CALL ME SAVEY DAVIE
Wrestler’s school helps to give poor kids better chance
A wrestling star has told how dealing with mental health issues, death and suicide inspired him to help underprivileged children take part in the sport.
David McCallum, who goes by the ring name Ravie Davie on TikTok, grew up in Govan, Glasgow, with his grandmother Betty and sister Mandie after his mum Catherine took her own life when he was just six.
The shock had a huge impact on his life and David, now 29, started using alcohol and drugs and became part of a street gang before he was able to turn his life around.
He said: “I didn’t believe my mum had died. Every day I would wait outside my door and wait for my mum to come back and it would never happen.
“I experienced a serious loss and I never dealt with my grief. The way I dealt with my grief, though, was through watching wrestling 24/7. I didn’t want to go with the social workers.
“Because I never thought I was going to be a wrestler, I wanted to be a part of something, so I joined a gang.
“I would go and do gang-fighting but in my head I would be wrestling. I have been seriously injured because of that, alongside being bricked, bottled and hit with hockey sticks.
“I started wrestling around eight years ago. Wrestling saved my life and now I’m trying to do the same for others.”
David started a school in Govan called Community Pro Wrestling in October last year and wants to offer children a sanctuary to escape whatever may be happening in their lives.
He said: “I have been wrestling for eight years and, when I started, I wanted to make it to WWE but now I want to give it back to Govan.
“There was nothing like this in Glasgow for weans and my wee boy wanted to be a wrestler, so that’s when I thought of the idea of creating the training school.
“I want to have my own wrestling community that will take kids off the streets and stop them from doing the heavy stuff I was doing at 12 years old.
“I always think that if I’d had something like this when I was a wean, then I wouldn’t have done a lot of the stuff I regret doing. If I had started wrestling at their age, I firmly believe I’d be in the WWE or one of the big companies by now.
“I am here to help everyone. It is all in the name – I am trying to build a community. I feel like I am doing something special.
“If I can help someone from being depressed or keep them out of trouble with police, it will make everything worth it.
“It started off as a way to make a full-time living but now it is about helping people.”
David, who has the support of his partner Georgia Nisbet, 31, and stepson Beau Glancy, 10, has seen his club now run three times a week for kids as youngg as five, and has 130,0000 TikTok followers.