TWO brothers have turned a childhood passion into a £100,000 new business.

Jonathon and Simon Kay have thrown their hats into the ring to become wrestling promoters and their Fight Forever Wrestling enterprise is about to start its debut tour.

Remarkably, they only came up with the idea in February this year but they have managed to convince top stars from WWE and World of Sport to take part in the national tour.

Jonathon, 35, said: “We’ve been wrestling fans since we were little and remember our dad taking us to watch our first WWF show at Blackburn Ice Rink in 1994”.

“He wasn’t exactly a fan of the over-the-top characters, and he was even less enthusiastic about the re-enactments his kids would embark on in the middle of supermarkets, but he knew we were happy.

“Wrestling is our passion and we are determined to make this work.”

Jonathon, who has ploughed money from his digital media company into the venture, said: “At the time, it was nothing more than a crazy idea, but an idea nonetheless to start our own wrestling promotion.

“We expected that our partners, parents and friends would do the sensible thing and talk us out of it, but unhelpfully, they’ve been nothing but supportive!”

Simon, 30, who is using his savings from teaching in China for ten years, said: “We’ve worked tirelessly to source venues, market events, and sell tickets. At best, we’ll break even this time around but it’s a dream come true and you can’t put a price on that.”

The brothers, who grew up in Egerton, travelled to WrestleMania in New Orleans in April to see who they could sign up for the tour.

As a result, such stars as The Godfather, Jimmy Havoc and Brandi Rhodes are among the 20-plus wrestlers who will be fighting it out on the tour.

It was their fifth trip to America for Wrestlemania, a far cry from their early days of fandom.

“We remember watching our first matches on VHS,” said Simon. “As soon as we were old enough to be left unsupervised at Global Video in Bolton whilst our dad did the Saturday morning big shop across the road in Asda, we’d spend a good hourpicking out a selection to hire to give us our WWE fix.

“We’d then spend all weekend watching early Wrestlemania, SummerSlam and Royal Rumble events instead of getting outside and playing, which we’re sure our parents would have preferred.

“As any young wrestling fan will know, watching the entertainment unfold on screen just wasn’t enough to quench the wrestling thirst, and our world soon became all about the merchandise.

“We’d collect all the action figures (we still reckon we’ve got over 60 in our collection), play swapsies with all the stickers, worship the posters on our walls, and then collapse under garish duvet covers depicting our favourite stars after a long day of re-enacting potentially quite dangerous wrestling moves.

“Does life get any better than that when you’re a kid?”

In addition to the in-ring action the brothers will be organising, US based wrestling podcasters, Bruce Prichard and Conrad Thompson, will perform the world’s number one wrestling podcast - Something to Wrestle - live.

Simon and Jonathon, former pupils of Turton High School, have also had Fight Forever Wrestling championship belts manufactured for the tour, which begins in Birmingham next week and will go on to visit venues in London, Bristol and Liverpool.

Jonathon said: “We looked at bringing it to Bolton but at this time of year all the decent venues had been booked for pantomimes. Hopefully, we will be able to organise a visit in the future.”

He added: “The whole venture’s a bit of a risk but hopefully it will pay off.”

For further details and tickets please visit www.fightforeverwrestling.com.