Few people have had a larger impact on pro wrestling than veteran promoter Gabe Sapolsky. Damian follows Gabe's crew on an American tour as he trains the next crop of superstars.
Damian documents the handoff of one generation to the next by visiting a famed wrestler at the close of his career, and profiling the rise of one of wrestling's newest stars.
Japan boasts the finest women's wrestling in the world. Damian visits Tokyo to learn what makes these women so good and meet the upcoming generation of female wrestlers.
On the fringe of wrestling is Deathmatch, where wrestlers battling with barbed wire, razor blades and broken glass, challenge the idea that wrestling is fake.
Damian travels to Florida and Bolivia to learn how women wrestlers around the world are using professional wrestling to battle inequality, misogyny, and domestic abuse.
As Mexico copes with an ever-present drug war and Trump’s Wall, Lucha Libre is more popular than ever, and some wrestlers see Lucha as their ticket to America.
Invisible wrestlers, blow-up dolls, and waterpark matches: welcome to the weird and wild world of Japan's DDT, the world's strangest wrestling promotion.
Damian heads to northern Quebec to join a crew of wrestlers who brave weather and isolation to bring professional wrestling to remote and disadvantaged First Nations communities.
In war-torn Congo, a cultural collision has made one of wrestling's strangest subgenres: voodoo wrestling, in which suplexes and powerbombs mix with hexes and deadly black magic.
Exoticos, male wrestlers who embrace the feminine and dress in drag inside the ring, have been defying the macho side of Lucha Libre for decades.
From the bright lights of Florida to the spotless streets of Japan and the chaos of the Congo, Damian Abraham dives headlong into the fascinating ways cultures around the world have embraced one of America's greatest exports: professional wrestling.
Hardcore musician Damian Abraham documents the vibrant subcultures of professional wrestling around the world.
Damian talks with Estrella Divina, an exótico wrestler, and trans activist, about her road to self-acceptance and coming out in conservative Acapulco, Mexico.
The Origin of Jake The Snake's Deadliest Move.
Hardcore wrestlers Jun Kasai and Danny Havoc discuss their biggest influences and inspirations in the no holds barred world of deathmatch wrestling.
Danshoku Dino is known for portraying a hyperbolic, hypersexualized gay character in Japan’s DDT promotion. Some criticize Dino’s provocative style of wrestling for relying on gay stereotypes, but Dino sees his character as a comedic element in DDT’s pastiche of American pro-wrestling.
Earl Hebner narrowly makes it out alive.
Bruce Prichard getting heat with Gino Hernandez.
After fighting for their respective releases from the WWE and traditional wrestling promotions, Hassan Assad, aka MVP, and Sami Calihan have both found success on the independent wrestling circuit.
VICE looks at the UK's underground wrestling scene, from the community centres of Plymouth to the streets of Glasgow. A far cry from the now faded memories of terrestrial TV's World Of Sport and even further from the glitz and glamour of the stateside WWE, Brits across the country have been escaping the banality of their everyday lives by moonlighting as pro-wrestlers in the largely unheard scene of today.
Lanny Poffo: younger brother to WWE legend Macho Man Randy Savage, at his home in Clearwater to talk about his early life, wrestling career, and what it was like living in the shadow of one most iconic wrestling superstars that ever lived. Better known by his stage name Lanny "The Genius" Poffo, he has published books such as "Limericks from the Heart (and Lungs!)" consisting of dozens of dark & witty poems about the harm of smoking cigarettes.
At the height of his fame as the Texas Tornado, Kerry Von Erich's greatest battles were outside of the ring.
In the world of wrestling, there’s nothing more brutal than a deathmatch: a fight where anything goes, and using weapons and spilling blood is the name of the game. New York wrestler Casanova Valentine runs a particularly hardcore circuit at the Tender Trap in Brooklyn, a bar where he and his opponents go at each other with barbed wire, fluorescent light tubes, thumbtacks, and garden tools until there’s only one man left standing. Valentine sees the violent face-offs as performance art: He’s able to get in character, and share what makes him happiest with a roomful of folks who flock to his deathmatches for the bands he books and the paintings he makes as much as they do his fights. We met up with Valentine to find out what goes into putting on one of the wild events and got a chance to see him duke it out with another brawler until they’d covered the place in blood and broken glass.
