An Interview with Gary Ward (Owner of Wrestle Gate Pro)

You may all recall that last weekend saw the debut of a new company on the British Wrestling scene, Wrestle Gate Pro. Their owner, Gary Ward, has been a long-time staple of the BritWres community, known for his excellent photography skills, and as such finally realised one of his ambitions of putting together a wrestling show. For those of you in attendance, you'll know how special that show was. For those of you that weren't, you can check our review here and see them on Facebook here. Anyway, we decided to catch up with Gary to chat about his thoughts on the show and where they go from here.

Firstly, congratulations are in order on your first show as a promoter. Personally, the show exceeded any expectations I had. How did it measure up against what you'd envisioned?

Thank you, It was really odd because when you want to do something so bad for such a length of time and then it happens, you don’t take it all in, I just wanted to make sure the fans and wrestlers on the show had a great time before I even have had time to think about my own personal views. From the reactions and comments online, the show was a success, so my own thoughts don’t really matter now, I just can’t believe it’s over…… For now.

While taking part in the media centre conferences - once again, thank you for inviting us to be a part of them - every person there spoke highly of you, said how positive and fun it was in the locker room and stated that they'd all signed on to do the show as they trusted you thanks to your experience as a photographer. How does it feel knowing that the talent already held you in such high regard before your first show had even started?

It's honestly an honour that people would speak of me in that light, those on the show, 90% I’ve worked with in the past, so it was maybe a two way street that I felt so comfortable with them that I knew the show in terms of in ring wrestling would be a success. My view for professional wrestling isn’t just what you see in front of the camera but how things are done behind it to, so I'm very honoured that everyone has spoken so highly of me and what the team is doing here at Wrestle Gate Pro.

We saw the announcement that a couple of the Dragon Gate stars would be joining you for your next show in March. How did that partnership come about and what can we expect to see from your second show?

There is no “partnership” we simply wanted to work with some of their top and upcoming wrestlers for our show in March, Wrestle Gate Pro is massively influence by Japanese wrestling and Dragon Gate is at the top of this, there is a faction there ( R.E.D ) which I’m a huge fan of, so having the ability to work with them is fantastic, Ben – K and EITA coming to Nottingham is going to be special.

Finally, we're 24 hours removed from Open Gate (at time of interview), what are your overall thoughts on the show and the promoting side of the business now that you've had time to process everything?

I’m so proud of everything the team produced on Saturday, the look and feel of the show was special, I was asked a lot about what match I’m most looking forward to and honestly it was them all and each one delivered in spades in my opinion. The promoting side of the business was fine, my day job is marketing so I feel that I know what im doing when “promoting” the show, in terms of what some see as promoting this includes what happens inside the ring, I’m not in the position and may never be the position to tell experienced wrestlers how to perform in the ring, I’ve employed people as agents to do this, my job is the promote and with 304 people there on Saturday for our debut, I feel we did this well. “Why employ intelligent people and tell them how to do the job? We employ intelligent people for them to do us how to do the job”