Blood sweat & fears
Pro wrestling may be entertainment, but the training is tough and the stakes are high, finds Susan Egelstaff
Tblood splattering the canvas looks fake at first glance. On closer inspection, it is clear this is no prop from a Quentin Tarantino movie. It is all too real and pouring from a gash in Jack Jester’s arm.
Jester, touching 17 stone and standing 6ft 1in tall in his wrestling boots, has just extricated himself from a coil of barbed wire. He was thrown there by the superstar of the pro wrestling scene, Drew Galloway.
Even by professional wrestling standards, this is unique and Galloway doesn’t pass up the opportunity to tame his rival, whose face is smeared with blood, the wound on his triceps raw and exposed.
“That was the first time I’d ever done a barbed wire match. I’d been asked to do it before but always said no. But this just felt like the right time,” Jester says in the minutes after the match ends. “It’s very hard to get into the right mindset for a match like that because in the run-up, you know you’re going to get hurt. In most wrestling matches, you’ll merely get bruised and battered whereas in this match, there was no doubt I was going to get injured. That’s a pretty strange and worrying feeling.”
This was Galloway’s send-off as he prepares to leave the UK to join the lucrative and celebrated WWE, where he competes under the name Drew McIntyre. A near sell-out crowd of almost 1500 in Glasgow’s Barrowlands looks on as Galloway and fellow Scot Jester battle it out in a match which puts a full stop on a ring feud that has lasted almost 15 years.
“It feels strange it’s over,” Jester – his real name is Lee Greig – admits. “I met Drew when I first started training and we became inseparable. That’s why we wanted this last match to be special. Drew was apprehensive because he’d never done anything like this and I knew we had to make sure it lived up to people’s expectations. I think we managed it.”
There is a perception that professional wrestlers are not athletes. Take one look at Galloway, though, and that belief is obliterated. The 31-yearold is built like a Pictish warrior, 6ft 6ins and 18 stones of muscle. He could easily be mistaken for an Olympic rower or a heavyweight boxer. It comes as little surprise to learn he is among the best of the best. Galloway, from Ayrshire, was Insane Championship Wrestling’s inaugural heavyweight champion in 2006 and that year became the first Scot to sign for WWE. It was announced last month that he has signed a deal to return to Vince McMahon’s extravaganza after a three-year sabbatical.
“Wrestling is all I’ve ever known. I’ve done it since I was 15 and from then on, there was no other thought in my head about what I was going to do,” Galloway says. “I was told that nobody from this country had ever gone to America so why would I be the guy to manage it? But I always said I believe it, I’m going to do it and I’m not going to take no for an answer.”
As a teen, Galloway was a promising footballer but wrestling was his true passion, and at 15, enrolled in a specialised wrestling school.
The giant is softly-spoken, unfailingly polite and charmingly mild-mannered. As soon as he steps inside the ring though, he becomes violent, brash and audacious. His performance against Jester is mesmerising.
“People don’t appreciate the work that goes into being a professional wrestler,” Galloway says. “The training is hard, you’re a full-time, professional athlete. Actors get multiple takes whereas we get one shot but the adrenaline rush you experience when you’re in the middle of a match like that is indescribable. You lose yourself but you have to maintain control to ensure nobody gets seriously hurt.
“But look at Jack Jester’s arm; you can see that this is far from put on. As the match began, I could feel the crowd was nervous and I was certainly nervous but thanks to Jack Jester, hard work and creativity, we put on a show.”
WATCHING a match with high stakes is enthralling and the technical skill required cannot be overstated. It is easy to assume these apparently self-assured men are immune to doubt or negative thoughts. This could not be further from the truth, reveals Jester, who is from Glasgow. “A lot of wrestlers get bad anxiety because it really is a lot of pressure,” he says. “Afterwards, you get the sensation that you can breathe again.
“The thing that’s hard to achieve is the connection with the crowd. You can have all the talent in the world but if you don’t have a connection with the crowd, it just won’t work.”
In the early days, professional wrestling was such a niche interest in Scotland that it was barely mentioned in the mainstream media. It was generally accepted that this country
In most matches you’ll merely get bruised and battered. Here, there was no doubt I was going to get injured
did not produce professional wrestlers and certainly could not sustain a professional wrestling company. Times and attitudes have changed, though.
A decade ago, Mark Dallas founded ICW – his first show took place in October 2006 in Maryhill’s Community Central Hall – and the popularity of professional wrestling has exploded. These days, Dallas’s events sell out venues such as the Hydro and the Barrowlands with tickets as scarce as an unscarred wrestler.
To the uninitiated, professional wrestling is peculiar and idiosyncratic with grown men and women in leotards playing out pre-determined matches. In reality though, an ICW spectacular is a work of art. Yes, it is scripted but the moves are jawdropping.
It’s the noise that hits you. The sound of bodies slamming together, of skin hitting skin, of heads slamming on to the canvas, of a chair being broken over someone’s head; it’s unlike anything else. The sounds of the blows reverberate through the body. The clamour from the crowd is deafening; the crazier the move, the more they love it. The production values of the show are astonishing. It is slick, fast-moving, dramatic and exhilarating. It is theatre.
But why do these men do it? Why put your body through this trauma for something that is, essentially, entertainment?
“I don’t know exactly why I do it,” says Jester, one of the few in this country who has been able to become a full-time pro. “First off, I love wrestling. And it would be a lie if any of us claimed that we weren’t massive attention seekers because we thrive on the crowd’s reaction and every time we succeed, we get that drive to do it again”
Many are dismissive of pro wrestling but Jester mounts a fierce defence. “You get folk who deliberately try to wind you up by saying it’s too violent, it’s rubbish, it’s fake, but if that’s what you think, don’t watch it,” he counters. “I defy anyone to come to an ICW show and not have a good time.”
WHAT is most striking about a show is the diversity. Galloway and Jester were the heavyweight stars but the attraction of professional wrestling is that there is something for everyone.
Perhaps the most recognised name outside of the wrestling world is Grado, the River City and Scot Squad actor who is also a pantomime favourite. But while the card is dominated by men, in recent years female wrestlers have begun to make their mark.
Kimberly Benson, aka Viper, a 26-year-old from Ayrshire, looks to be the sport’s next big name. She is an ICW regular and also features in ITV’s recently-resurrected World of Sport Wrestling show.
Professional wrestling may be an unexpected field for a woman but that’s exactly what Benson loves about it.
“I’ve wanted to be a wrestler for absolutely forever, so I love showing that girls can make it in this world,” she says. “So often in this day and age women have to look a certain way and act a certain way, and I love doing a big f*** you to all of that. No-one’s going to tell me what I can and can’t do. I’ll do whatever I want and people will love me for it. So many people didn’t think I’d make it as a wrestler, so it’s an amazing feeling to have succeeded.”
The growth of professional wrestling in Scotland shows no sign of slowing down. Dallas believes the sky is the limit. “When I started ICW, I thought we could draw maybe a couple of hundred people in community centres,” he says. “So where we are now is beyond my wildest dreams. I really believe that anyone, anywhere in the world could sit in the crowd at one of our shows and be entertained.”