大象传媒

With her soft, long, wavy brown hair and her Clark Kent spectacles, Kimberly Benson looks like a nice, regular, gentle 27-year-old. But underneath her sweet exterior lies a warrior.

Four nights a week, in cities all over the world, Kimberly becomes Viper: a body slamming, canonballing, choke holding, pain-inflicting heroine of the wrestling world. And it’s not just woman-on-woman matches, she dishes out the pain to men as well.

So just how did a regular girl from Ayrshire become a champion belt-wearing, leotard-clad superstar?

When Kimberly Benson was nine years old, a chance discovery on her TV set changed her life forever.

She came across a show full of colour, lights and music. She was transfixed: it was professional wrestling.

Over the years, her appetite for wrestling never faltered and, by the age of 16, she had joined a local wrestling school, training to become a professional. Ten years later, she is living her dream — but Kimberly admits it wasn’t easy for her...

“Women’s wrestling wasn’t respected. It was difficult for me because I was a girl. And I was a big girl.

"I think some people looked at me and thought, ‘she’s not going to last five minutes’.”

“I’m so proud I didn't listen to people’s snidey comments.”

Showmanship is an important part of her job too: “It’s about being able to draw people in and make people feel something from nothing,” says Kim.

As Scottish wrestling promoter Mark Dallas explains, this job isn’t for everyone.

“You need to look like a wrestler; you need to look like you can fight; you need to be menacing; you need to have charisma; ... you need to be able to take the punishment. It’s an incredibly tough job.”

He says Kim has got the full package: “She’s relatable, she’s likeable, she’s a positive role model ... when she walks through the curtain the place goes mental.”

The documentary Fight Like A Girl followed Kim’s to Japan and the build-up to the biggest fight of her career.

It was tough on the road and Kim faced severe bouts of homesickness which, at one point, got bad enough that she came close to giving up her pro-wrestling dream.

Parental approval and the pain barrier

Kim also worries about genuinely hurting some of her opponents: “I broke a girl's arm once. I think about it all the time.”

Although Kimberly has the full support of her parents, for whose coach hire company she works when not being Viper, it isn’t easy being the parent to an international wrestler. “I do worry about her sometimes,” explains her father, “because sometimes she does really get hurt.”

“People expect certain moves,” says Kim, “and I sometime get that horrible worrying feeling this might be my last match.”

“You’ve got to be mad to be a wrestler.”