A dad-of-three who spends his weekends death wrestling has revealed the hardcore hobby brings in £12,000 a year.
Joe Mcgivern, 37, who works in store security during the week, often ends up with shards of glass embedded in his body during his time off.
But the self-confessed “pacifist”, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, says the buzz is “surreal” – and helps pay the bills.
READ MORE: ‘I’m a rich housewife – my hubby spends over £440,000 for my birthday and summer holidays’
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“I don’t believe in actual violence – I’m very anti-military and all that sort of stuff,” Joe told What’s the Jam.
“But when I’m covered in blood and can’t breathe, the glass [in my skin] bit – it’s the closest thing to being in the trenches.
“It’s such a surreal feeling when the crowd is chanting.
“You’ve got to be careful when you’ve got glass flying around and people bleeding.
“But it’s such a great feeling when it goes right.”
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Death matches – commonly known in wrestling as ‘Hardcore’ – is a form of the sport where typical rules do not apply.
This includes disqualifications and count-outs.
The matches often allow wrestlers to use a wide variety of foreign objects, including glass, baseball bats wrapped in wire, ladders and thumbtacks.
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Joe has three children and a mortgage of £1,500, so any financial gain he gets from his hobby is a major bonus.
He said: “It does pay better than my real job and I get a thrill from it.
“The fans are a bit more hardcore. They’re super supportive and buy merchandise.
“I sell a lot of my bloody clothes as well.
“I probably make more money selling bloody pants than actual wrestling.”
Joe says he has been wrestling since he was 18 but didn’t start death matches until around eight years ago.
He said: “It was basically in the mid 1990s that the way wrestling was perceived changed.
“There was a famous show in 1995 about death matches that started the whole thing.
“It’s something I’ve always wanted to do because I watched all that stuff as a teenager, like Jackass.
“I always wanted to do it but there wasn’t a scene in England at the time. It’s probably popped off in the last four or five years.
“I’m a bit of a wuss in real life, really, but I just love pro wrestling as a different form of pro wrestling.
“At the end of the day, we’re still fighting in our pants for a crowd that knows it’s predetermined.
“I love it.”
Joe participates in death matches up to six times a month.
He said: “Sometimes you do a Friday or a Saturday show.
“It just depends – it’s a niche market.
“I’ve had a few bad cuts but I’ve always been able to walk after.
“I’ve been stitched up and wrestled the next day.
“If you do get hurt you can work around it for the next match.
“Life is dangerous.
“I’ve got more friends that have been hurt playing football than friends in matches.”
Joe said his kids haven’t been to a match yet but his family is supportive.
He added: “My son thinks it’s kind of cool.
“[My kids] obviously don’t go to those kinds of shows but they go to family shows.
“They’re still quite young.”
