ASTORIA It’s Sunday night in downtown Astoria. It’s cold for November, but things are about to heat up. Inside the Events Center, the PA is blaring hard rock and the crowd is waiting.

In the backstage area a narrow L-shaped space used for storage C.C. Poison is ready to go. He steps out onto the stage amidst green and blue lazer lights and the puffs of a small fog machine and basks in the glow of the audience, all 30 of them.

Pacific Northwest Professional Wrestling (PNPW) is not the big time, but it is a good time, says Poison, whose real name is Roger Jaime.

Six years ago Jaime, who lives in Warrenton, purchased the PNPW wrestling federation and brought it to Clatsop County. PNPW has been in existence for about 16 years, previously basing their shows in the Portland area, out of the Elks Lodge in the town of Milwaukie.

The roster of the PNPW varies, but usually features 15-20 wrestlers, depending on the show. The wrestlers travel from all over the northwest including British Columbia, Seattle, Portland and Longview to take part in the monthly show held at the Astoria Event Center.

On this night the show is a tag team tournament, and Poison is the biggest star. He wrestles twice once as a female verson of himself dubbed “Brittany Poison,” complete with a pink feather boa. For him, it’s all about the show.

“I was playing in a cover band, playing clubs, and was always a big wrestling fan,” said Jaime in a phone interview in early January.

He would often wear T-shirts featuring professional wrestlers while in concert, and one night he was approached by a man in the audience who liked his Stone Cold Steve Austin shirt. The man’s name was Steve Rush, and he told Jaime he was about to start attending a wrestling class in Portland called the School of Hard Knocks, where he would be trained to be a professional wrestler.

Jaime was 34 years old and decided this was the right time to make a change. He enrolled with his new friend in the school. Sixteen years later, the two are champion tag team partners.

Jaime’s PNPW continues in the long tradition of Pacific Nortwest wrestling federations. Portland especially was a hotbed for professional wrestling, dating back as far as the 1920s. The Pacific Northwest was considered one of the main pro wrestling territories from the 1960s to the 1980s, and Portland wrestling hit its prime in the ’70s with the rise of stars like “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, Buddy Rose, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka and Ed Wiskowski.

Jaime says it’s that golden era that he tries to emulate with PNPW.

“Back when they had Piper and Dutch Savage, that’s where I got my stuff from, that’s where our connection is the old school way,” said Jaime. “If you dont have the personalities you just don’t have it.”

And Jaime’s federation is indeed built on such outsized personalities, including wrestlers like Chris Del Sol, Sunni Daze and Gentleman George Michael.

“I don’t think people really know what goes into it,” said Jaime of the preconceptions that he knows come with his sport. He was a wrestler in high school, and while learning to be a pro at the school in Portland he likened it to “basically I got beat up twice a week and then had to drive home.

The life of a pro wrestler on the small circuit is not a particularly glamorous one.

“Unless you’re in the WWE, you don’t make money,” he said. “You do it because you love it, and hopefully you don’t get hurt but you know you’re going to get hurt.”

Jaime has suffered a wide range of injuries since he began wrestling, including concussions. One night he fell from the ring onto the floor and broke all 10 of his toes.

His old wrestling ring isn’t doing him any favors either.

“It’s probably 35 years old,” he guessed. “Some mats are really springy not this one.”

But if you love it, you love it he said.

“There’s nothing that beats when you come through the curtain, whether its 50 peope or five it’s the rush you get. We do it for the love of being a wrestler.”

And the fans love it. Jaime has gone out of his way to make PNPW a show for all ages, and caters to them. During the intermission of each show, the “good guy” characters come out and mingle with the audience, signing autographs, taking photographs.

“I think some of the guys can forget we’re not on TV, but some kid’s got a picture of you on his wall, and it’s all worth it.”

PNPW wrestling matches take place on the last Sunday of each month at the Astoria Event Center. More information can be found on the federations Facebook page, www.facebook.com/screamingrogerjaime.