“The world ended, and so did my hopes and dreams”

What Steven asked Alex Gilbert, co-promoter of Medway-based United Kingdom Professional Wrestling

Alex Gilbert is passionate about wrestling. Ed previously wrote about attending a United Kingdom Professional Wrestling event for our sister Kent Current title. After Steven heard Alex speak at a Medway Champions event, they arranged to meet to talk about Alex’s rise and fall in professional wrestling, playing the bad guy, the promotion’s upcoming Parkwood event, and lots more.

Alex Gilbert

What is your official occupation?
I am the Head of Learning and Development at a recruitment firm in London. (Alex has been promoted to Technology & Development Director since this interview was recorded.)

More importantly, the reason we’re here today. What additional roles do you do?
I am the co-promoter of a professional wrestling outfit called United Kingdom Professional Wrestling (UKPW).

Is that a paid or unpaid role?
It is an unpaid role that is now becoming a paid role.

How professional is UK Professional Wrestling?
We’re on Companies House. We’re a real company. It’s the VAT stuff. We’ve generated less than 85 grand, but we’re getting to that line where it becomes a proper business. Everyone else gets paid. But the people running it…
To jump ahead, I used to wrestle for the company, which was actually founded by someone else. Around covid time, he said, “You know what, it’s not for me anymore.” Me and my cousin, who both wrestled for this man, said, “Well, why don’t we buy it? Why don’t we do it?”
In the background, we’re always thinking we could do this better. We bought the assets, wasn’t loads of money, then we run the thing, and we’ve now done just under a hundred live events. In the early days, it was losing money. It was almost a hobby that got out control.

Just to be clear, the people actually wrestling are getting paid?
They get paid. Every single wrestler. To draw a line down the middle, you have our UKPW crew, which is made up of my cousin, my wife, my childhood friends, that basically don’t get paid. If ever we have an event where it’s particularly lucrative, I immediately pay them. I look at a friend, and I go, “You have given up 12 hours of your day almost every weekend for that, I better pay.” It’s 50 quid. It’s not loads. But the wrestlers, the only way we can get the wrestlers in or any other, let’s call it on-screen talent, is hard cash. I’m not talking loads of money, but enough where you go, ‘That is a thousand-pound outlay, I better get some income.’

Alex Gilbert and his UKPW team.

How does UKPW generate income?
Now we’re in a position where we’ve got a few revenue streams. Early doors, it was just ticket sales. You book a venue, so let’s use Parkwood as the example. In the early days, you would hire the hall, hire a van. In the very early days, our wrestling ring and all the equipment lived in my garage. We’d get the van, go to the garage, load it all up, and then do the show. But now, to get to the crux of your question because we’ve now grown and there’s a bit of a following, we have a container, a storage unit which is over in Strood by Diggerland. It’s all very Medway-based. We hire the van, we have a monthly fee for the container, they are all monthly expenses. Now that we’ve got a bit of a proven track record, they will put us on Gillingham High Street, where there will be footfall. The shops nearby are going to get some additional revenue, because of the footfall that we’ve drawn. We increased dwell time, because instead of just going to Gillingham High Street for 20 minutes, they’re there for five hours. Shops and cafes can benefit from that. Councils or business improvement districts might go, “Hey Alex, we saw your UKPW, here’s a fee,” and actually, I’m selling no tickets, but I’ve got a guaranteed budget. I quite prefer that, and have no risk there. We also have our own Patreon. We have our YouTube revenue as well, which is quite nice. We’ve got 8,000 subscribers. We now make money through merchandise, which blows my mind because five years ago, the thought of someone buying a t-shirt with something I drew was impossible. There are people wearing hats of us. This is mad.

UKPW in Gillingham High Street.

What can you tell us about this Parkwood event?
Firstly, we all grew up in Parkwood. The entire crew, barring one person. I’ve been to christenings, I’ve been to wedding parties, it’s actually quite surreal for me to put my giant wrestling ring in the venue for wrestling, but I’m trying to bring the spectacle of professional wrestling to the people. Parkwood is quite unique in Medway, in that I don’t know what Parkwood’s got, and I lived there all my life. I love bringing it to Parkwood Community Hall, because what spectacle goes on in Parkwood? Now I appreciate I’m not saying WrestleMania. Of course I’m not. My first favourite moment, people walk in, they go, “I can’t believe what they’ve done with the place,” and even the venue goes, “I can’t believe you managed to do this.” What you can expect is it’s the closest interactive show we do. You are so close, and I have to train the wrestlers to remind them that they are that close to the audience. When they’re in the ring and talking to each other, if there’s not enough noise in the room, they can hear “duck the clothesline.” I love it because it’s such an intimate show. We actually bring our lower height ring. Most rings are three foot off the ground, this one’s one and a half foot. When you sit down, you are eye level when someone’s in a chin lock. It’s such a weird experience.