Wrestlers at Ravenside Retail Park

On Sunday, we joined Gavin, Brian and Tom at Fitness First to witness them filming wrestlers in training using a 3D camera. More information about their exploits here. During the filming, we talked to the wrestlers about their work and hobbies, and took their portraits:

"Wrestling is a form of art, everything that you do is crafted. But if somebody gets hurt we don't call it art, we call it a mistake. I'm from Longton, I'd say it's a nice place to be, I'd say it's just right, but I don't like the traffic in the morning when I try and get to university. I'm thinking about starting a computer business when I leave uni, building them, fixing them, all that sort of stuff." Kyle, 21. Computer student (above).

"I'm a full-time father of two girls, so this is my release. You know how you use your camera as an expression of art? Well we use moves and our physique as our expression of art. It's so good it's like sex. You get slammed and it hurts but it feels good. You sit there saying 'I want another one. Please, do it again'. Every bump you take you just get up and do it again. you don't want it to end. If I pick you up for a power slam, people think 'oh, he just likes grabbing men - he's gay', but if somebody actually got into the ring and let me do a power bomb to them they'd look at it in a completely different way. If we don't land them right, it's gonna hurt." Jason, 23. Father of two (above).

"Wrestling is everything to me - I think about it 24/7. When I'm at work I'm thinking wrestling, I'm thinking what new costume can I wear, what new music can I come in to, what new moves can I do. It's always on my mind. When I see someone playing games I think how can I interpret that into something? It's life. You can actually take doorwork and wrestling and put them together. When I've been on the doors I've actually had to use wrestling moves to get people out. It's great to be able to combine them."

Would you say it was an art?
"It is - you can express yourself in a weird way. Other people see it as mindless violence. I've always loved drama, I used to want to get into stunt work and I found the best way to do it was through wrestling. I can act and I can do my stunt work at the same time and have fun with it." Dave, 23. Doorman (above).

"It's like drawing a picture, you've got to tell the audience a story when you wrestle. We buy these outfits off ebay, most of them come from America. They don't make them in Stoke as far as I know. The trousers cost about £30, and the shoes are £30 too. I used to live in Manchester but it's a lot better in Stoke. Manchester's rough, it's all guns and knives which is just not for me. It's normal here." Dave, 18. Sports Science student (above).