Pudding provides setting as wrestling returns to Strip

The stench of chocolate pudding hangs in the air as Stacysha Randall, a tree of a woman, whips two hot models.

This event would be so awesome if it were in the afternoon instead of nearly 2 in the morning. The crowd has thinned from several hundred to a few dozen, and those who remain are groggy with a middle-of-the-night stupor.

Not Randall, though.

She's trying to pin the women on their backs for three seconds so she can win this "mud" wrestling competition and take the $500 cash prize awarded by Gilley's at Treasure Island. She succeeds in getting one woman down, but they are all covered in chocolate pudding. Randall can't get a good grip on the other.

Still, she dominates the models through three rounds of some serious wrestling. Between each 90-second bout, the models drag themselves to their corner, exhausted and panting. They gulp water and frantically plan their next moves. Randall calmly flicks pudding off her arms and out of her eyes.

Randall has served as referee for Gilley's mud wrestling since it introduced the event in January. Twice, she has wrestled models in the final round.

When Gilley's was in the New Frontier, mud wrestling was a popular draw, manager Robert Perry says. Since the bar and restaurant opened in Treasure Island three years ago, fans have begged them to bring it back.

Turns out, there are some liabilities that come with anything that involves the public, liquor and wrestling. Naturally, management worried. So when they decided to start the tradition again, they made a few tweaks. Instead of allowing the public to participate, they hired models. Once they work out the kinks and build a following, they will let guests in, Perry says, perhaps this summer.

And, instead of using mud for mud wrestling, they decided to use chocolate pudding. They tried banana pudding, but it didn't have the right look.

This way, they can pour the pudding down their restaurant's drain, Perry says. It's much harder to dispose of mud on a weekly basis.

Every Wednesday night starting around midnight, eight hired models wrestle for the chance to be one of the final two. Though they use silly wrestling names and look magazine-ready, the women take the matches very seriously.

There's $500 at stake.

"The girls get really competitive with each other," Randall says. "In the beginning, they're having fun being in there, but once they start going a little bit, it usually escalates. The rounds get way more competitive as they go because you're getting closer to the money."

Randall, 24, first heard about mud wrestling a few years ago. She drove past the New Frontier before it was imploded and saw Gilley's mud wrestling advertised on the marquee.

"I said, 'Oh my God, I want to be a Gilley's mud wrestling girl,' " she recalls. The hotel closed in 2007 before she could pursue her dream.

For the past four years, she has performed gigs around town, sometimes wrestling in mud or liquids. When Randall heard that mud wrestling was coming back to Gilley's, she contacted management.

At 6 feet tall, with broad shoulders and an intimidating glare, Randall is the kind of woman you want on your side in a fight. Her backyard mud wrestling matches are legendary. Gilley's management took one look at her and said, "You're much bigger than the other women. You'll beat them every week."

They offered her the referee job. She took it, but she still has a mud wrestling itch to scratch.

"If the girls get out of hand, I have no qualms about getting in there and wrestling them down," Randall says. "So far, they've behaved because they don't want to be disqualified. But secretly, I'm kind of hoping for it."

On a recent Wednesday, at least 300 people crowded around the ring as staff filled it with 60 gallons of chocolate pudding. That sounds like a lot, but it was only ankle-deep. Still, it's enough pudding to make standing, walking, grabbing or wrestling very difficult.

Master of ceremonies Christopher Julian announced the rules before the action started: no punching, no biting, no hair-pulling, no pulling tops off.

The crowd boos at the last rule. They are here to see tops pulled off and maybe bottoms, too. Julian calms them down.

"Relax, it's Vegas. It's going to happen," he says. "I just have to say that."

The sweet aroma of canned pudding wafts through the bar. At first, it's a pleasant smell. But something chemical happens when you coat humans in pudding. It starts to reek.

The model-wrestlers fought three bouts of 90 seconds each. Occasionally, a bikini top slipped and showed more than cleavage, but the event was much more chaste than you might think.

Surprisingly, the event is repetitive. Names of the women change - Betty Rage, Lil Red, Angel of Death, Fireball - but the action is almost the same.

The crowd thinned well before the final match, which was the best of the competition.

Before it started, Julian decided that the two models, Babe Ruthless and Pussy Galore, would have to wrestle Randall for the grand prize.

Being a referee is exhausting. You have to stay on your feet, keep your balance in the pudding. By the time the final match comes, Randall is tired. That didn't keep her from trying to win.

While the eight models put up a solid effort throughout the night, their matches looked like slap fights compared with Randall's moves. During one bout, there was a moment where she fended off Galore with her left hand while her right palmed the face of Ruthless, demonstrating that one can effectively control the movements of another person if you hold them by the face.

To win a match, competitors must pin their opponent. If they don't, the crowd gets to decide the winner. Randall couldn't pin both women. Despite her obvious dominance, she couldn't win over the crowd. The audience decided to award the money to the hot models.

The decision didn't sour her on mud wrestling.

"It's the coolest thing that's going to happen on the Strip in the middle of the night on a Wednesday," Randall says. "It's awesome."

Contact reporter Sonya Padgett at spadgett@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4564. Follow @StripSonya on Twitter.