Hi, my name is Alan Kay.

I’m 27 and I am a rookie professional wrestler.

I am here to give my opinions on views on professional wrestling from the very bottom of the totem pole. I’m sure you’ve all heard and read the success stories from British wrestling greats like El Ligero, Flash Morgan Webster, Mark Andrews and beyond. But, I’m here to give you the views of someone at the bottom of the ladder looking up. I will go through my experiences in training, on shows, hunting for bookings. This will include stories of pride, shame and probably everything in between!

So here we go. This past weekend, 11/11/2016 to be more specific, I participated in a show for Elite British Wrestling, in Crookes, Sheffield. I am currently coming to the end of an 8 month rivalry with a gent called “Dirtbag” Dave Stewart, my ex tag partner, and our thing for this show was that we had to choose each others opponent on the night. He chose one of his close friends, both in wrestling and in real life, Mikey Van Riot.

I have never worked with Mikey previously, either in training or on a show, so this was going to be one I was looking forward to. The match got off to the worst possible start. While Mikey was on the outside, I went for a running start, attacking him outside the ring. Little did I know there was a small child waiting for a high-five right in front of his leg, that i couldn’t see, so as I have attacked Mikey from behind, the little kid has gone flying.

Obviously, trying to maintain the character i portray, essentially a nasty so and so, I picked the kid up and popped him on a chair so he could be attended to, slowly realising it was EBW’s owners son that had gone flying! GREAT. luckily, he was okay and was more annoyed that he didn’t get his obligatory high 5 from Mikey than he was about hitting the deck!

We got in to the match. Started straight in to a beat down. Working every available body part. Now, EBW run a family friendly product, which in this day is expected, but working heel it can sometimes be difficult to be audible and PG friendly all at the same time. Some of the insults coming from the crowd push the PG line to the very limit and have to find a way of responding without getting the gaffer angry! Essentially, you just have to insult them in a way that’s a bit funny but not just “SHUT UP!” every single time which gets very boring very quickly.

I managed to clock on to one particular gobby so and so in the crowd. He was my target for tonight. No matter what happened with anyone one else in the crowd I was going to make this guy despise me! Every time I hit a move, no matter how small, I would lock eye contact with him and in some way shouted “I’m better than you!”.

Every time Mikey would get his moments to come back, having a little dig every now and again, this guy would instantly fire up, begging that Mikey would take my head off, but I would cut him down then turn my attention back to him. I was always taught if you have your attention on one then there’s a chance that their reactions will influence others and they bring that in to the next show they go to.

The match goes really well, and ends as I use my rivals finish, a diamond cutter, to get the win. Dirtbag’s match was straight after mine and he went up against another rookie in our promotion, “Hangman” Harry Peerpoint. There isn’t a lot to say about this match really, it went down without a hitch and the fans really got into cheering for one of their favourites.

After the match is where it was all going to go down. After Dirtbag got the pinfall I would jump in the ring and attack him from behind. He would fight back and the brawl would commence. Eventually the entire locker room would come out and attempt to split us up. Every time there was a free spot, I would just break loose again and start throwing punches. The brawl broke to the outside in to the fans, aisle ways, up towards the merch table. Eventually we were separated and we went our separate ways.

After the show, I have a habit of checking the event page and messages to see if anything has come back, anything positive or negative. Most of the feedback that came back was that they loved the pull apart brawl, because it added an extra level of intensity to the match in December. Some people even messaging to ask if the brawl was a legit fight, which means we did our job right!

All in all I classed this show as a success. After a long month of ups and downs in my own life it was nice to walk into wrestling and be able to walk out smiling and proud of what I had achieved! On to the next and last of the year.

December 3rd. Queens Social Club, Sheffield. WINTER WARS.
Alan Kay vs Dirtbag Dave Stewart in a “Monsters Brawl” match.

Until next time losers.

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Images courtesy of Danielle Overend-Hogg Photography