If you ever find yourself in Florida attending a Coastal Championship Wrestling (CCW) match, you might hear the announcer declare: “From the great Canadian Rockies, standing seven feet tall and weighing 305 pounds – Van Bruggen!” You would then see longtime Greater Victoria resident Kale Van Bruggen burst into the ring.
Van Bruggen entered the world of wrestling later than most, after working his way through several other careers.
After growing up in Saanich where he graduated from Claremont Secondary School, he joined the Canadian Army and rowed with Rowing Canada. However, a spinal injury forced him to step away from the sport in 2016. He moved to Cobble Hill in 2019 and launched Gold Standard Hauling & Services, a trucking business serving Victoria and the Island.
“I was driving my trucks, and business was going well. I had great guys working with me, and I had my peaceful life on a little farm in Cobble Hill with my wife and son,” Van Bruggen said. Standing 6'10", he's received comments about his size his whole life. “A guy in a grocery store said, ‘I feel like I’m walking behind the Undertaker.’ My wife and I joked about giving wrestling a shot,” he said. So, he did.
He called an old friend and Claremont classmate, Chelsea Green, the reigning WWE Women’s United States Champion. Green suggested he attend Flatbacks Wrestling School in Apopka, Fla. Van Bruggen hopped into his old Cadillac and drove 6,300 kilometres to train. He’s been wrestling on the indie circuit ever since.
“I’ve completely fallen in love with pro wrestling,” he said. After a few months of training, he started attending promotions. “At my second appearance, they just threw me onto the show. I’d never wrestled a match in front of people in my life and wasn’t planning on it that night. I just went to help set up the ring and guardrails.”
Since then, he has been travelling from town to town with the CCW promotion. Van Bruggen says it’s “not a question of if, but when” he gets a call to audition for WWE. However, challenges remain – he is currently on a tourist visa and cannot earn income as a wrestler. For now, he relies on his trucking company for income while working on securing a performance visa that would allow him to stay in the U.S. for five years and wrestle professionally.
“If WWE reaches out in the next three-and-a-half months and decides to give me a tryout, they’ll likely sponsor me for the visa, which would be really nice,” he said.
Visa troubles aside, an invite to the WWE performance centre has always been the goal, a stepping stone to the wrestling big time.
For now, wrestling remains a journey. With 22 matches under his belt, a broken rib, and a retired Texas Ranger character called “Big Iron Buck,” he now wrestles as Van Bruggen – a butt-kicking Canadian from the Rockies. His character is a heel, wrestling slang for a villain.
“It’s great because it garners a lot of heat – a lot of negative emotions from the crowd, which is what we want,” he said.
“When the babyface – the good guy in wrestling – comes out, the crowd cheers. They’re excited and want to see good overcome evil.” Van Bruggen then duels with the babyface, ultimately being defeated. It’s a performance, an element he said has taken some getting used to.
“I’m a bit of a hermit back in Canada. We’ve got a little farm, our business, and we keep to ourselves. I never even had social media,” Van Bruggen said.
“The first time you walk through the curtain and hear the fans yelling and screaming – whether they’re excited or angry – it doesn’t matter. All emotions get emotion in wrestling. I was super nervous.”
While pro wrestling revolves around performance, Van Bruggen assures fans it’s not fake. There’s no cushion in the ring, the moves, the athleticism and the pain are all real.
“There’s nothing fake about it. When it’s done right, it’s a beautiful dance,” he said.
