John Katsilometes pins down one of the city’s best wrestlers, a woman with a Texas-size reputation who puts the hurt on opponents at Gilley’s

Sunday, April 15, 2007 | 7:26 a.m.

Don't mess with Texas.

For months that has been the message during the twice-weekly mud wrestling competitions at Gilley's Bar at the New Frontier. "Texas" is the stage name embraced by Amanda Ostermeyer, an athletic 22-year-old so dominant in the sport she was actually banned from competing.

Ostermeyer, who works as assistant operations manager of 24 Hour Fitness on Wigwam Parkway and Pecos Road, moved to Las Vegas from Houston about a year and a half ago. A fine all-around athlete who has excelled in various sports since age 4, Ostermeyer longed to ditch the scooter she had been using as transportation in Las Vegas and purchase a car. For quick cash, she figured she'd try mud wrestling at Gilley's, where she could win a few hundred bucks on a single night.

Gilley's hosts mud wrestling competitions on Mondays and Wednesdays. The premise is simple: Five women sign up in a tournament-style format, then wrestle head-to-head (not all at once) on a surface made up of four king-size mattresses covered by a tarp layered with what Ostermeyer describes as spa mud. Competitors can win as much as $400 in one event, depending on the number of pins they make.

And among the fans, there is beer consumption involved.

Ostermeyer quickly became queen of Wednesday nights, going undefeated from July through September. She earned enough to buy a $1,500 Geo Prism and insure it for $900. But along the way she broke a competitor's nose, bloodied another's knees and caused enough fear and loathing that prospective wrestlers were calling Gilley's before the event to see if "Texas" was on the bill. If she was, they were not.

"They said that due to my violent nature, I couldn't come back," Ostermeyer said Saturday afternoon. "I did not mean to hurt anyone. It's just the nature of wrestling that you have injuries."

Regardless, in October organizers banned Ostermeyer from the show and for months she watched from the sidelines. But she was back Wednesday, winning $225, and says she will be grapple for cash again this week.

"I've got a big group coming to see me on Wednesday," Ostermeyer said. "Before, people were showing up specifically to watch me. It's kind of like having a fan club."

NoteMart

Around here, we call this hedging your bets: Over the past few months Sun reporters Patrick Coolican and Michael Mishak have interviewed

Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and (while still a candidate) Tom Vilsack. The consensus among the Dems is they do not have a problem with gaming as an industry, but they do not consider themselves gamblers, though Vilsack did pull a slot ticket out of his wallet and showed it to Mishak, and Obama told Coolican he'd lost $50 playing blackjack years ago. ...

Double Down Saloon owner P Moss has taken umbrage (umbrage! I tell you) at a claim in the April issue of Los Angeles magazine by Sang Yoon, owner of the pub Father's Office in Santa Monica, Calif. In the magazine, Yoon says he invented the bacon martini. Not so, Moss says. To straighten out the history of the locally famous cocktail, Moss has written a letter to the editor to the magazine saying : "The bacon martini was invented years ago at the Double Down Saloon in Las Vegas. It is an accomplishment that has been documented Esquire, Rolling Stone, Playboy, the New York Post, BBC, CMT and the Travel Channel, among others." The drink's key ingredient is bacon-infused vodka, and the Double Down recipe calls for "only the finest hickory-smoked bacon from Gatton Farms, Ky." ...

Tegan Stewart turns 5 years old today. For his birthday, he'd sure like his dog back. Tegan is the son of top team roper Kevin Stewart of Brock, Texas, who has made 11 trips to the National Finals Rodeo at the Thomas & Mack Center. The Stewart clan has been in Logandale since Thursday, attending the 20th annual Clark County Fair & Rodeo. Tegan's mother and Kevin's wife, Ember Stewart, is a barrel racer who competed at the fair on Thursday night. During the competition, Tegan's Jack Russell terrier, a sprightly 9-year-old female named Tater, scrambled out the back of the horse trailer where she is kept while the family is on the road.

According to Tegan's grandmother Lana Givens, a patron found the dog wandering around the fairgrounds and turned her in to a member of the fair committee. That person was leaving the fair on Thursday night when he encountered a family from Las Vegas that had just either had to part with their pet pit bull or have the animal put to sleep (conflicting accounts here) after it had bitten someone. So the committee member passed the dog on to the family , who Givens said are a couple with three kids, the youngest in a stroller. Givens is offering $1,000 for the safe return of Tater and promises to fly out from Texas to retrieve her. Anyone with any information about the whereabouts of this dog, call (817) 946-3114. ...

What I learned last week at Caesars Palace: "The Sopranos" crew jetted off early Friday after a few eventful days of taping at the hotel . (Harrah's exec Debbie Munch, who kept watch over the proceedings, said she has taken a "blood oath" not to reveal plot details . ) Bette Midler is a fan of Rao's (she ate there Thursday night), and Midler and Cher are not only replacing Celine Dion at the Colosseum in 2008, they are also replacing her in the boutique adjacent to the showroom. Plans are for Cher and Midler to sell their officially licensed wares on property, similar to how Dion and Elton John are featured in the hotel's memorabilia shops (so we can soon hope to find Cher golf balls and bobblehead dolls at the resort). ...

Don't mess with taxes: Two timely tax-centric vanity plates turned in by an able tailgater, TAXPRO4 on a BMW Z4 and TAXPRO1 on a Nissan Titan.

archive