A few months ago, at the first show from No Fate Pro Wrestling in Vancouver (An incredibly successful and tremendously fun show, by the way) the first wrestler through the curtain was Casey Ferreira. This wasn't a one-off show put on by people who were coming and going. This is a new promotion with a direction and ton of power, run by people who clearly LOVE professional wrestling. Having Ferreira be the first wrestling through the curtain in the history of the new promotion was the choice of people who know what they're doing. You see, each day I wake up as an indie wrestling fan on the west coast and I feel blessed to live in a place so lousy with talent. Walk into any wrestling show in Victoria or Vancouver and you're going to see an endless stream of talent, charisma and passion. With such a high bar being the standard, encountering someone who stands out means something special. You know it as soon as you see them walk to the ring for the first time and engage their opponent for the first time. Casey Ferreira is one of those special people. On that Sunday night in downtown Vancouver, he wrestled other very special wrestler – and past 5 Questions with Rags guest – Eli Surge. It was a bout of hard-hitting strikes and high-flying risks that really encapsulated everything that makes me love professional wrestling. Great crowd connection, chemistry between the wrestlers, technical and devastating moves, and, perhaps most importantly, a story to tie it all together.

“I feel like I'm thinking less and less about moves as I progress. It's really not on mind, not getting me too excited at this point – It's more, at this point, how can I tell a whole match? There are so many fans who realize they love guys because they don't do that many moves. I'll go-go-go, but it's not move-move-move, it's build-build-build-one move. That's what I prefer. The fun part for me is the movement between moves,” Casey reflects, sitting on a bench in the sun in the Victoria neighbourhood of North Park, as preparation for that nights 365 Wrestling show continues a couple of blocks away. His match that night was another thumper, against other fast-rising stud Cole Rivera. It was just the latest entry in a year that is quite apparently ever-more-filled with such occurrences.

Ferreira locking up with the Don of 365 Pro Wrestling, Eddie Osbourne. Photo courtesy big Darren Ho.

Ferreira is thoughtful and measured as he recounts the in-ring successes he's been racking up. “I think it started with wrestling Evan Rivers at BOOM! on New Years Eve. I put a bit of pressure on myself going into that one – not only because Lance Storm was refereeing our match – but because the whole storyline was 'we just kept wrestling each other.' The first one had to be good enough they wanted to see it two more times. And then I wanted to keep making it better. And I think the third one was the best one.” He lights up and is quick with praise for his dance partner. “Speaking of people you level up trying to hang with, I’m very fortunate to have had that big feud with Rivers. That really helped me a whole lot, understand how he does everything. It's felt like I’ve had a pretty good streak with my matches after that and I think it’s because I felt like I levelled up on that one.”

This incredible string of matches has been bringing eyes to Ferreira, getting him in front of more people and more promotions as his star rises. As the wrestling world opens up before him, it's his peers Casey looks to when asked about his Dream Matches. “There's a lot of guys my age or around my age in the scene right now who I really look up to because they're just killing it. It's a nice pressure that these guys are my age, some of them younger, doing what I want to be doing. Those are guys like Starboy Charlie, Marcus Mathers. Nick Wayne of course, who just got into the Super Juniors. Congrats to him, that's amazing. That's my ultimate goal and it's sick to see someone like him doing it. Lee Moriarty is someone I really look up to. Michael Oku is somebody that I'd love to meet and train with.”

But it's a legend that brings the most light to his voice and also proves Ferreira to truly be a Man of Taste. “Jimmy Wang Yang is the ultimate dream match. We're running against time here! We gotta get it done,” laughs Ferreira enthusiastically. “This is the running joke. People know I wanna wrestle Jimmy Wang Yang. Whenever a fly-in comes in and they talk about Jimmy Wang Yang people are like, 'We gotta get Casey over here.'” Until he makes it to wrestlings real Final Boss – Jimmy Wang Yang – I know the west coast wrestling community is thankful to be able to watch Ferreira's phenomenal growth and increasingly spectacular wrestling on a regular basis. It feels like every time I see Ferreira in a ring there's some new wrinkle to his game. His peers talk about him with the same enthusiasm as us fans sitting outside the ropes. Casey Ferreira is, quite frankly, just the real fucking deal. Wherever he ends up, this community I'm lucky to be a part of is going to be cheering for him and treasuring the days we got to watch him grow. Grateful for his time chatting with Rags Music for this instalment of the 5 Questions where we cover the foundations of being a rap head, paths that could have been and the Zen of Dishwashing. I hope you enjoy reading it these as much as I enjoyed asking them!

And obviously, go find and follow Casey on the things, so you know when and where to catch his most fantastic wrestling. Ah shit. I'll just find 'em for you. Twitter: @caseyferreirapw IG: caseyferreira_ (add links)

FLIP. Photo by Darren Ho, in case you didn’t know.

1. What's the first album you bought with your own money?
This is tough because – the internet. I’m pirating a lot of shit. My brother, being a musician, a lot of my first albums that I really latched onto were…he just gave me a huge hard drive and said “This is everything that I think you should be listening to.” That’s when I was like 12. I don’t know if he was waiting, but when I was ready he gave me a terabyte hard drive full of shit that is foundational to me now.
What are some some of the things that come to mind that were on there?
Have you heard of milo? He goes by R.A.P. Ferreira now. So, that’s of course pretty influential. His real name is Rory Ferreira. He’s got an album called Things That Happen At Day. Lots of wrestling references on that album. I think he was a philosophy major or something. There were lots of words I didn’t understand as a kid but I still thought “These are sweet bars.” Open Mike Eagle was on there. Dark Comedy by Open Mike Eagle was on that hard drive and that’s still sticking with me. Now I’ve delved into more of his albums. Another good wrestling fan! There’s a lot of non-rap stuff on there. In Conflict by Owen Pallett is on there, that still really sticks with me.
Do you remember buying an album?
It's probably when I really started to make money…shit, on vinyl it was probably like a Tyler, the Creator album. Probably Flower Boy, which is quintessential teenager music but still sticks with me a little bit. I loved Wolf too, but that’s because I was 16. Listening to it now, I’ve probably grown out of it, but I listened to it when I was 16, so, you know.

2. If you could spend the day with anyone, living or dead, who would it be and what would you do?
I’d wanna spend the day with my mom. Tell her about all the stuff’s that happened. I haven’t talked to her in, it’s been two years now. I dunno, it sound selfish, but she’s never got to see me wrestle so I think I would want to bring her to a wrestling show. I’m a lot better now than I was when I was showing her clips. I mean of course she’s still watching now.

Rising Vancouver wrestling star Casey Ferreira kicks Vancouver wrestling legend El Phantasmo in the dome. Guess who took the photo…

3. When’s the last time you did something for the first time?
This is a new thing I’ve been getting into is collecting VHS tapes. So that’s new for me. That’s the first time I’ve been putting time into collecting VHS tapes and a CRT TV.
What got you going on that?
I think I’ve been watching a lot of older movies, but I’ve been watching them online. I love a theatre experience and I’m watching these movies from the 60s and 80s and it just feels so wrong that I’m looking up like 123movies.org and I’m watching it on a retina display and the search bar is on the top. And then it takes me like 15 minutes to let that bleed away and get immersed in it. It’s wrong. I need to see it the way it’s supposed to be seen. So I’ve been buying a lot of those 80s movies on VHS and watching them that way.
What’s the last one you bought?
I’ve bought a lot. <laughs> I just got Blade Runner for eight bucks, so that’s pretty cool. I’ve already seen it but wanted to see it again. The last one I bought I think was Once Upon a Time in the West, which I haven’t watched yet.
What’s the last thing you saw in the theatre?
I saw Anora pretty recently. I liked it. I like the director, Sean Baker. I’m glad he got his dues with the awards this year.

4. What’s your best memory of a teacher or mentor?
I could talk about my coaches at Lion’s Gate and stuff. But I feel like we’re in the non-wrestling sector of the chat. I got so many times I can talk about with them. I don’t know how close coaches get with their students at other schools, but it’s been nice having them around. You can text Tony Baroni at any moment of the day and he’ll get back to you, which is nice to have.

I didn’t have a very direct way into art. What I ended up doing, which is murals for the city that I lived in and going to school for it. I started doing graffiti and the right people happened to see me doing it and decided that I could do something with it. I got a few solid mentors through that, which was an experience of thinking, “Why are these people being so nice to me?” I worked with this one muralist named Chris Perez, who I think primarily does art out of Winnipeg but he has lot of murals around Vancouver and stuff. I was just 15, him and this guy Troy Derek – Troy Derek saw me doing graffiti in a south Surrey skatepark and wanted to give me opportunities. We actually did murals together a lot. And then I learned a lot from Chris, just doing murals for Surrey and stuff. Eventually I got paid for those things, which was very nice. I think it’s funny now they’re like, “Oh shoot, you became a wrestler. That’s crazy.” I think at the time they thought “This guy is gonna be a muralist and we wanna help him.” And I appreciate that. Funny how life goes. But I’m very appreciative for people like that.

Casey Ferreira - a guy who likes diving into mountains for fun!

5. If you were responsible for just one household chore for the rest of your life, what would you pick?
Man, I could dial in on doing dishes. I was a dishwasher. That was my first job. I worked up from dishwashing to being a cook and then I moved and did it again. So, dishwashing, yeah. I can zone out and listen to a podcast.

6. So, I messed up and couldn't find Elliot Tyler’s question (Apologies to the Big Dawg), so I went back a couple more to someone you're very familiar with. Your Guest Question comes from the Professional, Travis Williams. What is the best or most influential piece of advice you've been given?
It's a good question. I want to make sure to answer it right. I think about something Alex Shelley said a lot in his seminar. I think this is just because I one seminar with Alex Shelley, because there's a lot of things I can think of that like, Kushida said, that I think about a lot also, but that's very technical stuff and I don't think it would translate very well to what we're doing right now. Alex Shelley, one of the first things he said in his seminar is that he thinks it's good to have three influences, for the in-between things in wrestling. If you ever feel lost, you have three heavy influences you can tap into. Three. No more and no less than that. If you have less you're just copying a guy and if you have more it might get a muddled up. That helped me a lot immediately. Of course, I have so many influences but to be told to dial it in to three and not copy one guy, that was nice. It seemed to be something I needed an answer for and I didn't notice.