How Fife dad Taylor juggles life as a care worker by day and a pro wrestler by night

Shirtless men in sparkly pants, a small sea of foam fingers and the stale-sweet smell of pre-packed popcorn – this is not my usual Monday night.

But for Fife professional wrestler Taylor Bryden, it’s “just another day at the office”.

I’m introduced to the 35-year-old dad-of-one under the stairs below the W3L Wrestling ‘Mayday’ ring show at Crieff’s Strathearn Arts.

And far from the wrestling stereotype of heavy-rock-blasting, protein-shake-chugging macho man, gentle giant Taylor has been down here diligently working on an essay for college, where he’s studying social services.

He’s just come off a 24-hour shift in the residential children’s care home where he works, he tells me. As a treat, some of ‘his kids’ are upstairs eagerly waiting to watch him transform into his unitarded alter-ego.

And they’re not the only ones.

W3L brings American-style wrestling to UK communities from Elgin down to Todmorden, and has been hugely popular in recent years.

Above us, proving the point, the packed-out arts centre thumps with activity.

Kids kitted out in homemade merch cheer and boo as their heroes fly through the air – or land slack against the bumblebee-striped ropes.

Parents stamp their feet and chant, while a woman MC clad in a fringed leather jacket and cowboy boots directs the crowd’s attention to a huge screen bearing a warning in self-serious red capitals: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.

It’s a world I’ve never entered before, and the mixture of camp and violence sits it somewhere between a panto and a sports event.

One thing is abundantly clear – everyone’s having a great time.

Taylor Bryden’s journey through Fife wrestling

“We’re going through a really busy period just now,” explains Taylor ahead of his match, the main one at tonight’s event.

“Since Covid, crowd attendance has been up on the whole, which is excellent to see. People just didn’t have anything for so long.

“And wrestling’s hot just now,” he adds. “It’s really popular in America, and that filters down to everywhere else. So we get to enjoy the spoils of that.”

Growing up in Cardenden, Taylor thought wrestling was “the coolest thing I’d ever seen” and remembers promising himself at the tender age of 10 that “if I ever got the opportunity to wrestle, I would take it”.

“In the month before I turned 16, there was an advert in the Fife Free Press to say that there was a wrestling training school opening up in Kirkcaldy,” he recalls. “So I went along and I’ve never left.

“I’ve been wrestling since three days after my 16th birthday, and I’m now 35.

“I didn’t realise I’d still be doing my thing 19 years later.”

Over the course of nearly two decades, Taylor has worked his way from the bottom of the ‘card’ (the ranking of the matches) to the top, and has even wrestled live for the Nigerian Governor Diri, who he says is a massive fan of the sport.

“When I started, I was just an opening match guy,” he recalls. “Then I started doing tag team stuff and first-half main, and since Covid I’ve been put up to the main event.

“I suppose it’s like a full evolution.”

On the ropes outside the ring

But during that time, Taylor’s evolved in other ways too.

Seven months ago, he welcomed his baby daughter into the world, and has been juggling training commitments with “being a present husband and father”.

“I go the gym five times a week,” he says. “I do an upper/lower split, so separate days for my upper and lower body.

“Then once a week I do what I call a ‘dojo day’.”

This, he explains, is inspired by training with former Japanese wrestling scene mainstay Chris Ridgeway, who is now based at Futureshock wrestling gym in Manchester.

“He does this conditioning workout where you need to do 500 press-ups and 1,000 squats,” reveals Taylor.

“So I do that once a week on top of my own gym training, just to keep in ring shape. But it’s been more difficult recently, trying to be present for everything.”

Injuries ‘like a badge of honour’ says Fife wrestler Taylor Bryden

In American-style wrestling like this, the ‘fighting’ is elaborately-choreographed entertainment – but the bruises blooming on the arms of the wrestlers filing past us below the ring are unmistakeably real.

Now that he’s a dad, does Taylor worry more about getting hurt?

“There’s definitely no faking these injuries,” he remarks. “I burst my elbow open last month because I got a bump on concrete, and when you land on concrete, you’re going to get hurt.

“But I suppose the injuries are like a badge of honour.

“You’ve still got to be sensible,” he cautions. “You can’t go out every time and do the most unsafe bumps in the world, because you’d have a very short career.

“But certain moves, in front of certain crowds, can have massive payoffs for both the audience and for you as an individual performer.

“It’s those cheers and jeers that give you the fuel to do these things.”

Wrestling is ‘very much a kids’ product’

Taylor considers himself more of a sportsman than a showman, influenced by wrestling icons such as former WWE champion Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko and Kenta Kobashi.

As a resident ‘good guy’, he reveals the baddies of the wrestling world (who audiences delight in booing and taunting) “get away with a lot more”.

“I much prefer doing the showman side of things when I’m a bad guy,” he chuckles. “I remember one time I poured an entire bottle of Coke over a kid’s head. It was fabulous.”

Indeed, children make up the majority of the crowd, and Taylor says that kids are “the lifeblood of the business” so they are his priority as a performer.

“It’s very much a kids’ product,” he explains. “Kids are the lifeblood of the business, they’ll be the next generation.

“I think you get to a point where you’re about 13 and you either double down on wrestling, or it’s the worst thing ever,” he continues.

“Obviously I doubled down – or tripled down, ’cause I’m still here!”

He’s passionate when he talks about wanting to preserve the excitement of wrestling for young fans for as long as possible.

And he hopes adults and older kids will apply the ‘Santa Claus’ code.

“Wrestling’s as real as Santa Claus,” he says.

“How can you get genuinely excited if you think ‘that’s fake’?”

Scottish local scene is small but mighty

Even though he has 19 years of experience, Taylor admits pro wrestling in Scotland is a hard industry in which to make a living.

“For some of us, it is our full-time gig, but for a lot of us, it’s not,” he says candidly.

“There’s just not enough money in Scottish wrestling. We have a small population and a lot of promotions fighting over a small slice of pie. So there’s not enough money to go around.”

However, he observes that for women in Scotland there are “a lot more opportunities” as there is a saturation of male wrestlers.

In his native Fife, Taylor has regular promotions in Buckhaven, Kirkcaldy, Dunfermline, and Pettycur Bay.

And although the local scene is smaller than big-name international promotions, he reckons it’s where the real fun can be found.

“WWE are coming over to do Clash At the Castle, which is going to be at the Hydro, and the tickets are exorbitant prices,” he says.

“So I’d say to anyone interested in wrestling: Go to your local shows. They’re not that expensive and you’re going to have an amazing time.

“I love what I do. We all do.”

The next W3L Wrestling event, featuring Taylor Bryden’s next championship match plus a steel cage match, is in Kirkcaldy, Fife, on June 8 2024.