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Let’s get the obvious myth out the way, quickly: it does hurt to be a professional wrestler. From spending a morning training with two of them, I can confirm this. And that’s without even being body-slammed, piledriven, or chopped to the chest.
Full disclosure: I did politely request (beg) to sign a waiver, allowing me to be slammed or at least picked up by the WWE tag team Pretty Deadly. No dice. And in all honesty, when one half of the duo leans towards me later in the day, pointing to a collarbone jutting gruesomely from where it should be, I accept it’s probably right that I was limited to an intense workout, under their supervision.
It’s on-screen villains Kit Wilson and Elton Prince (with his malformed shoulder) leading me through a circuit of squats, sprints and weight-lifting. I say “leading’”… The flamboyant pair, often decked out in pink spandex in the ring, are largely screaming at me. At one point, as I force myself through another lung-bursting sprint on the vindictive Assault treadmill, their ‘encouragement’ has me fearing I’ll crash facefirst into the console. Thankfully, Wilson offers to tag himself in. Phew.
There are a few “phew”s this early morning, as Wilson and Prince oversee a workout at the Eight Club gym in Shoreditch. When the session ends, the tag team – presented as a pair of obnoxious male models – are gracious enough to grant The Independent an interview. We get into what it takes to be a WWE Superstar, physically and mentally: from arduous exercise to strict diets and the travails of travel.
We start where we started this article: on the myth that professional wrestling doesn’t hurt.
“I think you should show them,” Wilson tells Prince. I’m spiked by anticipation, momentarily wondering whether, despite lacking a waiver, I may actually be slammed. Unfortunately, I won’t. Or… fortunately. Wilson and Prince’s mental connection is strong enough that the latter immediately knows what Wilson is referring to. “I’ll do the talking, while you do the undressing,” Wilson says, and Prince unzips his tracksuit top, revealing a protruding, seemingly elevated collarbone.
It’s as if it’s rising through his skin, the kind of body horror that director David Cronenberg would put to the silver screen. “It’s a physical sport, this ain’t ballet,” Wilson sneers, before Prince tags in: “My collarbone just hangs out nowadays. I can hang my coat on that thing.” Wilson asks rhetorically: “You think that’s entertainment?” It’s not, no. It’s a sacrifice, or the result of many made by professional wrestlers in the name of entertainment.
Other sacrifices include near-constant travel. On Thursday, Pretty Deadly will fly back to the US (where they now reside), in time to feature on SmackDown. The weekly Friday-night show is now available on Netflix for UK viewers, along with all of WWE’s current programming and archival footage. It is a monumental move for the sports-entertainment juggernaut, and a shrewd buy from the streaming giant.
Travel has a knock-on effect on fitness and nutrition, obviously. “We have to be very meticulous,” Prince explains. “It’s about taking advantage of the three or four days we have at home, because when you’re on the road, it’s much harder to get a workout and the right food in.” Wilson adds: “When we’re on the road, we’re taking meals, we’ve got our freezer bags, you’ve got to check them [in] at the airport. There are often delays, maybe we can’t get to the gym, so we’ve got to use the hotel gym that night.”
And what of mental preparation? “It takes such a mental toll on you, I don’t think that’s ever talked about,” Wilson admits. “You’re in front of massive crowds, and it is sometimes nerve-wracking, because these are big opportunities that we want to smash. One of our catchphrases is, ‘Yes, boy!’ and it’s kind of a positive affirmation. In the early days, before joining WWE, we’d hype each other [with that] before matches.” Wilson and Prince proceed to trade ‘Yes, boy!’s back and forth, seemingly forgetting I’m present.
They are undoubtedly entertainers. It’s visible on screen, and palpable in person. But as they flit between exercises this morning, there’s also no questioning their athleticism. WWE has long presented itself as sports entertainment, so where do Pretty Deadly see themselves on the scale of athlete-to-entertainer? “Although we are athletes, I think the entertainment is the funnest part of our job,” Wilson says. “I don’t think people lean into it enough. We’re willing to go 100 per cent.”
And as silly as Prince and Wilson can be, they have a serious side, which emerges as we revisit the topic of pain in pro wrestling.
“Prehab is so important for us,” Prince says. “Everybody’s working with little, niggling injuries. You can be fine for three months then take one bad knock, then you’ve got months of rehab. We do a ton of stuff on our scapulas, to keep our necks where we want them to be, because that’s where we’re taking a lot of impact. And if it was to go bad, that’s the worst version: anything neck-related.”
“Pro wrestlers tend to be stronger than the average person,” Wilson adds, “but our necks are maybe five times stronger than the average person’s, because we’re protecting ourselves when we fall.”
Prince issues a grave warning: “Every match is kind of like a small car crash.” So, yes, probably best to avoid the body slams.
WWE arrived on Netflix this January, with all programming available on the streaming service in the UK – including RAW, SmackDown, NXT, Premium Live Events and WWE Archives.
