By day, public servant Del Goncalves works in a typical office and wears typical office clothes, but come nightfall, she dons a bunny costume and trades her office for a wrestling ring.<\/p>\n
She’s among a growing cohort of Canberrans who have fallen in love with pro wrestling \u2014 a sport where pain and injury are a given.<\/p>\n
“I always get asked if it hurts \u2014 it does,” Ms Goncalves said.<\/p>\n
“Being someone who couldn’t even throw a ball \u2026 it was a big surprise how much I fell in love with this.”<\/p>\n
Wrestling competitions are now happening in Canberra as the sport grows in popularity. (Supplied: Dan Dwyer)<\/p>\n
Popularised by the likes of Hulk Hogan, John Cena, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, pro wrestlers rehearse choreographed stunts before performing matches against opponents for live audiences.<\/p>\n
Though the sport has a small base in Australia, it has developed a cult following in Canberra after the launch of a local wrestling academy and the Slam! Pro Wrestling league.<\/p>\n
Joining the academy after watching a local show in 2022, Ms Goncalves said the sport was about testing her limits, putting on a show and taking on an alter ego.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Del Goncalves says wrestling has given her a new sense of confidence. (ABC News: Emily Anderson)<\/p>\n
“During the day I’m quite an introverted person \u2026 but once I get into the ring and I go from Del to Moshpit Bunny,” she said.<\/p>\n
“All of a sudden loud, I’m larger than life, I’ve got confidence that daytime me doesn’t have.”<\/p>\n
An appetite for a fight<\/p>\n
The sport’s popularity in Canberra has come as a surprise for academy co-founder Dan Dwyer who, when he isn’t in the ring, works as a car salesman.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dan Dwyer goes by the stage name Dan Archer when he’s competing. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“You’ll see me in a nice suit or polo pants,” Mr Dwyer said.<\/p>\n
“[Then] Saturday rolls around and we’re into the tights and the big gold belts.<\/p>\n
“I think the haircut and the gigantic muscles gives it away a little bit.”<\/p>\n
Known by his stage name Dan Archer, the Canberra man began wrestling when he was 16 years old after being inspired by video games and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).<\/p>\n
Since then, he has competed around Australia, but said he wanted to create a local championship to support local and national talent.<\/p>\n
“I’d often find myself travelling up and down the highways to Sydney and parts of New South Wales to be able to wrestle in front of audience,” Mr Dwyer said.<\/p>\n
“But now [Canberra] has become quite a hotbed where we’ve got people travelling from all around the country.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Canberra car salesman Dan Dwyer in character as Dan Archer for pro wrestling. (ABC News: Mark Moore)<\/p>\n
The wrestling performances have drawn crowds of up to 2,400, which Mr Dwyer said was the largest he’s experienced for an all-Australian event.<\/p>\n
He said it’s the atmosphere of the crowd that hooks people in.<\/p>\n
“You’ve got hundreds of people cheering for you or booing for you wanting to see you get hurt or see you succeed,” Mr Dwyer said.<\/p>\n
“There’s no other feeling you can get from other sports or hobbies.”<\/p>\n
Battered and bruised<\/p>\n
Though athletes practice moves hundreds of times before taking them to the performance stage, injuries are part and parcel of wrestling.<\/p>\n
It’s something childhood educator Mia Fisher found out the hard way 18 months ago during a match against a fellow Canberra wrestler.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mia Fisher didn’t notice her injury until she’d left the arena and the adrenaline had started to wear off. (ABC News: Emily Anderson)<\/p>\n
“Adrenaline is a wonderful thing. The match got called, I grabbed my arm, I straightened it out and I went out the back and I said, ‘I broke my arm’,” Ms Fisher said.<\/p>\n
Nine months, two titanium plates and 13 screws later, her character “Kitten Mask” returned to the stage.<\/p>\n
“I love how you constantly put your body on the line to entertain an audience,” Ms Fisher said.<\/p>\n
Thousands attended the wrestling competition in Canberra. (ABC News: Emily Anderson)<\/p>\n
Despite the injury, she said wrestling is a hobby that she wants to continue doing for the rest of her life and hopes that she can inspire generations to take on the ring.<\/p>\n
“I like to think I have little kids looking up at me and thinking maybe they could do that one day too,” she said.<\/p>\n
“I’m so grateful that I get to perform in front of all these people.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By day, public servant Del Goncalves works in a typical office and wears typical office clothes, but come…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2666,64,63,2667,84056,22279,2289,2668,44,113318,113319,20274],"class_list":["post-174293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-act","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-canberra","tag-competing","tag-competition","tag-local-news","tag-local-stories","tag-news","tag-pro","tag-pro-wrestling","tag-wrestling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}