Hundreds of fans gathered at Westfield Carousel in Perth for a meet and greet with WWE star Austin Theory to promote WA’s Elimination Chamber event at Optus Stadium on Saturday.
Theory hyped up the crowd during the event and posed for photographs with a long line of young fans.
Among them was seven-year-old Dean Purchase who travelled from Sydney to watch the event.
While he admitted he was a diehard Cody Rhodes fan, he was eager to snap a selfie with Theory.
It marked the family’s first trip to the West.
“It’s obviously a lot of money but it’s worth every penny,” his dad Jarred said.
“As soon as it was announced we started saving for it. It’s something we enjoy and something different you don’t get to see every night.”
Sydney father Michael Livingstone, who has been a fan since the 1980s, also made the trip to Perth for the first time and attended the shopping centre meet and greet with sons Wyatt 13, and Ethan 10.
With family in Manning, he said had always wanted to travel to WA and the wrestling gave him the perfect opportunity.
“We flew in on Wednesday, so we thought we would spend a week here just to have a look around the place,” he said.
“It gave us a double excuse to come out basically. I’ve been looking forward to coming to Perth.”
Mr Livingstone said it was the ongoing storylines that kept him hooked.
WA chef Damien Falconer, who calls himself “The Loaded Chef”, gifted Theory a bottle of hot sauce when he got to the front of the queue.
“I’ve been following wrestling since I was seven and I’m 50 years old this year,” he said.
He teamed up with Australian Pro Wrestler Joel ‘The Smash Hit’ Bateman to create a unique hot sauce to promote and sell during the Perth event.
“We’ve come up with the smash hit brain buster hot sauce,” he said.
The event was just one of many fan-focused events hosted throughout the Perth tour.
And it came off the back of a real-life stoush with The West Australian’s editor-in-chief Anthony De Ceglie, which made headlines around the world.
Visiting WA’s largest newspaper on Thursday, Theory’s casual meeting turned sour when the editor made the cardinal sin of dropping the word “fake” around a professional wrestler.
Their chat escalated into a spat where Theory needed to be forcefully removed by WWE security.
