Tyler Knox stands on the ropes during at match this summer. (Image Courtesy Pure Power Wrestling/YouTube)

By Chris Brown

In Medicine Hat on Wednesday

‘Always been the dream’: Wrestling champ Tyler Knox ready for hometown tag-team match

Sep 7, 2021 | 5:00 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Tyler Knox is used to going the distance in the ring and out.

It comes as no surprise since the Medicine Hat pro wrestler has been thinking about these days for more than two decades.

“It’s just always been that thing,” recalls Knox from his makeshift gym in his garage. “It’s always just been the dream. There’s never really been anything else to replace it. Friends leave work changes but wrestling’s always been like the one constant in my life.”

He says he got hooked during the late 1990s boom period, known to wrestling fans as the Monday Night Wars.

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It was a dream then. It became reality about two years ago when Knox (real name Malone), enrolled in a wrestling training camp in Lethbridge.

“A couple of months later I was in the ring kicking some ass,” he says.

Not long after that, he was a champion, winning the cruiserweight title for the Lethbridge-based Pure Power Wrestling promotion.

“It took me less than a year to get it and that kind of, still hasn’t really sunk in,” he says. “Every time I look at the belt it’s kind of like an ‘oh yeah.’”

VIDEO: Tyler Knox vs. Travis Copeland PPW at Castle Valley Campground

Without a proper training facility in Medicine Hat, Knox still drives west once a week for in-ring work and does what he can at home in his garage gym.

Lethbridge is where most of his matches take place, but he’s drawn the attention of other wrestling promotions and has started wrestling in Medicine Hat.

Last month he wrestled with Canadian Wrestling’s Elite and there was one special voice in the crowd.

The last time CWE came through Medicine Hat was the first show that my mom came to and she lost her voice almost immediately so it’s been pretty exciting,” he says.

That night set in motion a chain of events that led to this week’s match.

On Wednesday, Knox will team with CHAT 94.5’s Jesse Christianson in the tag team main event against “Hot Shot” Danny Duggan and the Stormbringer.

“They’re just a couple of old-school bullies,” says Knox. “They came out they started picking on Jesse. Jesse’s friends with my girlfriend so I had to stand up for him and now we’re going to take it to them.”

Former WWE and WCW star Lance Storm will be the guest referee.

Wrestling shows in Medicine Hat typically draw big crowds, something Knox has witnessed from outside and inside the ring.

“It definitely does feel like Medicine Hat’s one of the hotbeds in southern Alberta, Western Canada and every show it seems to grow and grow. It’s been really cool to see it and now it’s been even cooler to be a part of it.”

Local fans should see Knox live while they have the chance.

He makes his Calgary debut this week and says he’ll go wherever his dream takes him.

“If a bigger promotion comes calling I’m answering,” he says.

The show Wednesday at the Cypress Centre starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are available at the door or in advance at the Garage Pub and Eatery or cwetickets.com.