The protagonist of pro wrestling is back on the road again: barefoot, restless, and enjoying her side quests around the world. This October, Kidd Bandit moves from Anchorage’s deep freeze to Osaka’s Azalea Taisho, then onto Brawl Pit Bulusan in Quezon City, Philippines. Her first stop after Anchorage is ZERO1’s Tenkaichi Junior Tournament, teaming with Masato Tanaka and Junya Matsunaga before a singles clash with the winner of Mikiya Sasaki vs Shota. Days later, it’s DEXCON’s Sari-Sari Slam. Bandit steps in with the “Filipino Fighting Rooster” Jake De Leon, now rolling with Chris Brookes of DDT’s SCHADENFREUDE INTERNATIONAL (who also joined JDL's Real Global Threat).

Growing up in Alaska, Kidd Bandit did not grow up with a local scene or a conveyor belt of wrestling veterans, but she learnt to make a ring out of whatever floor she had. The early education was rough and very DIY. Recess scuffles, YouTube, borrowed discs, and the stubborn belief that if you practise one kick ten thousand times, you can change your life. And change her life she did through dedication and sheer-drop brainbuster-esque diligence.

I. Anchorage Homecoming

Since Bandit lived far from any pro wrestling pipeline, Bandit learnt to make a ring out of whatever floor was available. “I didn’t have access to wrestling training when I was young,” she says, then laughs at how she hacked the problem: “I had PlayStation 1, and bought SmackDown vs Raw '07 and I learned shit from there.” 18 years later, Kidd's world tour started the world tour opens where she grew up: in Alaska where GCW planted a ring in the Arctic Rec Center a week ago for GCW: The Last Frontier. Poetic, given how few pro wrestlers come from that far north.

She lost to Joey Janela in a very fun 22-minute match, but the point was the showcase: innovative kicks, straight-up Rock Lee offence, the overall athleticism. What’s not to love, right? And still, the question hangs in the air: how the flying f**k does she wrestle without shoes?

“There’s a science behind it,” Bandit says. “There is a method for the madness, for sure.” Then the story hits: an outdoor convention, a black canvas cooking under the sun. “I got in the ring and immediately thought, my God, I made a mistake… I will be taking my first bump and I am not getting up.” She laughs at the memory, then sticks the landing. “All those nuances combined on top of just desiring brand identity, that led me to the decision of going barefoot.”

The why matters. “Most of the time when you train martial arts, you’re barefoot. The pivots are a lot cleaner and you’re at your most natural state.” And yes, she knows the other reason people notice. “Also people like free feet on the internet.”

Her first reps weren’t in a gym either. “My first ever exposure of wrestling was joining my friends in recess, play wrestling with each other. We were children ignoring the ‘don’t try this at home’ warning,” Bandit remembers.

Flash forward to the GCW show, and I guess you can call it a home audit. The kicks landed, the breath held, the crowd believed, and she did too. GCW: The Last Frontier in Anchorage was a showcase of her growth as a person and as a pro wrestler.

II. Spotlight Too Soon, Rebuild On Purpose

AEW hit like a flashbang. “I did my first AEW show for Dark within three months… my ninth, tenth match… and the match I had had Cody Rhodes in it,” she says. “Bucket list checked off right away.”

Check out her other match:

Then the afterburn. “The circumstances of my debut put me in the spotlight way too soon. I’m not ready for half the stuff I did. I needed to capture that lightning in the bottle.” The indie grind became a content treadmill. As Kidd puts it, “every show had some crazy big bump or some crazy big move.”

Kidd's body tapped the brakes. “I knew I couldn’t maintain that crazy high level, high risk lifestyle, deathmatches every other week.”

"Once I came back, I had to recalculate and recalibrate so much of like how I wanted to present myself. And I thought like, having a barefoot look will definitely play into the martial arts character more, which is kind of what I trained with because I couldn't bump during my injury. had no access to a ring, and I definitely didn't want to exacerbate the injury. I had to shift my focus into like striking, which I felt like was always one of like an aspect of my in-ring work in the beginning that kind of went unseen because I was doing like crazy top row moves and dives and all that jazz and just taking crazy bumps. And so when I came back, knew, I knew one, I'm still creative enough that I could develop unique moves on my own that, like, I feel like hasn't been done in wrestling.

In recent years, we’ve watched Kidd Bandit’s resurgence and evolution: fewer high-risk leaps, more design and deliberate offence that’s both new and deadlier, strikes over stunts, but she’s now barefoot by choice.

III. The Underdog Spine

Bandit builds her matches on a simple core. “One of the classic tales in professional wrestling that gets told over and over is the story of an underdog overcoming the odds to reach the top. Something like that is very relatable for a lot of people.” She widens the frame: “Nobody is born into greatness. Everybody has their own set of struggles.”

Her view of wrestling comes from lived experience: “As a small 5'5" petite Asian girl that doesn’t really have a lot of muscle, I’m usually put in that position of the underdog in a match.” Seeing it from both sides, performer and fan, she knows why the room bites down: “Professional wrestling is an art form. An art form is supposed to invoke emotions from you, bring something out of you.”

She cosigns Bryan Danielson's gospel: “If you show good, excellent professional wrestling to anybody, they will like it, because excellent professional wrestling is fucking awesome.”

Her love for anime is also very evident as the blueprint sits right under the skin. “Rock Lee (from Naruto), the motherf****r not only sucks at everything. The only thing this guy has is this indomitable human spirit.” The takeaway is the work. “I didn’t have much growing up. I didn’t have access to wrestling training. I have my training, my passion, and my undying, indomitable human spirit.”

One scene stays lodged in her mind: “Rock Lee lost the fight to Gaara but he still took those damn weights off and said, fuck it, we ball. And for a brief second that motherfucker was the baddest guy in the entire universe.”

That’s the essence of a Bandit match: face the storm, swing back, and make the crowd feel every turn of the tide. And for anyone still pretending wrestling is only moves, she connects the dots: “The underdog story is always going to tell that story in the most primal way possible…excellent professional wrestling is fucking awesome.”

IV. The Business You Don’t See

For most independent wrestlers, the grind is more than bookings and bell-to-bell. It is admin, maths, and a long list of expenses. Bandit is highly aware of these pitfalls and lays it out plainly, “Taxes, expenses, there’s not a lot of wrestlers who understand the concept of an LLC. Your gear, your merch, your travel expenses, your hotels. Basically, the first word in professional wrestling is professional.”

That mindset changes how an indie wrestler lives their week. “You’re in charge of your own advertising, your own bookings, your own training, your own diet, social media, you’re managing so many different facets of your identity and your brand.” Treat it like a small business, or the small business eats you. That means planning routes before you accept a date, checking what the payday looks like after flights, hotels, and meals, and knowing when a double-shot makes sense and when it only burns your body for the sake of a poster. It means blocking time for training and recovery the same way you block time for filming clips and answering promoters. It means keeping receipts, labelling the tubs with ring gear, and having replacement merch ready when the last box sells out at intermission.

She keeps the money talk honest and points to standards. “I didn’t get into wrestling because I wanted to make money. I think it’s fucking badass but you never want to undercut people.” The balance ledger runs through the mind as much as the wallet. “Find a sustainable way to manage your finances, your mental health. My God, your mental health! We would avoid 90% of drama in wrestling if everybody had a therapist.” Touring makes moods swing. Sleep gets weird. Criticism finds you at the airport. The work is keeping your head clear enough to build again next week. “It’s not only a battle of your body… it’s also a mental and emotional marathon.” The body has to match the ambition. “If I want to do my cool anime moves, I have to be fit.”

Boundaries and weed rituals keep the tank full. “I learned not to quote tweet people who talk shit about me. I just leave them. I just block them and move the fuck on. And I'm like, my God, my life is so much better because it is fun to dunk on people that hate on you and use your entire fucking fan base. Like, ‘hey, hey, this person said bad thing about me. Hey, fans, shit, shit on them’. It’s gratifying for the first couple of times, but I learned man, that's not the right way to like use my following. No, fuck that. Like I'm not gonna do that anymore. And I still see people do it. And like if that's what gets them happy, I won't because it fuck it felt great. Are you fucking kidding me? Look at all the people defending you right now. But that's not me anymore. I'm like trying to get the fuck away from that because like some people fucking view me as the sacred fucking idol and I don't want to disappoint people, you know? But I also don't want to put pressure on being perfect because like fuck, like I said, all I want to do is play video games and eat Doritos and get as high as fuck. One day a week, give me that joint. I’m not leaving this bed.”

The mission stays the same, no matter how loud the algorithms get. “I fucking hate social media. My goal is to get signed somewhere not because social media hype got me there but because everybody just said, ‘Kid Bandit’s fucking good, get her on TV.’”

That’s why the first impression is non-negotiable. “The first thing you will see in every one of my social media pages is my highlight reel of me doing sick ass kung fu shit. Everything I do is designed to highlight that.” The feed follows the work, not the other way round.

V. The Weight of Being Seen

Bandit’s entire personality travels faster than her passport: the hair, the gear, the martial arts stances. People clock her on the pavement and on the train.

Bandit is a Filipino-American trans woman and that reality shapes every booking so much so that safety gets built into the plan: route to the venue, exits, transport, hotel choice with staffed desks and good lighting, and who walks with her after the show. As she puts it, “It’s easy to fight the fight when you’re one of the masses. But when you’re kind of a public figure like I am, they can easily find me. I look like a goddamn anime character in that street.”

Pro wrestling aside, the air around her job has changed as the political climate had become more acrid. In 2025, trans people are targeted by bad-faith actors in media and government. That noise follows her from the airport to call time. However, she powers on and works through it.

Nationality shapes how she is perceived as well. Early on, even the ring announcement had to double as protection. “When I first started, when I would be announced from the Philippines, people would be racist.” Being billed from Alaska became the safer line while she was still finding her (bare)footing. “Outside of speaking Tagalog every once in a while I don’t really get a lot of opportunities to represent my Filipino heritage and it breaks my heart.”

This tour flips the script. Osaka first, then Quezon City, where the language fits her mouth and the jokes land without subtitles. “I can speak Tagalog the whole time. All my jokes are going to be in my native language.” Not branding. Ground. A trans Filipina entering as herself, steady in both name and craft.

VII. The World Tour — From Frozen North to Kansai to Quezon City

Bandit is currently in Japan where she will be competing in ZERO1 (ALSO WISH HER A BELATED HAPPY BIRTHDAY!). The promotion will bring her into the Tenkaichi Junior stretch!

https://x.com/ZERO1_Wrestling/status/1975475803174621501

On 10 October in Nagoya, she hits the opening night in a six-person tag with Masato Tanaka and Junya Matsunaga opposite Hayabusa and Chris Vice.

https://x.com/ZERO1_Wrestling/status/1975729561292972302

On 11 October at Osaka’s Azalea Taisho, she moves into Round Two of the Tenkaichi Junior Tournament, a 20-minute singles match against the winner of Mikiya Sasaki vs Shota.

https://x.com/ZERO1_Wrestling/status/1975012991533002907

She isn’t walking in cold. Earlier this year she logged reps and wins in ZERO1 next to Tanaka, learned the timing of those rooms, and sharpened the barefoot, strike-first presentation that reads so clean in Japanese rings.

Then comes the homecoming. On 19 October in Quezon City, DEXCON’s Sari-Sari Slam sets Bandit against the “Filipino Fighting Rooster” Jake De Leon, with the SETUP Thailand 24/7 Champion in the picture. This one is personal. “I can speak Tagalog the whole time. All my jokes are going to be in my native language.”

After this world tour, I’m excited to see more of Kidd Bandit and her innovative offence. The road has sharpened her timing and her voice. The next save point is close, and the protagonist is still moving.

After this world tour, the picture of Kidd Bandit definitely feels sharper: the strikes more measured and the voice more sure, all thanks to the journey that had shaped both. The next save point sits somewhere ahead, and the protagonist is still moving. For now, she’s closing her birthday week on the road between Kansai and Quezon City.

Kidd, since it's your birthday week and ASIA TOUR TIME, we’re wishing you a strong Q4 2025 and a prosperous 2026. Reaper Death Seal the doubters and anyone standing across the ring.

You can find Kidd Bandit at the links below!

https://www.twitch.tv/kiddbanditpro

https://www.patreon.com/Kiddbanditpro

https://account.venmo.com/u/kiddbanditpro

https://cash.app/$kiddbanditpro

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClr3weLf2WO2zqUcS1kecCw

https://www.instagram.com/kiddbanditpro/

https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/wrestler-t-shirts/kiddbanditpro.html