Wrestlefest return for Jack Jester
by Margaret Chrystall
EVEN without his scary pale blue eye and sinister corkscrew, Scottish wrestler Jack Jester is right – he’d be pretty easy to spot.
With a warrior’s bearing, jet-black hair, wrestler’s bulk and scarred arms, he is one of the most recognisable figures in the Scottish wrestlling world.
And on Saturday, he’s back in Inverness for Rock N Wrestle's Wrestlefest 2015 crowd which knows his mean and merciless ways of old, defending his RNW Highland Champion title against B T Gunn.
The recent rise of wrestling in Scotland – and Jack Jester with it – is a bit of a fairytale story.
Jack – born Lee Greig – remembers the days when wrestling crowds might be 30 people. Soon he’ll be facing around 5,000 at Insane Championship Wrestling’s first event at Glasgow’s SECC.
With the man behind ICW, Mark Dallas, wrestling has become high profile in the last few years, helpedon by two BBC documentaries and the appearance of Grado in Scottish soap River City – with Jester as his first opponent.
"I think it was actually Grado’s first scene or show, he was wrestling me."
And already Jack Jester’s betraying a softer side.
"The main reason I did it was my mum and my gran are gigantic fans of River City – they never miss it. So I thought it would be nice for them to see me in it. So I took my mum to the filming and she got the big tour.
"The first BBC documentary, Insane Fight Club, changed my life.
"That was when folk other than wrestling fans started to realise that this existed.
"The day after the first one went out I was walking through town with Mark Dallas, office windows were opening and old ladies were recognising us, so it all helped building the audience and that is exactly what we want."
Though he wasn’t a wrestling fan as a small boy – Jack says it was only about 1998 he discovered it – he began to wrestle at 15.
But his first image was far from the tough Jack Jester we see now.
"Nobody is going to take a 15-year-old seriously – ever – if he plays the bad guy.
"I think I was just touching 11 stone back then and I’m 17 and a half stone now, so I was a totally different person and looked different.
"There was nothing really happening at that time with guys trying to be funny, though I used to look up to the old guys that wrestle, Les Kellett was the comedy guy then – and was fantastic at it.
"So I thought I would try that.
"I got the offer to go and join a holiday park so I started that when I was 18 or 19, then went straight from there to All Star which did the contract for Butlins’s.
"People turn their nose up at Butlin’s, but the crowd you got there was huge and there were fireworks and explosions – it was a massive show."
After Jack finished there, he started to plan the new character that has become the current Jack Jester.
"New character, same name, but a bit more adult, a bit more serious.
"So I called Mark Dallas – at the time he had quit promoting – but I said ‘You are the only company I can imagine this working with, can we try it and if it doesn’t work then we can say at least we tried’.
"So, thankfully he ran another show for a trial run of the new character – and it worked!"
Jack is a big believer in going for your dreams, however unlikely they are – one of his comes true later this year when he will meet his American wrestling hero.
"Mick Foley, he was the guy who changed my life. I think if I’d turned wrestling on TV and he wasnt on it, I’d have been a wrestling fan but I don’t think I’d have had that drive to do it myself.
"He’s the guy that totally captured my imagination.
"And I’ve come full circle because he is our special guest for the SECC show."
"I always push this theory to anyone young, I’m a big believer if you want to do something, then do it."
Jack reckons he owes a lot to promoter Mark Dallas too.
"He’s a massively ambitious person.
"I remember sitting in Maryhill Community Centre with the parent toddler group space being our changing room.
"I’d be sititing on a tiny little pink plastic chair trying to get my kit on and stuff, but even back then Mark Dallas had grand plans of hitting arenas Now we’re doing the SECC.
"So think twice before you laugh at somebody’s mental ideas!"
Jack also loves coming North, pointing out how the audiences have built since local promoter Steve Robertson started his Rock N Wrestle events last year – the latest on Saturday.
"He’s taken Rock N Wrestle and run with it – and also Belladrum was a captive audience – it can only get bigger."
But sometimes North audiences can get swept up in the heat of the moment, on the evidence of one story Jack shares.
"In Forres a guy got in my face and then I got in his face and his mum took exception to this and she offered me a fight in the car park!"
Jack has already had his share of injuries over the years –
"Luckily I’ve never had anything like a leg break, that’s what you don’t want.
"Over the years I’ve torn and snapped a lot of stuff. I’ve shattered my tailbone and at the time I had no time off. I was so busy I was wrestling 28 matches a week for 10 months with a broken tailbone and because of that I was overcompensating tryng not to land on it, so then I tore my neck.
"I broke a bone in my hip three or four months ago and when the bone snapped, it left a little spike that was stabbing a muscle, so I just kept falling over - folk must have thought I was just drunk all the time!
"My nose has been broken six times - and I’ve got quite a lot of scars on my arms.
"And my teeth are the bane of my life.
"I had my front teeth smashed out years and years ago and then got them fixed, but then last month I got hit in the face with a chair by Sabu, a really famous American extreme wrestler, and I had to get all my front teeth put back in again.
"The guy defies nature I don’t know how he still walks. I love the guy, he’s a maniac."
It’s said with the admiration of a man who’s living the dream.
"My dream to wrestle sounded impossible, but I’ve done it.
"You go to your career interview at school and if you say you want to be an electrician, or a lawyer, they will help you straight away.
"But if you say ‘Astronaut’, they will roll their eyes at you because it sounds unfeasible, but astronauts exist. That’s a job, it may sound far-fetched but the astronauts did it, so why couldn’t you?
"I’m an example of not taking no for an answer and just being stubborn all your life."
Rock N Wrestle presents Wrestlefest 2015 at the Ironworks on Saturday with Jack Jester, Grado, BT Gunn, Kid Fite, Chris Renfrew, Crusher Craib, Lou King Shrap, Donnie T, Lou Aspen Faith and more.
