iN VIDEO: Behind the scenes as Okanagan pro wrestlers get ready for ‘One Crazy Night’

Being a professional wrestler is far from the easiest job on the planet. You spend weekends being tossed around the ring, and getting bumps and bruises, but these Okanagan wrestlers say it’s worth it.

Wrestler Chucky Lee Ray, or Charles Traversano outside of the ring, was at Unity MMA and Kickboxing in Vernon on Sunday, Nov. 16, practicing for an upcoming event with some other pros in the Thrash Wrestling’s coterie of wrestlers. 

“I’ve always wanted to be a pro wrestler,” Traversano said during a water break at the practice.

Traversano is going toe-to-toe with WWE star Super Crazy, a.k.a Francisco Islas Rueda, in one of the fights at Thrash’s “One Crazy Night” event at Revelry in Kelowna on Friday, Nov. 21. 

“I’m not going to lie, I’m excited but I’m also nervous too,” he said. “That’s how it usually is. But, when there’s such a big name, that’s where obviously the nervousness comes from the most.”

Six wrestlers had set up a ring and started working on their moves to make sure they were dialled before the big night.

Every step shook the ring, every rebound off the ropes would bruise the back of the average person and every slam into the mat looked lethal. A lot of the practice was about how to make things look as real as possible while avoiding serious injuries. 

The wrestlers were working on safe techniques, but Traversano said training, building strength and flexibility is a big component to avoid injuries when you’re getting tossed around the ring. 

“It is hard on the body, but after a while, you get used to it. When I first started training, you’d get bruises and stuff from the ropes,” Traversano said. “But then over time, your body actually builds enough muscle where, like, it’s nothing.”

Traversano works a day job, but gets into the ring because he’s always loved pro wrestling. 

“A lot of people, they wanted to try and do wrestling, but the minute they take that first bump, they’re like, ‘nah, nah, nah,’” he said. “I mean, if you love it so much, you suck it up, right?”

Thrash Wrestling has been putting on events for over a decade giving locals a chance to wrestle in the same ring as big names like Super Crazy.

Traversano was practicing with fellow wrestler The Vixen Jade, or Jillian Hagen as civilians might know her. 

She said being a wrestler is an escape.

“Everybody’s a little different, what their character is, but my character is just myself turned up to 12, really,” she said. “Once you walk through that curtain, you get to be somebody else for 10, 15, 20 minutes, like acting. You get to forget about your bills or your crappy boyfriend… you forget about it for a little while, and you just become somebody else, and it’s very cathartic.”

She said there’s a sense of camaraderie around Thrash Wrestling between wrestlers and the community. Hagen recently bumped into Super Crazy at an event in Japan.

“He happened to be on the same card as us in the same locker room. Wrestling’s a small world,” she said. 

The movie The Iron Claw about the Von Erich family and their untimely deaths, the Vice TV series The Dark Side of the Ring explore the consequences the pro wrestling had on some of its big names in the past. 

Hagen said movies and documentaries often focus on the tragic side of pro wrestling, but there’s a lot of positives that don’t get enough attention.

“Wrestling kind of had the stereotype back in the 80s and stuff, a lot of drug abuse and steroid use,” she said. “People look at it from a Hollywood perspective, like, oh my gosh, the Von Erichs, the whole family’s dead. Or Owen Hart fell from the ceiling and died. All of these horribly sad things, and there’s a whole show about it, Dark Side of the Ring. We should have a Bright Side of the Ring.”

Pro wrestling is part sport and part performance, and Hagen said people are often surprised by what they see when they come out to a match. 

“It’s like watching live theatre,” she said. “They think, ‘well, that’s tacky or that’s weird.’ They don’t think they would enjoy it. Honestly, you come, you have a drink or a pop or something, you laugh, you cheer, you follow along, and it’s fun.”

Nick Szalanski is Thrash Wrestling’s founder and main promoter. He said over the past 10 years there have been more local organizations like Thrash popping up around B.C.

“It has expanded on a small scale. There are a lot more smaller companies, running fairly well but not a lot of events. There are a lot of, if you will, mom and pop shops, especially in the Vancouver area,” he said.   

This Friday’s “One Crazy Night” is the first time the organization will be at Revelry in Kelowna. 

While Thrash has done big events with big names like Super Crazy in the past, this is another step towards more consistent events at larger venues. 

“It’s more like just a step in a good direction,” Szalanski said. “In 10 years, actually, it has picked up a lot in attendance. . . It just goes to show us the results of hard work. The wrestlers and the promoters and everybody has been working hard to get the word out.”

Tickets for the Revelry event in Kelowna can be purchased online here.