Ella Jay
The world of professional wrestling has for a long time been a very male-dominated one. This has especially been the case on the media side of the industry where names such as Dave Meltzer, Bill Apter, Wade Keller & Sean Ross Sapp have long been the stalwarts. However, in more recent years, with the rise of podcasts & YouTube, a new generation of female journalists such as Denise Salcedo & Ella Jay have worked incredibly hard on their content & gained prominence in the field.
For International Women's Month, we wanted to celebrate this evolution in wrestling media coverage. So we sat down with Ella Jay to chat about her journey to become a full-time wrestling media professional. Ella's journey is a tale of incredible passion, hard work & perhaps above all else, loving what you do.
Planting the seed
While Ella has been a lifelong writer, more so in the creative writing realm initially, her passion for wrestling came somewhat later. It wasn't until 2009 that Ella discovered the wondrous world of professional wrestling & quickly immersed herself in the community.
"I've met so many amazing people through the wrestling Twitter community, which I know can be toxic sometimes, but there are a lot of people I've known for like 7-8 years now that are some of my best friends," recalled Ella.
Having discovered this new community of like-minded wrestling fans, Ella soon needed another outlet to express her fandom. And thus along came her podcast, A Wrestling Gal.
"A Wrestling Gal started as just a hobby," explained Ella. "I didn't come in with the intention of it being an all-women's wrestling thing. It was just going to be me talking about wrestling because I had been a closeted fan in real life despite always talking about it on Twitter & online forums. So for me, it was just another outlet to express my love."
A Wrestling Gal very quickly evolved though as Ella's background, skills & passions came into play.
"The show evolved into more interviews with a women's wrestling focus," Ella told Pario. "I was set to go to grad school for Rehabilitation Counselling, so I always valued human connection & garnering those relationships... On the podcast, I was talking to people, getting to know their stories, talking about how they were feeling & their mentality towards stuff so it was kind of a natural transition for the podcast & why I enjoy doing interviews the most now."
Cultivating the sapling
As Ella found her footing & carved out her niche with A Wrestling Gal opportunities to expand her reach & skillset began to present themselves. As Ella recalled, "One site wanted to work with me, so I started working with SEScoops, then Wrestlezone happened, Women's Wrestling Talk, Wrestling Inc, yada yada, the list goes on & on."
To our surprise Ella herself was even somewhat shocked to have these opportunities presented to her, "I guess people saw the work I was doing in podcasting & then took notice. They saw something in me that I didn't even see in myself."
Although the opportunities to contribute to more & more wrestling news outlets had arisen Ella was still working a retail job to make ends meet financially. Something which is further evidence of the passion & dedication she has for the industry & the job.
Ultimately the juggling act between her retail job to pay the bills & her passion job in wrestling media became too difficult & Ella realised something had to change.
"In my retail job I only got my schedule a week in advance so then I'd have to rush out & find freelance opportunities in the off days," explained Ella. "I also wasn't able to schedule interviews more than a week in advance, so I was going insane, to be honest."
Late in 2022 however a serendipitous job posting appeared which would allow Ella to finally make the leap & go full-time with wrestling media.
"In late August I was searching Indeed for 'wrestling' & saw that Wrestle Inc was hiring writers... So, I redid my whole resume, put together my writing samples & sent that out. I then later came to learn that they were actually looking at my social media because they were looking to recruit me anyway."
By securing that role with Wrestling Inc, alongside her other freelance gigs, Ella finally had the financial stability to quit her retail job. Now her schedule is crazier than ever, but now it's something she truly loves.
"Wrestling consumes my life now," laughed Ella before continuing, "I honestly work 6-7 days for somewhere around 65-70 hours per week."
Despite this crazy work schedule Ella is incredibly grateful to make a career out of something she loves, "I've been really fortunate that people have taken a chance on me... I was trying to make this happen for like 2 years, trying to make it full time, but we're here now & I am so happy!"
Nurturing the tree
As Ella's story shows, making a career & living out of a passion certainly isn't going to come easy. However, if your passion is true & you are willing to put in the long hours of hard work anything is possible.
To help make the journey slightly less arduous for others we asked Ella her top tips for anybody looking to break into the wrestling media field, or simply following a passion as a career.
"One thing that was taught to me is that you have to walk before you can run," stressed Ella. "You can reach out to so many people but you can't expect that all of those people are going to get back to you. It takes time to build up your resume & build up your rapport with people. So I would say start with people that you're familiar with like I did, whether you're friends with them or people know you on social media, build a rapport. I can't tell you how many times I have just interacted with people on Twitter, liked their stuff, made a nice comment, & we just naturally kicked off. And then later on down the road, when I reached out for an interview, they were like, Oh yeah, let's do it,"
During our conversation, Ella reflected on her own experience & was adamant that others learn from her mistakes & not overburden themselves or set unreasonable expectations.
"I set myself way higher expectations than I could physically achieve, which ultimately saw me needing to put my podcast on hiatus," Ella said ruefully. "So don't be like me. Be reasonable, be ambitious but don't be over eager."
Now that Ella has achieved the goal of becoming a full-time wrestling media personality she has had to begin formulating new goals for herself as she looks to the future.
“Right now, if I could pick just 1 thing it would be to host an interview show & make good money from that. It's hard to make a living off of just interviewing people though, so in the meantime, I'll just make myself more well-rounded & more versatile because, who knows, maybe I'll find something else that I enjoy just as much as interviewing."
Follow Ella’s Creative Journey on social media at: @itsellajay
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