

“Always interested in any kind of street art,” she said. “I think they should thrive and thrive and thrive.”

The show that night started with two performers dressed as two former WWE stars, Rob Van Dam and the Undertaker, entering the subway through the connecting door on one side. Music blared from a portable speaker and the spectators, who stood on benches to clear more floor space, let out a roar.

Subway Mania, the creation of Tim Rivera, 27, a video editor who lives in east Harlem, taped its first matches in 2016. The first video involved two camera operators and featured Mr. Rivera and a friend in wrestling gear see those who fought in full daylight. on an M train bound for Manhattan as passengers looked on in confusion. But it was a hit on the internet. “My two favorite things: WWE and the New York subway,” read one comment.

The WWE, the company synonymous with professional wrestling, is part gladiator arena and part soap opera mixed with broad comedy and pyrotechnics that first televised matches in 1956. In recent years, the company has launched crossover stars such as John Cena, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson and Dave Bautista. One of the company’s most popular offerings is WrestleMania, a name Mr. Rivera partially borrowed for Subway Mania. The WWE declined to comment for this article.

As a young child, Mr. Rivera’s family often had WWE programming on all three televisions at home. When big moments happened, Rivera called his father, a construction worker, and his mother, a pharmacy technician.

The subway, which Mr. Rivera himself started riding at age 10, introduced him to even more quirky experiences and people: He saw singers and rappers, mariachi bands and “Showtime” performers. “The subway literally plays a huge role in my life — in my entire life, my childhood,” Mr. Rivera said. “Without the subway, I would never have had 90 percent of the experiences I’ve had in life.”

Mr. Rivera began experimenting with filmmaking in high school and earned a degree in film production from Brooklyn College in 2019.

“This is my art,” Mr. Rivera said. “I not only wrestle in front of five people, but also in front of sixty people on the train. This is international.”

While other subway performers sometimes tip their hats to passengers for money, Rivera has not generated any revenue from his performances. Instead, he aims for online fame to build his film career.

The skirmishes at Subway Mania are caricatured and unlikely to be mistaken for a real fight in a city wary of crime on public transportation. The performances are recorded, edited to be approximately 10 minutes long and posted to YouTube and other platforms; Since early October, the “Subway Mania” videos have been viewed nearly 10 million times, helping Mr. Rivera burnish his resume and his filmmaking credentials.

Mr. Rivera said Subway Mania videos (he has made about a dozen short films that have amassed anywhere from 5,000 to 280,000 views on YouTube) helped him land his current video editing job at an advertising agency.

Street musicians are allowed to perform in subways as long as they follow the subway Code of conduct, as outlined by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the government agency that manages the transit network, said Renee Price, MTA deputy communications director. Musicians and other artists are also allowed to perform in subway stations through the Music Under New York program. The MTA did not respond to a request for comment on Subway Mania.

“It’s like guerrilla films,” Mr. Rivera said. “We just have to make it happen. Take it once, that’s all, and make the most of it.

Like professional wrestling on TV, Subway Mania is choreographed. Mr. Rivera’s group, about five strong and made up of friends, rehearses the day before a performance or just before they take the stage. It’s a labor of love that connects them to their childhood: They don’t get paid, and Mr. Rivera buys the costumes himself or asks an artist friend to make them.

During the Sunday night performance at which Ms. Venkateswar was diverted, Mr. Rivera boarded the train with about 50 people, including the cast, camera operators and fans. Four officers followed the group onto the train, prompting Mr. Rivera to instruct everyone to get off and split into three groups; he was afraid the officers would try to interrupt the performance. His plan worked: They lost the officers and reconvened at the Forest Hills-71st Avenue station, where they boarded an R train bound for Manhattan.

Mr. Rivera, dressed as former WWE champion Bret Hart, one of his boyhood heroes, gave stage directions to the two dozen or so “fans” he had invited to provide cinematic cheers. They had responded to his call on Instagram for spectator roles.

Mr. Rivera and his friends now have real fans. Together with his fellow artists, Mr. Rivera played matches on stage with rappers A$AP Rocky and Westside Gunn, and his act is imitated in Japan and covered with a German publication. He has also turned Subway Mania into a YouTube interview series with former wrestlers, including Mr. Hart, Chris Jericho and Kurt Angle. “He and his family watched our Subway Mania videos,” Mr. Rivera said of Mr. Hart. “He was sober.”

After the first two fighters entered, Mr. Rivera boarded the train dressed as Mr. Hart, parading and waving his hands.

Mr. Rivera threw his opponent onto the stained floor of the train car and twisted the man into a “sniper” submission hold.

Mr. Rivera grabbed a yellow pole to steady himself as the train rattled through the tunnel, a lock of hair from his black wig dangling in front of his face as his opponent screamed in fake pain.

Competitors were eliminated by being thrown from the train as the doors opened, and after being thrown out, Mr. Rivera quickly ran into the adjacent car, where he shifted into another gear. Minutes later, he re-entered the match dressed as Hulk Hogan.

Incoming passengers were faced with two choices: squeeze into the packed car or find another one. Those who chose “Subway Mania” took out their phones to capture the scene.

As the show ended and the train pulled into the Times Square-42nd Street station, the car erupted into a chant: “Sub-way Mania! Subway mania!” After saying goodbye to his entourage, Mr. Rivera, still in costume, took an uneventful train home back to Harlem. There were no buskers in his car.