Leah Lovegrove on inspirations, growth and importance of positivity in Professional Wrestling
In a recent edition of Pario Magazine’s ‘The Commentary Booth’ podcast, Jamie Apps fired up the satellite and had South Australia’s own Leah Lovegrove on the show, in a segment where he likes to delve into the pop culture inspirations behind some of your favourite Australian professional wrestlers.
Port Lincoln’s Lovegrove, who has been wrestling for approximately two years and has competed for the likes of Wrestle Rampage, Riot City Wrestling and PWSA in her home state, initially drew inspiration for her character from the anime BLEACH, which follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki, a soul reaper known as a Shinigami or Death God, with Leah incorporating his trademark orange hair colour into her tights design along with the black, white and red of her home Wrestle Rampage. Whilst Ichigo made her tights, ultimately another character from the show and Manga series, Rukia best matches her personality in ring.
“(Rukia is) Real nice and loving… but she’s got a short temper like you could agitate her…that seems like me especially in the ring…if you tick me off…I’m getting beaten down, I just snap”
Outside of the ring, Ichigo’s internal monologue of self-doubt is something Leah Lovegrove can relate to – “(there’s) doubt seeping in, but I push through…don’t let it get to my head and drive me into the ground…(I’m) just always looking to improve”
Jamie then asked about who she would have on her own soul reaping team, to which she didn’t hesitate to name a couple of badass local wrestlers in both Axe Massacre and Charli Evans labelling Massacre a ‘slept on wrestler…I’m surprised she’s not getting booked everywhere’ and Evans ‘a Boss …she doesn’t take sh*t’
Leah stated her character has since evolved, flicking a ‘Trip Switch’ if you will, leaning more into her love of music and gigs, particularly English alternative act Nothing But Thieves.
When asked about the biggest piece of advice she had been given about incorporating influences in her wrestling, Lovegrove was forthcoming with advice that we can all take plenty of value from “If you believe you’re gonna fail the only place you’re gonna go is fail…But if you believe you’re going to achieve something, failure is just a stepping stone…You’ve got to keep pushing yourself and not give up on yourself…Believe in yourself and everything is just a mindset”
The Adelaide based wrestler also likened professional wrestling to a form of physical jazz, with improvisation and riffing part of the process of improvement and not feeling confined to a particular way of doing things in the ring
As for aspirations, Lovegrove wants friendly rival Axe Massacre to take her more seriously, has unfinished business with another rival in Mr Cliff and is “Looking to wrestle interstate a little more”, hoping to return regularly to Queensland where she has wrestled for UPW along with the aforementioned Axe Massacre and getting match opportunities whilst interstate sitting under the learning trees of some of Australia’s best training schools like EPW and PWA, speaking highly in particular of EPW’s incredible trainers in Damian Slater and Davis Storm.
You can watch the full interview here and be sure to subscribe to Pario Magazine’s YouTube channel to catch each episode as it’s released or watch some of those wrestlers Jamie has already spoken to.
Follow Leah Lovegrove on Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/_leahlovegrove?igsh=ZWNzejBxcjl2eHh6
Another bald, bearded wrestling adjacent guy, fantastic…Got into Wrestling thanks to Optus Vision and Turner Classic Movies channel, which aired Nitro, then Foxtel when I finally got to enjoy WWE live each and every week. This evolved into a love of many a different iteration of the artform, but the one I’m passionate about the most is the high level on display across this country – The Australian professional wrestling scene! That’s why I’m here, that and I was far too uncoordinated to ever attempt to do it myself.
