Chops, sidekicks and smashes: Professional wrestlers wreck the ring at Chai Wan

On the night of April 5, Ricky Marvin, a Mexican professional wrestler, knelt in a corner of a wrestling ring at Chai Wan Youth Square, trembling as he looked towards the three other wrestlers surrounding him.

This was a fatal four-way match, in which professional wrestlers compete simultaneously, though three of them had teamed up against Marvin.

Marvin swore and shouted at his opponents. The three wrestlers smirked and stamped on him as the audience burst into laughter.  

Across two nights, April 5 and 6, 18 professional wrestlers exchanged blows and kicks at an event organised by the Hong Kong Pro Wrestling Federation, which has staged wrestling events since 2009.

Titled “Shin Squared Circle Vol.2: World Wide Wrestling”, the event featured three international wrestlers, Ricky Marvin from Mexico, Katsuhiko Nakajima from Japan and Elijah Blum from Germany. 

The two-night event included nine matches, including singles, tag team (2 vs 2) and fatal four-way matches and attracted around a hundred audiences.

For Blum, it was his first time wrestling in Hong Kong. He has pursued his professional wrestling career in Germany since 2021, and said the setting in Hong Kong is quite similar to that in Germany.

“In Germany, it is hard to entertain the audience in the cities as they have already seen so much wrestling. I feel the people in Hong Kong are really up for being entertained. They love the whole show, which is amazing,” he said.

He said he would like to wrestle in Hong Kong again if HKWF invites him back.

Danny Freer, 49, is a school teacher in Hong Kong from the United States. He and his wife have followed professional wrestling for 12 years and have attended several World Wide Entertainment events before.

The married couple were there to support Owen, a local wrestler. 

“We have been supporting Owen since we were here in Hong Kong. We have seen him from the start of his wrestling career,” his wife said.

Freer said he liked the closeness to “see everything up close” in HKWF’s matches, compared with the fancy lighting and pyrotechnics in WWE events.

“Great wrestling, lots of energy and a surprising finish. I didn’t expect to see the tag team belts change hands,” he said after Kevin Ma and Jeff Ma won the tag team championship belt from Michael Su and “Mr. Asthma”.