The Most Memphis Sport You’ve Never Tried
Every spring, the smoke rolls into Bluff City as teams from across the country descend on Memphis in May World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest for one of our city’s most beloved traditions. But tucked between the barbecues, blues, and bragging rights is a touch of barbarianism, and perhaps the most wonderfully ridiculous event of the weekend: BBQ Sauce Wrestling.
Picture a wrestling ring filled with roughly 100 gallons of barbecue sauce and a rowdy crowd cheering on competitors as they attempt to grapple while sliding around like baby deer on ice. It is a spectacle, both athletic and absurd, and people couldn’t keep away from the sights (captivating yet messy), smells (delicious yet musky), and sounds (joyful yet animalistic).
About half of the matches featured everyday competitors from barbecue teams. To keep things somewhat safe, and to reduce the odds of someone launching headfirst into the mat, the rules required wrestlers to stay on their knees the entire match. Competitors battled under collegiate-style wrestling rules, trying to pin both of their opponent’s shoulders to the mat for three seconds. While simple in theory, any semblance of strength or agility is a feat of Memphis-kind with so much sauce involved.
With no traction and even less grip, every move became a slippery guessing game. Some competitors wore swim goggles, though they didn’t seem particularly effective; either the goggles became completely coated in sauce, or wrestlers skipped them altogether and spent most of the match blinking barbecue sauce out of their eyes. If no pin happened during the two three-minute rounds, the crowd decided the winner, which turned every match into part wrestling competition, part vibe-based popularity contest.
The standout story of the night came from two friends, Hung Nguyen and Chris Coles, both non-professional wrestlers, but who clearly knew what they were doing. Their match was surprisingly technical despite the chaos, with constant reversals and neither competitor able to gain a clear advantage. When time expired, the crowd made the call, awarding Hung the victor and, reportedly, his third career sauce wrestling win, making him the winningest sauce wrestler in BBQ Fest history.
Naturally, the night ended in complete mayhem, with the final match featuring two professional women wrestlers that began normally enough, before one wrestler from an earlier match stormed back into the ring, yelling at one of the competitors. Within seconds, wrestlers from previous matches piled back into the sauce-covered ring, the referee was effectively removed from power, and barbecue sauce started flying everywhere in an all-out free-for-all.
Only here in Memphis could barbecue, wrestling, and community somehow combine into one gloriously messy tradition. From our standpoint of Health + Fitness, there is truly no better test of athleticism than mixing in a little sauce.
For more information on the events for 2027, please visit their website at Memphisinmay.org or Memphisinmay.org/barbecue.
By Zoe Harrison
