Jimmy Zero in action | Image Credits : All Star Wrestling Australia
Sportshadow got the opportunity to interact with Australian 19-year-old pro-wrestler James Robertson.
Fondly known as Jimmy Zero in the independent wrestling circuit, the high-flyer from Down Under spoke on a myriad of topics like his family's reaction to choosing wrestling, risks of being a high-flying wrestler, wrestling scene in Australia, myths he would like to clear and much more. Here are the excerpts.
It would have been my earliest memory of life, like from when I was five years old. I saw Dolph Ziggler getting pushed off the apron and smashing his face. And since then, I've been hooked.
I've grown up around it here in Australia collecting wrestling figures, playing with them every night, jumping on my trampoline. I was WWE crazy for sure.
Zero is an interesting word not only because it's a number, but what it represents. It's very symbolic of there almost being nothing. I don't want to get too deep, but there's a lot of symbolism in there.
It is sort of life in general. The idea that there's everything and nothing and everything is nothing and nothing is everything.
It's a word that a lot of people will interpret differently. It's a word that brings quite a certain emotion and feeling when you dig past the surface.
It wasn't really a specific wrestler. I feel like it was the way I discovered it as I touched on earlier. It was Fox 8 and it usually had country movies, which my dad would have been watching.
And then after that, the wrestling came on and I remember Dolph getting pushed off and hitting his face on the announcement table and the way the crowd reacted. I remember thinking I've never seen anything like this in my life. This is incredible.
It's like a live action movie with fans and characters and the spectacle of it all. The physicality, the flips, the striking, everything. I think just from then I got hooked up. I had some personal favorites growing up - Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Neville, AJ Styles, John Cena. But, growing up watching them was really my entire life as a kid.
I knew as soon as I was a five year old that's what I want to do. Growing up in school when teachers would give you something to draw - what do you want to be when you're older? I'd always draw myself wrestling with a championship belt. I always said professional wrestler.
My parents in general thought it was a phase, like, "Oh! He'll grow out of it."
I think as I got older and it kept going the same, they thought it might not be a phase.
As soon as I turned 16, I signed up to be a wrestler. The rest is history. So, it wasn't a phase unfortunately.
The wrestling scene here, honestly, one word to describe it would be very overlooked. We have a lot of incredible talent here, if it's here in Sydney, New South Wales or Melbourne, Victoria, Adelaide, Perth, Tasmania.
We've got a lot of really incredible talent, but unfortunately we don't have the mainstream attention that America does or parts of the UK do.
It is quite unfortunate but luckily a lot of wrestlers have gone out and they've made big names themselves.
You can look at Grayson Waller, Kyle Fletcher, Rhea Ripley, Buddy Matthews, guys in WWE and AEW. Even here in New Japan Pro Wrestling, like Robbie Eagles. All these are really big Australian wrestlers who are really going out and spreading the word of Australian professional wrestling. So it's very cool to see for sure.
It was April 2023. I would have been 16 years old. I saw the ring and everything and I was just eager to get in there and start training.
I was just so pumped up because this is what I wanted to do since I was 5 years old. Since there were no gyms available for me to start training then because I was too young, so as soon as this one opened up and the age restriction was 16 years old, I was like, let's do it.
I trained at the All Star Wrestling Academy and my head coach was Keegan Brettle. He's taught me the most in terms of what to do in the ring. One of the most important things he also taught me was just how to be in the business and how it works and etiquette and stuff and I think that's really important.
I've been trying to do some moves off the top rope because I am a high flyer. My finishing move is the Shooting Star Press, but I've been trying to learn some other moves, like moonsaults, spiral taps, reverse 450s, etc.
I think the footing and everything there, when it comes to getting the right amount of height and rotation and everything is quite complex. So, I struggle with that a lot apparently.
I also struggle with snapmares or getting thrown into snapmares. When I was training in Japan with Tajiri, I think I took like 60 snapmares in a row and there was something wrong. Eventually by the end of it, apparently it was much, much better. So that's a win.
But, I was confused because I was getting thrown and smashing the mat every time and getting up, doing it again and just thinking, what am I doing wrong? But, it was a great experience for sure.
Tajiri is a legend. I've watched a bunch of those matches back from the early 2000s. And he's an absolute gun. He still goes really hard. I was watching him from the locker room on the shows and stuff.
He goes super hard in the ring and he's just got such a great mind when it comes to wrestling. Learning from him was such a privilege. It was really great to learn stuff from him.
Wrestling in Japan is very different compared to everywhere else. It's not like a hobby that you do on the weekend. It's a way of life.
You wake up, you eat, you train, you wrestle, you sleep. It's a big thing there. And I feel like sort of immersing myself into that culture. I loved it. It was addicting. It was really good.
I went to Japan before in July. We caught a flight from Tokyo to Fukuoka, where Kyushi Pro Wrestling is, and we got to train with Tajiri for three days. And after those trainings, I was told that I'd be welcome to come back for a month or six. And in October, I was like, yeah, let's do it.
We went back and we did a whole month of training there and we wrestled every weekend twice. So, it was an incredible experience.
I think as humans, we only have so much time and energy we can give to things. Wrestling is something that I really want to pursue and to make it in. I put most of my eggs in this basket here.
I do have a job, which I do on the weekdays and everything, but other than that, I'm always tracking my calories, hitting the gym, always training, getting to shows, wrestling, and all that stuff.
For me, pursuing my education is not really something I want to do. Not the sharpest tool in the shed anyways. So not necessarily a bad thing.
Wrestling is my passion. I have got the vast majority of my attention focused on this.
I'm really dialled in. I do take a lot of pride and I take a lot of value in my physique. It's something that I have worked hard for. It's where a lot of wrestlers, unfortunately, fall short.
I've seen a lot of wrestlers, here in Australia, who are incredible in the ring, but their physique just doesn't back it up. It's a large reason why a lot of wrestlers don't reach their full potential because they don't look the part.
This is more than a hobby for me. This is something I really want to pursue and I really want to do well in. I take it super seriously.
For the past three months, I've only been having chicken and rice and carrots and fruit and milk and eggs. I haven't had fast food for the past like four months and even longer actually maybe the past six months.
I really want to dial in on my nutrition and my training. I've noticed I've gotten leaner, but I've also gotten bigger. The plan is to bulk up a bit. I need to increase my calories.
I want to try and add a bit more size while also staying lean, which is the, the difficult part about wrestling because there's no off season in wrestling. You can put on a bit of fat but because it's such a physique based industry, a lot of it is based off on your aesthetic and how you look.
It is often wise to try and stay lean while also putting on muscle. But, it's incredibly important. I feel like it's something that a lot more wrestlers should start taking seriously.
In the gym, the first day is arms and legs, meaning biceps, triceps, forearms and then legs. The second day is chest and abs, so just like the front part of your torso.
And then the third day is shoulders and back. And so those are the three days, I try to go to the gym around like three to five times a week. Anytime I don't go for longer than three days, I really start to feel it.
Rest is super important as well. And then for cardio, honestly, just a lot of walking. I don't necessarily hop on the treadmill and sprint, but I love to walk.
Whether it's just instead of driving somewhere, I walk there, I get those steps in, I put on the music. I feel like that's something that sort of keeps me in shape as well. Obviously the wrestling can be incredibly cardiovascular based and training your endurance.
I think I did have one match that actually stand out from a bunch. In Japan, when I was there for the second time on my visit, it would have been my sixth ever match in Japan.
It was in front of one of the largest crowds that I had been in front of. There was almost a thousand people. I remember just getting up there, the bell had rung. We hadn't even done any moves or anything.
There was nothing impressive that we had done. We had simply made an entrance. The bell had rung and attendants just started clapping. In Japan, they're very respectful and warm and welcoming.
I remember it was one of the few times ever that I've actually just stopped and paused and taken a moment to sort of breathe it all in and smell the roses.
Often I'm so focused on wrestling and what I've got to do and how I'm going to beat my opponent.
That moment there was something that I really breathed in. It reminded me of every afternoon after school in my childhood years when I would jump on my trampoline and wrestle a teddy bear. I'd wrestle in front of hundreds of leaves.
Here I was doing the exact same thing, but on the other side of the world in front of hundreds of people. Part of me actually just wanted to cry in the ring.
It was a really beautiful moment and sort of encapsulated all that progress I'd made, especially being in the industry for less than two years at that point. That was definitely a moment that caught me off guard.
I've done gymnastics since, like, I was five years old. My other job is that I'm a gymnastics coach. So I've always been fond of aerial maneuvers and flying through the air. But, I'm also a bit of striker. I am a bit of a brawler, grappler, not much of a technician, that is something I have got to work on.
I feel like I've always loved being in the air and being upside down and you know, that's always sort of been something that I've always leaned towards.
I find deep breaths calm me down, like stretching and everything. While that does sort of warm up the body, it also relaxes the mind. I do pray before every match for safety, so that God would look over me and keep me safe.
It can be a very daunting task sometimes going out into a ring, especially when you've got a lot of crazy stuff on your mind.
You're thinking of doing this move or diving off here or whatever. If you're going into a hardcore match with weapons and thumbtacks and stuff, you just want to pray that you don't get too badly messed up. Those would be the main techniques that I use.
I've had a bunch of minor injuries. I've had a busted nose, a busted lip. One time I got whipped into the ropes or something too hard and it shredded all the skin down my armpit. I have tweaked my ankle a bit.
I think the main injury you get though in wrestling is like the chronic injuries that just build up over time by just not giving your body enough rest. So, you wake up the next morning and feel like you're being in a car crash.
If you're truly passionate about something and you love it, you're willing to make sacrifices.
Some matches, like, if they're really big matches, I will tend to sort of have some moments where I am prepared and planned, especially if it's a match where I feel the need to go all out. If it's a match that I need to prove myself in. But if it's a small match, I think there is a lot of fun. It's also a great learning curve.
The matches where I have the most fun are the ones where you just go out there and you just call on the fly and you see what happens and you create magic.
I think when it comes organically and you're listening to the audience and what they want, I think that's where some of the best moments honestly happen.
Some of my favorite matches have been in Australia, in front of less than 200 people, and you're just creating memories. That's really important.
One of my favorite moves to do besides the shooting star press which I do enjoy quite a bit, but haven't done as often for a good reason is the moonsault to the outside.
I climb up the top rope and I dive and I moonsault while doing a backflip onto the outside where my opponent is.
It's quite unpredictable in the sense that you don't really know how you're going to land. You don't really know how your opponent's going to catch you. It's a bit of living life on the edge.
The sensation when you take off that top rope and you're like two meters in the air, even higher sometimes, and you jump up and you're three meters in the air and you're upside down. It's like an out of this world sensation.
You don't know what's gonna happen and it's scary, yes, but it's also incredibly exciting. There's always that risk that something might go wrong. There's that saying that those who are afraid to die will never truly live. And I feel like that kind of encapsulates it really.
That's kind of wrestling in a nutshell. I have heard it before and the more I wrestle, the more I realize it to be true. But every wrestler is kind of insane in their own little way.
If you're willing to get in the ring and you're willing to hit that canvas and get suplexed and get scoop slammed and you're willing to get chopped, you are crazy. Your average person isn't like that and that's just the way the business is.
When I first started out, I was very young and if you see in my matches, I'm not exactly the nicest person. I feel like that sort of encapsulates who I am.
You know who Jimmy Zero is. He's a young person. He's not exactly very nice. He's a bit of mischievous, he's a bit arrogant, he's a bit cocky, he's a bit aggressive and ruthless. He doesn't really care. I think the term Delinquent sort of encaptures that really well.
Whenever I'm overseas, I tend to be a lot more loved by the crowds. Both have their pros and cons. Being a heel is a lot easier. It's a lot easier to get people to hate you than it is to like you.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. I'm still trying to figure out how to get people to like me in real life. I won't lie, but it's quite cathartic to go out there and just be a douche.
But if you've had a rough day at work, you can just go out there and it's your job to piss people off. There's some sort of humor and enjoyment in that.
But then again, like, I love being a baby face too. One of my favorite memories was wrestling in South Korea in my international debut, and just all the young faces in the crowd were just chanting Jimmy Zero.
You make that emotional connection with them and that's probably one of my favorite matches of my entire career.
Robbie Eagles. He's definitely like number one on the list. I met him when I was 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. He's always been someone that I've sort of looked towards for inspiration.
So he'd be at the top of that list, especially for a sentimental reason as well.
There's a guy in Adelaide called Kaitoa. I would like to wrestle him. There is a guy named Joe Lando from England. He's currently the Rev Pro Cruiserweight Champion, so congratulations to him.
Another guy would be Kyle Fletcher. Another Australian born wrestler, he grew up in a very similar place to where I live in Sydney.
I'd love to wrestle like Dean Ambrose. That would be fun because I grew up watching him. AJ Styles for sure. That would be a great match. I would love that. I think anyone who I grew up watching and got me hooked into wrestling would just be a fun match to have.
Looking at the schedule we have for next year, looking at the people I'm going to be wrestling, the places I'm going to be going, I think it's safe to say that next year is going to be bigger than this year.
Not having fast food for six months are smaller ones for sure. I've missed birthday parties, I've missed gatherings. I've some of my favorite bands playing live who only come to Australia once in a blue moon.
There's a bunch of stuff that, you know, really sort of doesn't get noticed. You rock up to a show, but no one realizes that one of your best friend's birthdays is today and all your friends are hanging out together and you're not there.
Food is another one. But honestly, I feel like with food, consistency is key. It gets to a point where I no longer really crave an ice cream.
I no longer really crave a Big Mac. I'm content to live without it. I don't need it.
Such a crazy question. I don't even know what I'm going to be doing in the next year. If you asked me this question last year before this whole year happened that I would be wrestling in four different countries and wearing belts and stuff, I wouldn't have believed you.
But the next five years, that's crazy. I'm still so young. I'm only 19, and I have got so much more to learn. This year was such a huge year for me, especially compared to the year before. But I don't want this year to be my prime. I want 2026 to be even bigger if not just as big.
And I want 2027 to be even bigger. I think the goal in five years would be to be signed to a major promotion, whatever that may be. That's sort of the goal that I have in mind right now.
I think some people just don't realize the sheer physicality of it. That is a myth I would like to clear. When I was young, people would hear about WWE and say, it is fake.
I played so many sports growing up. I've played rugby, cricket, soccer, basketball, tennis, hockey, swimming, athletics. I've done martial arts and gymnastics.
I'm really comfortable when I say that wrestling is by far the most physically intense activity I've ever done.
In rugby, it's not necessarily guaranteed that you're going to get slammed. It's not necessarily guaranteed that you're gonna get hit.
In wrestling, it is a guarantee. You are going to hit that canvas and if you don't breathe out, you're going to get winded or if you don't land correctly, you're going to get messed up.
You are going to get hit in the face and you are going to get slapped across the chest and there will be bruises, there will be blood.
People label it as fake and they think nothing connects when the truth is a lot of stuff connects. I've still got battle scars on me from my match two weeks ago. It is quite annoying because it really undermines it.
A lot of wrestlers in their 50s and 60s can't walk. It's an incredibly physical thing. And when people undermine it and label it as fake, it's super ignorant and it's super disrespectful.
If they just simply stood in a wrestling ring and they felt that canvas beneath their feet, they would have a lot more of an appreciation towards it.
When I'm diving off the top rope in front of hundreds of people who are watching, it's not like some CGI projection. That's actually me in the air, possibly risking my life and my well being.
When people label it as fake, it kind of makes me laugh because it just proves to me that you really don't know what you're talking about.
In case of using any part of the transcript in an article, please backlink to this article or the homepage of the website.