Long before she stepped into the ring, Kristara Napier-Davies, BA 20, was fascinated by professional wrestling. | Credit: Dwayne Larson
Credit: Tino Montelli
Long before she stepped into the ring, Napier-Davies was fascinated by professional wrestling. As a child, she watched matches with her cousins, played the video games and followed the sport obsessively. But it wasn’t until after graduating from Concordia in 2020, with a degree in history and a minor in political science, that she decided to pursue wrestling herself.
With the COVID-19 pandemic putting much of the world on pause, she found herself revisiting a long-held ambition.
“I thought to myself, what’s something you’ve always wanted to do?” The answer was wrestling.
She joined a gym and was hooked. Alongside the athletic and theatrical demands of wrestling, she found a community that shared her passion. “You’re meeting people from across the world and you are all bonded by this one thing,” she says.
Now established on Quebec’s independent wrestling circuit, Napier-Davies hopes the next generation will see more paths into wrestling than she did. She believes promotion companies can help by showcasing women with different identities, personalities and stories, allowing more people to see themselves reflected in the ring.
Looking back, she says that kind of representation might have inspired her to join sooner.
After competing across Canada, the United States and Wales, Napier-Davies is focused on growing her profile internationally while helping today’s breakthroughs become tomorrow’s norm.
“To be able to do what you love and be paid for it,” she says. “That’s my dream.”