The Grappling Arts Podcast

Welcome to episode 4 of the Grappling Arts Podcast! Our guests this week are Debbie Keitel and Resurgence regular Chakara! Themes include heels and faces, selling, and we discuss the importance of character. Chakara was a little late, so we start with Debbie and then Chakara jumps onto the call about halfway through. As is increasingly the case on the Grappling Arts, we press record as soon as the call starts as we often find the little pre-show chats really interesting! This is the case again with this episode. Hope you enjoy the show. If you do, please subscribe, leave a review, give us a shout out on social media and all of that stuff! Enjoy.   

Wrestling Resurgence presents: “The Grappling Arts Podcast” where we explore the craft of professional wrestling! Welcome to The Grappling Arts Podcast, where we celebrate the art of professional wrestling, explore wrestling practice, and dig deep into its rich and varied history. Throughout the series we bring you interviews with leading figures from within the independent wrestling community, as well as a variety of expert guests and contributors. Topics such a theatre, sport, storytelling, and performance! Hosted by Wrestling Resurgence producer/doctoral researcher Sam West and theatre and professional wrestling scholar Claire Warden.

Our special guest for this inaugural episode is made in Newport Wales, 16-year veteran, “The Ginger Jesus”, ‘The Godfather of Welsh Wrestling’, “Flying” Mike Bird! He can be found tearing it up, up and down the UK for wrestling companies such as Pro Wrestling Chaos, Attack Pro Wrestling, Good Wrestling, Riptide Wrestling, Ambush Pro Wrestling and of course Wrestling Resurgence. Outside of the squared circle, Mike Bird is the former head trainer at the prestigious Dragon Pro Wrestling school, he taught 'The Modfather' Flash Morgan Webster, The 'Dragonheart' Danny Jones, and many more. He is now the owner of Catch-22 Wrestling in Gravesend where he continues to train the next generation of professional wrestlers. For this interview Mike set us 3 matches that influenced him as well as 3 matches that he feels best represented him as a performer! So, in the course of the episode we discuss The Southern Boys Vs the Midnight Express from The Great American Bash 1990, Bret Hart vs 1-2-3 Kid from Monday Night Raw 1994, and Kenta Kobashi Vs Kensuke Sasaki from Noah Destiny, 2005. From his own body of work, we hear about his much loved Iron Man Match against Wild Boar Mike Hitchmen, his subsequent tag team with Wild Boar in Insane Championship Wrestling and two matches with fellow welsh wrestler Danny Jones including their epic championship encounter at Pro Wrestling Chaos from February this year. We finish with a chat about teaching, training and what its like to be a locker-room leader.