SOMERVILLE — In a surprise upset, Jason Thompkins of Somerville High was dethroned yesterday as the state high school middleweight wrestling champion. Despite being heavily favored, Thompkins was defeated in less than a minute – a state record – by a first-year wrestler at Charlestown High, the Undertaker of Doom. The loss is a serious setback for both the Somerville Latin team’s record and its morale.

It was a defeat no one expected, especially with Thompkins’s ten-match winning streak. Last season Thompkins, 17, defeated Robert Dudley, Jimmy Pankins, and Tyler Fleischer from Charlestown to become state champ. Dudley had held the title for three years running and was a full year older than Thompkins.

The Undertaker of Doom has been the WWF champion two years running and has been arrested four times on assault charges. As a GED candidate in Middlesex County, the 31-year-old ex-felon was eligible for the Charlestown team and hoped to give it a fighting chance against the perennial Somerville powerhouse.

The two opponents seemed fairly enough matched at first look. Thompkins had bulked up 3 pounds to remain division-weight at a trim 167. Lithe, quick, he is known for his speed in pinning. The Undertaker of Doom lost 30 pounds out of sympathy for his opponent. With 412 pounds of iron muscle, including fist-sized pecs and hand-sized biceps, the Undertaker is known for his ability to crush ribs and sternum.

The atmosphere before the match was unusually tense, even for a championship of this magnitude. The gym lights darkened. Organ music swelled from the depths. Funeral drums pounded. A hearse emerged from the blackness. Fog poured in from everywhere – nowhere – as myriad colored lasers shot out and spelled a single word: P-A-I-N.

After being lowered to the stage from the gym rafters, The Undertaker of Doom was quickly surrounded by ten scantily clad beauties, the Morgue Mavens, to carry his robe and cast bouquets of dead flowers to the audience. Thompkins' family, all in attendance that eve, cheered as Mrs. Thompkins caught the first bouquet.

Thompkins began by circling his opponent. Using his one advantage of speed, he rushed forward, hoping to tip his opponent over. The Undertaker of Doom responded by palming Thompkins' head one-handed, like a basketball, and lifting him entirely off the ground.

A snap ricocheted off the walls of Eckerson Gymnasium as the Undertaker dropped Thompkins in a pile driver, shattering his spine at the neck and killing him instantly. The former senior's body landed in a lifeless heap, his arms and legs splayed awkwardly at opposing 45-degree angles. The Undertaker of Doom then picked up the prostrate body and hurled it at the feet of Thompkins’ parents, cracking open Thompkins’ skull and prompting a deafening roar from the bloodthirsty mob.

Ironically, the money from this event will go to help fight multiple sclerosis, a debilitating disease of the very nerves that were severed in young Jason's body today.

"Everyone pretty much agrees on this one in retrospect," said senior Jeff Gordon, editor of the Somerville newspaper’s sports section. "Thompkins had clearly slouched in training, working out only about an hour a day. He didn’t realize that he was going to have to step onto the mat and face a consummate professional."

Coach Lombardi concurred. "Jason was a hard worker... but not hard enough," said Lombardi. "The Undertaker of Doom out-wrestled him, out-muscled him, and simply out-classed him today. Charlestown Private has really taken us for a loop. Shit."

Thompkins' parents felt similarly, lambasting the laziness of their son’s preparations.

"29 seconds," said Jason’s father Randall Thompkins in disbelief. "I mean, 29 seconds. Jason wasn’t thinking. He could have done better than that. Jason needs – rather, needed – to learn to be a man. I told him: no win, no glory. Now maybe he'll listen."

Added Jason’s mother Janice: "Besides being pelted with fruit on our way out the gym door, we also had to lug out our layabout son's corpse all the way to the car, two blocks away. The Undertaker may have taken our son's life away, but our son took with him our hopes for beating the traffic."

Now all that is left for Somerville is to rebuild its program, one day at a time. On Tuesday they will announce the enrollment of their new pro-arts scholarship candidates and all-star wrestlers, the Killer Bees. But with the Undertaker’s completion of his GED and return the WWF, Charlestown is left to rely on Doug Simson, the team’s assistant captain of the team, in a match scheduled for two weeks from Sunday. Good luck, Doug.