Jessica Troy interview: Newcastle local’s rise professional performance wrestler | Wrestling in Australia

Jessica Troy has made a career out of body-slamming her opponents.

The Newcastle local is one of the stars of Australia’s popular performance wrestling industry. Troy, 28, first learned about wrestling at her father’s house with her brothers.

“He had Foxtel, and I’d go with my brothers and they’d want to watch WWE on TV and I was like, ‘No, I want to watch Cartoon Network! I want to watch Nickelodeon!’,” Troy tells 9honey.

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“I’d always complain when they had it on, until one day I actually sat down and I watched it for the first time.

“I think it was a RAW episode, John Cena versus Lita. So it was a man versus a woman, and I watched that and I was like, ‘She’s the coolest thing ever.’

“I just became absolutely obsessed with wrestling. Like, full-on, head-first, go straight in.”

Growing up with brothers helped, a lot.

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“Even before I started watching wrestling … it would normally end up with me crying or, like, yelling,” she says of their frequent tussles.

But the tables soon turned after Troy started working out, with her sights firmly set on a career as a professional performance wrestler.

It’s almost like a way to escape … It just takes you to this whole different world.

“I took up boxing, I took up acting lessons and I started training at a place called Newcastle Pro Wrestling,” she says.

“My dad would take me to training sessions. He would drive me there and he’d wait around at Charleston until he had to come and pick me up two or three hours later.”

Two years after beginning her wrestling training in Newcastle, Troy moved to Sydney and began training with the academy at Pro Wrestling Australia.

Eventually she was performing in the ring in front of crowds of hundreds.

“I think that’s one of the main reasons I like wrestling so much, because I was always really into the dramatic arts,” she says.

“So when I was able to join wrestling, it was combining those two worlds, which is a magical experience for the wrestler and the audience.

“It’s almost like a way to escape, I’d say, whether you’re in the ring or outside the ring. It just takes you to this whole different world.”

Troy’s wrestling character took some time to form.

It’s feminine, with hippie vibes, but she has some brutal moves that have helped her achieve incredible feats, including becoming the PWA Heavyweight Champion.

“My current outfit is the whole crocheted look, flowers and stars and ‘flower power flower child’,” she describes.

“I’ve stopped straightening my hair I wear it curly and frizzy now and it’s just so much more me,” she says.

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Her next appearance will be at Mounties in Sydney on April 19 before the show moves to Gosford then back to the Metro in Sydney, where they regularly sell out to a roaring crowd.

While she and her opponents loosely plan out choreography and moves, Troy says they oftentimes leave enough wiggle room to just let it all unfold.

“Most of the time that kind of stuff happens in the moment and when you’re out there you’re like, ‘Oh, this just feels right right now.'”

In one of her most recent pairings, Troy teamed up with Lena Cross, whom she describes as “just a fantastic wrestler”.

The pair joined the World Series Wrestling: Legacy tour that travelled around the country.

Anyone who has watched performative wrestling can see the incredible levels of athleticism needed to perfect the craft.

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“I will take training once a week, sometimes more,” she says of her wrestling training.

“So I’ll coach the newer people and then I’ll also try to get the training for myself at the Pro Wrestling Academy just for me to train,” she says.

“And then we also work out at the gym. I try to go five times a week.”

Troy also swims and runs each week and lifts weights.

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“It can be quite a mission to fit it all into one week,” she says, adding that she has a nutritionist who plans out all her meals.

“It’s a big process.”

After each performance, Troy says they are all “pretty beat up” and will spend time cooling down and stretching as the adrenaline of each performance fades.

Performance wrestling shows regularly sell out in hours, and Troy has a theory as to why it is so popular.

“I think wrestling is almost a little bit timeless,” she says.

“You can see yourself in someone in the ring. I think there’s such a good variety of wrestlers where no matter your age, nationality, gender, background, you can see yourself in someone and that is almost inspirational in a way.”

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