They might be relative newcomers as a tag-team on the UK scene but the GZRS have taken the wrestling world by storm. They've sold out T-Shirt stocks without having wrestled a match, they've proven their talent in Slip N' Slide battles and they've gained the respect of amongst others, Stone Cold Steve Austin and Vince Russo. The reason? Well, they are damn fine entertainers. One of their cadre of fans is top flight promotion, Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW). As part of our series of ICW specials, we spoke to the GZRS - Tom Irvin and Sebastian - about working at ICW, their use of humour and future plans. Make sure to catch them at a forthcoming ICW show (full list here, including a February tour stopping at London, Dublin, Cardiff and more) or watch them on demand here.
You're not regular members of the ICW roster, what's it like appearing on their shows?
Tom: I love ICW to be honest
Seb: We've just been brought in, in the last couple of months and it's been awesome. Everybody's been really welcoming. It's a bit daunting at first because obviously, you literally are a foreigner! But it's good.
Tom: My mums Scottish though, so that's fine.
Seb: My mums Welsh.
Tom: Is she? You hid that well.
You appear to use humour to great effect in your matches, how do you see it featuring?
Tom: When we started wrestling, we were both heels, villains. I was doing a UKIP character and Seb was doing a Chelsea Boy. He was quite well spoken and serious. Then I got injured and the development of the characters was quite organic, in that we were just using our real-life personalities.
Seb: Our characters are us just turned down... just turn down the volume.
Tom: The humour for me has come naturally because [adopts best David Brent impression] I'm just a chilled out entertainer...
Seb: So he got injured and just started posting these really mad tweets and he started to 'get over' like that. So I thought, this looks like fun and I just joined in, retweeting him and ripping into him and other people.
Then Stone Cold Steve Austin joined in...
Seb: So Tom was about to quit wrestling. He got really drunk, went home and saw a picture of Paul Heyman interviewing Stone Cold and Austin had a cap on his knee. So Tom zoomed in on the picture, and the hat on his knee, cut it out and was like "Hat on the knee, Steve Austin's absolutely geeze". Tom falls asleep, Austin tweets him back and I was just like "Oh my God. What is happening here?" So I tweeted him back and was like "happy to help Steve" because the week before we'd just filmed a 'Definition of geeze' video. We sent it to him, didn't think anything of it and got a reply back like three minutes later because he'd obviously watched the video from top to bottom and he was like "I'm definitely geeze #Geeze316" and then that was like trending worldwide on twitter!
Well you've certainly taken the 'geeze' concept and run with it - ICW, IPW, Progress what are your future plans?
Tom: Hollywood -pretty much. I think so. We massively deserve Hollywood I think. Every day I wake up and think where should I be? I think probably Hollywood. That's it, so probably that.....Within wrestling it's difficult to get recognised when you're new and you have to take someone else's spot. For me, just talking about yourself constantly, well hyping yourself up, works as it creates interest about what the act is about. The humour is the bit that people connected with, so we deliver humour. You basically just give the audience what they want and demand at the moment is for funny stuff, so we just give it to them.
Have you played any good ribs?
Tom: We just the p**s out of each other all the time but I don't think we've been around long enough to feel comfortable to start ribbing people. Have we been ribbed - not really, no.
ICW have big plans, bigger shows and tours, a video game too. Will we see you back at ICW?
Seb: I hope so. My dream is to be in a video game! We haven't been around that long but hopefully what we're doing at the moment is catching the attention of the ICW fans and hopefully that will reflect well with them other promoters and everyone will want to use us some more.
Well the fans have spoken and the GZRS have already been back with ICW. Make sure you dont miss them and get your ICW tickets here. Look out for our next and final ICW special in this run, an interview with 'The Villain' Marty Scurll! Meanwhile, follow Tom here and Sebastian here on Twitter.
