Birmingham Deaf Community Group will be hosting an exciting event at the Deaf Cultural Centre alongside Power Trip Wrestling (PTW), which will see a number of deaf professional wrestlers competing for the Power Trip Title. This will be taking place on Saturday 10th April with the show starting at 7pm.

Owner and promoter of PTW, Petey Staniforth, an experienced and professional wrestler, will be running the 'One Night Only' show. He has better understanding of the barriers deaf or disabled competitors face in the hearing world of wrestling and explains: “I am aware of deaf people wanting to become professional wrestlers and it is important that they get the opportunity to perform. By allowing this event to happen, the audience gets to see that professional wrestling is something that deaf people can do. Despite their deafness, Davy, Lewis and Sean often compete against hearing peers and perform just as well!”.

The matches will be refereed by Tony Russell and Chris Smith, and played by Davy Jones, Lewis Knowles aka Lightning Lewis and Sean Noone aka Sean Midnight, all of who are deaf. The audience will get an opportunity to see Tracey Kilby, daughter of World of Sport Legend Alan Kilby, and local wrestlers, Dunne Brothers, John Bull, Ronin and Ryan Smile.

This event has been set up to meet increasing interests in deaf wrestling since  one of the matches was held last year at the Deaf Cultural Centre. Afterwards, further matches took place at regional Deaf Clubs throughout the UK including Bridgend and Cardiff in Wales and Derby.

At the end of the matches, Robin Lodge, Chairman of the Birmingham Deaf Community Group will then present an award for Lifetime Achievement to Davy Jones for his 14 years contribution to wrestling. For Davy, this will be one of his last matches because he will retire and will only appear or compete in future matches on very special occasions.

The aim of the event is to fundraise for deaf and hard of hearing young people, living in Birmingham and the West Midlands, so they can learn about arranging their own events and opening up opportunities not available to them previously.

One of the competing wrestlers, Sean Midnight said: “Being a young person myself, I am aware of the lack of facilities for young deaf people to access activities that are available to their hearing friends. The funds raised will, hopefully, open doors for them and give them that first step in learning how to arrange their own events. On top of that, I would especially like to thank Petey, the referees and the wrestlers for giving up their free time in making sure the audience has a great night!”.