Adam Brooks

Adam Brooks is the most recognisable face on the Australian independent wrestling scene and he’d be the last person to tell you that.

He grew up in Dingley Village in Melbourne’s south-east, a suburb that doesn’t exactly have a history of producing professional wrestlers. The path there began at a neighbour’s house, halfway through a VHS of WrestleMania 2000. The match was the TLC bout between the Hardy Boyz, the Dudley Boyz, and Edge and Christian. The kid watching was transfixed. When Jeff Hardy climbed to the top of a ladder and the flashbulbs popped, something clicked that never unclicked.

He debuted at nineteen at Melbourne City Wrestling, which has been his home base ever since. Through the years that followed he built a reputation as one of the most complete wrestlers on the Australian circuit. He is technically sharp, athletically gifted, and with a natural charisma on the microphone that can’t be taught.

The international credentials are substantial. Brooks has competed in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Mexico, and Italy, accumulating experience that few Australian wrestlers of his generation can match. The biggest break of his career arrived when Ring of Honor signed him to a contract. And then the world shut down.

That’s the template, he says. Whatever he achieves, wherever he ends up he wants to still be the same bloke he was at nineteen. Good dude. Worked hard. No ego.

Just Adam from Dingley who likes wrestling.