New Zealand’s best professional wrestlers come to Whanganui to support the heart of a champion

A professional wrestling event is being held at Churton School to help fund a heart diagnosis for a Whanganui girl. Pictured are (left to right): Mike Isaacs, Gemma O'Hagan, Jamie O'Hagan and Harrison Hodder-Williams. Photo / Finn Williams

Some of the country’s best professional wrestlers are heading to Churton School’s community hall to help raise money for a Whanganui girl’s heart.

The event is a fundraiser for Gemma O’Hagan, 17, who has been experiencing heart issues that have had her in and out of hospitals and doctors’ appointments.

She first started experiencing her issues around a year ago.

“For the first few months I had really bad chest pain, and then I had a really high heart rate, which was really concerning, and I just get tired all the time,” she said.

She is currently raising funds to help with the costs of a private cardiologist to get her a diagnosis and help.

The show, ‘Heart of a Champion’, is a collaboration between Whanganui-based promotion River City Pro Wrestling (RCPW) and Wellington-based promotion Captial Pro Wrestling (CPW).

Gemma and her brother Jamie are both wrestling fans, and a promoter from CPW heard about Gemma’s condition and got in contact with them, wanting to help.

“They just said, ‘How about we put wrestling to good use for once and put on a show in Whanganui?’” Jamie said.

RCPW wrestler Mike Isaacs, known as The Cuz Mikaere, said CPW and RCPW teaming up to put on the show also helped further the relationship between the two promotions.

“We all know each other, so we try to keep good relationships within each promotion, so I think it built a good relationship between us and Capital Pro as well,” Isaacs said.

Liam said: “A lot of the Whanganui guys, they’ve trained and had their first matches with CPW and stuff like that, so they’re kind of linked with each other.”

There are seven matches currently on the event’s card.

“One of our big matches will be a face-off between two teams... between team CPW and team River City,” Isaacs said.

The match will pit two teams of five against each other, with team members being eliminated through pinfalls or submissions, and the last team with members remaining will be the winner.

Isaacs said they hoped to sell out the building and raise as much money possible for Gemma, with all the proceeds from the showing going to her.

She and her brother will be at the show, but she said she couldn’t pick a match she was most excited about.

“I look forward to them all.”

The event is being held at Churton School’s community hall on April 7 at 6.30pm.

People can buy tickets for the event via Eventfinda and CPW and RCPW’s Facebook pages.