Wrestler interviews on In the Gorilla Position

Who is Alexis ‘Friggin’ Lee? Inside the rise of Singapore’s top female pro wrestler

Sat, 30 May 2026 13:40:10 +1000

Image credit: @markashleyfilms Alexis Lee is sitting in a Paris hotel room, cold, slightly underfed, broke after a Disney cruise booking she absolutely did not cancel, and mid-way through wrestling in five countries in one month. She has just come from Lyon. She is headed to London for her UK debut tomorrow. After that, Korea. Then Singapore. She describes herself, repeatedly and cheerfully, as a nobody. The evidence suggests otherwise. She sat down with In the Gorilla Position to talk about the bullying that started everything, the parents who tried to stop her and eventually became her travel companions, a wrestling scene in Southeast Asia that most of the world hasn’t caught up with yet, and what it means to do this much work for this little recognition. And why she does it anyway.

Show Up, Rise Up, Nish Up!

Sat, 23 May 2026 10:30:38 +1000

Image credit: @najywan

Nish debuted in June 2025. He is eight matches into his wrestling career, stands somewhere between 159 and 163 centimetres depending on which clinic he visits, and has accidentally invented a personal philosophy that people are now using in their daily lives. He is a trained actor, a wedding MC, and a man who has spent most of his performing life in somebody else’s shadow until he found something he could control entirely himself. He sat down with In the Gorilla Position to talk about the Undertaker at age four, his Stardust era, a tagline he said because he forgot what else to say, and why being a big fish in a small pond is only half the point.

Alex 'Yeet' Stevens: Twenty Dollars in an Envelope

Tue, 19 May 2026 13:23:04 +1000

Image credit: @mandaminsnaps

He sat down with In the Gorilla Position to talk about a mother who accidentally made him love wrestling more, three months in a ring with Dustin Rhodes, a metal festival crowd who didn’t quite get him, a journal with every match he’s ever had written down in it, and why the scene being better when he leaves it matters more to him than any title he might win along the way.

The Mass Effect: How Jackson Shepard found his place in Australian wrestling

Mon, 18 May 2026 19:35:28 +1000

Image credit: @quartzphotography

He grew up in Bendigo, fell in love with wrestling because Eddie Guerrero came out in a lowrider to make the save for Rey Mysterio, moved closer to Melbourne for study, found local wrestling, and eventually realised the thing he had watched since he was ten years old might not be as impossible as it once seemed.

He is shy until the music hits. He is anxious until the character takes over. He does not especially like social media, but understands that in modern wrestling, every performer is also a brand. He has taken breaks, dropped titles, missed wrestling, come back, made merch, sold merch, worked crowds in multiple states, and learned the hard way that in wrestling, everything can change on a dime.

The golden child: Nate Hunter on the business of being the villain

Thu, 07 May 2026 16:06:14 +1000

Image credit: Owen Jones

Nate Hunter is two and a half years into his wrestling career, has done north of one-hundred matches, holds the MXW Tag Team Championship with his partner Killian Bates, and will tell you (without the smallest trace of embarrassment) that he is Australian wrestling’s fastest rising star. He is a Western Suburbs Melbourne boy who grew up on comic books and bodybuilding magazines, got hooked on wrestling at age four when he saw Batista strangle Mark Henry with a cord, and found his calling as a heel in year eleven legal studies. He sat down with In the Gorilla Position to talk about MJF, the Carolinas, a mother’s advice that ended a relationship, what Ric Flair has to do with being selfless, and why the kid in the front row is the only opinion that really matters.

The Calamity: MJ Russo and the kid who was always too much

Sun, 03 May 2026 17:49:01 +1000

MJ Russo is twenty-seven years old, Italian, hyperactive, and will freely tell you that his entire wrestling career exists because his brother picked a fight with him. He is the longest-reigning MXW Upload Champion, a committed heel who has made children cry and grown men want to climb the barricade, and a person who is — beneath all of that — one of the more genuinely thoughtful performers in the Melbourne indie scene. He sat down with In the Gorilla Position to talk about a brother’s challenge, the hyperactive kid he had to suppress for years, why it’s easier to be hated than loved, and what it means to leave the business better than you found it.

The world's end: Doomslayer and the dream he wrote in his yearbook

Sat, 02 May 2026 01:58:59 +1000

Image credit: ASHJO Photography

He is, by the character’s own design, a bloody idiot. He is also, beneath the pink gear and the physical comedy and the frog splashes into empty canvas, one of the more thoughtful people in Australian indie wrestling. He sat down with In the Gorilla Position to talk about a twenty-year gap between a school yearbook and a wrestling debut, the character who was born from a British sitcom, what it means to make it when you’re the furthest from everywhere, and why he keeps getting on planes.

Swamp creature, showman, storyteller: A conversation with Frankie Grime

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 12:25:59 +1000

There’s something immediately disarming about Frankie Grime. The man who steps into wrestling rings wearing face paint pulled from the pages of a Nosferatu fever dream, something black-inked and feral, elegantly grotesque turns out to be a softly-spoken, thoughtful bloke from Mildura who’s just really passionate about telling stories. He’s between places at the moment, shuttling back and forth between regional Victoria and Melbourne for training and shows, usually on the bus because it’s cheap and, for now at least, free. He laughs easily, thinks carefully, and has a habit of talking himself to the edge of a big idea and then landing it perfectly.

All In: Ben Barnett, the Gambler, and the bet he made on himself

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 17:56:44 +1000

Image credit: @themar00481

Ben Barnett is from Melbourne and has been wrestling for two years. This is long enough to have had collarbone surgery, invented a character, reinvented a character, main evented his home promotion, dumped a bag of dice on a man, and rolled a Singapore cane like a casino table. He is the Gambler. He is also, in a different shirt, Mr. All Night Rod Long. He sat down with In the Gorilla Position to talk about Jeff Hardy in 2008, what Razor Ramon looks like at the TAB in 2025, the woman who believed in him before he believed in himself, and why journalism and wrestling turn out to be the same job.

The Broken Heart: Pete Morgan and the gold that holds him together

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:24:43 +1000

Image credit: @jhmedia.jpeg

He has just had a death match in his hometown against Joel Bateman. After that, he doesn’t know how long he’ll be away. He sat down with In the Gorilla Position to talk about tempered glass and trust, the art form he found in the place most people look away from, and why he’d rather see you cry at 3am than read your name on a tombstone.

If you or someone you know is struggling, please reach out. Lifeline: 13 11 14. Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636. You are not alone.

There is a Japanese art form called kintsugi. When a ceramic piece breaks, you repair it with gold, filling the cracks, making the fracture visible rather than hiding it, revealing the history of the object rather than pretending it never shattered. The philosophy holds that something broken and repaired is more beautiful than something that was never broken at all.

Ireland's Ego: Paddy Fitz and the long road to Queensland

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 19:00:24 +1000

He is a heel because being Irish in Australia makes that very easy, he studies wrestling on a treadmill, he wants to do improv comedy classes, and he has a very clear sense of where he is going and why it matters. He sat down with In the Gorilla Position to talk about Daniel Bryan at WrestleMania, the peculiar arithmetic of the Irish scene, what it means to have ego as a tool rather than a flaw, and why legacy matters more to him than money.

Waking the Bear: Bruno the Kodiak and the dream he couldn't delay

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 14:32:55 +1000

Bruno the Kodiak is twenty-four years old, has been training for eleven months, made his professional debut exactly one year to the day after he vowed he would, and drove home from that debut playing his own theme song on repeat the entire way from Melbourne to Ballarat. He is, by any measure, one of the most purely enthusiastic people in Australian wrestling right now. He sat down with In the Gorilla Position to talk about TNA at his auntie’s place, a vow made in an Uber at two in the morning in Las Vegas, the sleeping bear that lives inside a quiet anxious kid from Ballarat, and why he wrote someone’s name on his wrist before he ever stepped through a curtain.

Brave enough: Eleaine Hope and the dream she refused to leave behind

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 18:47:07 +1000

Image credit @mcphotoplay

There’s a tattoo on Eleaine Hope’s body that reads courageux. It is her word for being brave. It is not decoration. It is instruction.

She has needed it. She has needed it on the nights when the matches weren’t coming, when the work felt thankless, when a coach she trusted turned out to be someone she couldn’t defend. She has needed it in every locker room she’s entered as an outsider, in every city she’s travelled to alone, every time she’s climbed to the top rope and trusted the person below her to catch what she was throwing.

The sensational teacher: Selina and the quiet revolution of Singapore pro wrestling

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 10:40:04 +1000

There is a moment in Selina’s match against “Mad Kat” Karina for the Queen of Asia title where the match stops completely. Not because something has gone wrong. Because something has gone exactly right.

Selina is down. She is selling a knee injury with a commitment that makes the ringside crowd hold its breath. The referee is crouched over her. The whole show pauses. And then because she is, above all else a cheat, she kicks her opponent square in the face with the supposedly injured leg, and the crowd erupts in a fury of middle fingers and expletives that she finds personally gratifying.

The zebra in the spotlight: Anna Wood on safety, storytelling, and survival

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 17:45:26 +1000

Introduction

In the world of independent wrestling, referees rarely get the spotlight. They’re the quiet heartbeat of the match. They’re the timekeepers. They’re the safety officers and the storytellers who guide the chaos without ever stealing the scene. But in New Zealand, one referee stands out whether she intends to or not.

Anna Wood, known to fans as Lady Reffington, is NZ’s first and only full-time female official. She’s a former film and TV creature‑effects artist, a survivor of chronic injury, a deathmatch referee with a wicked sense of humour, and a woman who has carved out a place in a scene that’s equal parts tight‑knit, chaotic, and deeply passionate.

TJ Wylde - Pillman's got a gun

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 13:11:52 +1100

TJ Wylde grew up in Albury-Wodonga, straddling the border of New South Wales and Victoria: not exactly a hotbed of professional wrestling culture. Nobody in his family was particularly plugged in. His dad was, in his own words, “just an old school country bloke.” His mum had a passing familiarity with the old school names but it wasn’t something that carried forward into the household. His brother wasn’t interested. The older cousins who might have passed something down lived up near Wagga, too far away to make much of an impression when he was small.

I'm just Adam from Dingley who likes wrestling

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 15:38:58 +1100

Image credit: Owen Jones

He grew up in a suburb of Melbourne watching a Jeff Hardy VHS tape at a neighbour’s house and decided, on the spot, that this was his life. He was signed to a Ring of Honor contract when a pandemic swallowed the world whole. He never made it to America. He’s still here, still wrestling, still the most recognisable face on the Australian indie scene and still, somehow, genuinely surprised when people know his name. Adam Brooks is a pivotal part of Australian wrestling. He just wishes someone would tell him that in a way he could believe.

You grew up in Dingley watching Jeff Hardy on a VHS tape. How do you look back on that kid now?