Cara Noir: The Man Behind The Mask

THE LAST two years have been wild for Tom Dawkins, the man known in BritWres as Cara Noir.

In July 2019 he broke the internet when he faced PAC at Riptide Wrestling, one of the matches of the year.

Fast forward to the end of the year and he would defeat M. Shay Ultra to win the Attack! Title and a month later he won an epic four way contest to become to PROGRESS Unified World Champion.

As if all that wasn’t enough he put on four stellar displays in Germany to win the 2020 16 Carat Gold Tournament at wXw.

Since wrestling returned, Cara has defended his PROGRESS title six times and, even without fans, has elevated other up and coming stars to his level.

But Tom is not content with simply in-ring work. Outside of the ring he has been busy choreographic a number of wrestling-related shows – most recently Heather Bandenburg’s Mummy Vs and Wrestling Resurgence’s Theatre of Wrestling: Unruly Music Hall two part show/documentary.

He and his partner Claire have also started a new wrestling and gymnastics school, Play Fight, which has recently launched in London.

In this exclusive interview we talk to the man behind one of wrestling’s most eccentric characters to delve into what it takes to make Cara Noir…

Hi Tom, how are you? I know you like to keep yourself busy.

Yeah, I’m not kind of one to wait and see and wait for things to happen. If I feel like there’s some sort of stagnation or something needs to change, then I always want to push it a little further. So if there’s any spare time it always gets filled in some way.

After not being able to do anything last year, really, in having to pivot our business to an online format - which is really hard because it’s very hands on and very physical. Moving from that and realising wrestling is going to take a long time to recover, not only because of everything that happened last year, but because of Speaking Out as well, it’s going to be a slow regrowth.

I thought ‘let’s be proactive’ and build something new within pro wrestling.

You mentioned Speaking Out and we’ve spoken to people who do believe there is an apprehension to return to soon. Do you think Indy Wrestling can return, in a safer way, to where it was?

Yeah 100%, of course. There’s definitely spaces for companies to put in safety protocols for their workers and for the audience watching. It’s a learning curve for both the promoters and audience and there will be a slightly different way of doing things.

Hopefully shows will come back to the capacity it was before, but wrestling always goes through ups and downs. I remember my first match I wrestled in front of 12 people. I started when wrestling was starting to rise up, so I’ve experienced what it’s like in ups and downs. But it will come back round again, because it always does. Guys like Jody Fleisch and Doug Williams have been through that and are here still.

Do you think both fans and wrestlers need to do more, as shows return, to say no to companies that may book people accused during Speaking Out and hold them accountable?

It’s a grey area I think, for a lot of people. I don’t think it’s the responsibilities of the fans but it is for the promoters. That’s why I think it’s important to have a governing body. We see it in other types of media that organisations are self-policing they’re open to manipulating the rules. But if there’s a governing body then the motivation is purely safety and not financial interest.

For sure. Let’s move on to your new project, Play Fight, how have your first sessions been going?

It’s been a few months of process and set up so it’s been great to see. We have a small daughter, she’s only two, and we don’t have much child care. So we’ve been juggling getting it all set up and making it safe for people to perform it, it’s been physically and emotionally draining.

It’s essentially a pro wrestling school and action space for professionals who take their craft seriously. When we had our test class in the reaction was great to see. Having people in the room was amazing, to see them play and light up and see the possibilities of what they can do here.

We’ve basically built a playground for adults and that’s why it’s called Play Fight. As children we learn by playing but as adults we beat ourselves up. Take two children learning to cartwheel: one may be able to do it but the other will just keep playing and eventually get there, just because they’re having fun and want to participate. Play is a way of learning and part of developing and even failing. Wrestling is about what you can do, not what you can’t do.

Tom Dawkins in his element at Play Fight.
Credit: @LondonMoveCoach

How long was Play Fight in development before you launched?

It’s been something that’s been on the cards for about a year. This idea of setting up a school where wrestling is almost graded. The problem is, because it’s a performance art what is there to grade?

The idea really stemmed from wanting people to be safe enough so they can feel free to experiment with their work. It’s like learning a language. We learn letters and words and grammar and then we start to be creative with it.

I think people think wrestling needs to be a certain way but it doesn’t have to be paint-by-numbers. We want people to take creative risks.

Is there a skill range you need to have to join in?

Grade One is our open door for anyone to try and step in and see if they like it, it’s the same for the gymnastics we do - it’s open for all and we’ll teach you all the basics. There’s also a membership package where you can do one wrestling a week and one gymnastics too.

We’ve already had people who say doing both has helped them pull everything together.

You run it with your partner, how important was it for this to be a family-run business?

It’s massively important. We initially set up the gymnastics school in January 2019 and our daughter was born a month after. So she’s been there watching everything and being part of it. You’re stepping into a family venue and that gives it a different feel to what I think wrestling normally has. I think it’s a lot more accessible, rather than other places you get trained in - not to say those are bad places.

So what would you say to encourage people to come down and give it a go?

Even if you want to take a relook with where you are at wrestling it’s the place to go. I know people, professional bracket wrestlers, who have come in and started at Grade One and Grade Two to test out where they are.

Rather than relying on someone to tell you you’re ready you can see you’re ready. There’s a sense of achievement.

You really see wrestling as a performance art. When did that affinity with the performance side of it begin?

It really started before wrestling when I was doing performance and dance as a child. But, when I first started wrestling I shunned all that and tried to treat it like a martial art, learning the technique of it. Nobody really said to me that you need to take the elements of performance and put them into wrestling. When I was training I was only taught moves.

It took me a long time to step in the ring and challenge the performance element of what I was doing. When I started at the London School of Lucha Libre, six years ago, they allowed me to perform and come out of my shell. I saw the combination of wrestling and cabaret and realised there are so many similarities in them. It makes you think about what you can do when you put wrestling into different contexts.

About five years ago me and my partner started mixing wrestling with these circus elements and that’s been really liberating.

Cara Noir at wXw 16 Carat.
Photo: @cara_noir/@theheaddrop/wXw

What would you say to anyone who believes wrestling should be about the sport element and not the theatre element?

You can like what you like. If you like the traditional style that’s fine, I love that too and it does have its relevance. But to see wrestling as this performance art and not a sport is liberating for the business and the more we can play with that formula, the more the general population will see how good it is as an art form.

Do you see performance wrestling as the next evolution of the business moving forward?

Potentially. It can go in multiple directions. I think there will be more obscene performance pieces, something I really enjoy. But then I think there will also be the more MMA, shoot-style wrestling. I love both and think they both have massive audiences and potential.

Anything to do with wrestling, I love the lot. The people who are passionate about progression will love all styles.

And speaking of theatrics, there are few people on the wrestling scene as theatrical as Cara Noir. Take us back to the beginning. Is it true that Chris Brookes was influential is helping develop the Cara Noir character?

Chris is definitely someone who helped massively and was there when I was performing Cara for the first time. I’d do Hope Wrestling in Mansfield and Leicester and he’d give me pointers and celebrate what I was doing.

There are loads others as well, including those who don’t even know they had an effect, Like Pete Dunne. I wrestled him a couple of times, while I was still doing my old character, he pulled me aside and asked what the Cara thing was. I explained to him how it made me happy and I felt stagnant before and he told me to do what makes me happy. It was an example of someone giving me permission to go and try something.

I’m thankful to Lucha Britannia for allowed me to perform and develop Cara there. A lot of Cara now come from ideas I had years ago, but now the performance style have developed. If you’d taken Cara and put him in PROGRESS five years ago it wouldn’t have been right.

I needed people like Chris and Pete and Ryan Smile is another example. He’d book me on Lucha Forever and I remember he came backstage one time, when I was doing both characters at different shows, and he said: ‘You just need to stop doing this Tom Dawkins shit now’.

And literally from there I started emailing promoters saying ‘right I’m not doing this character [Tom Dawkins] anymore, this [Cara Noir] is the character I’m doing now’.

And did you feel happier once you started performing as Cara?

It felt liberating. I have this martial arts side and this performance side but Cara was the first time it all joined and I felt whole. The realms of possibilities opened up to me and I realised I could do anything.

I love to explore the emotional depth of the character and see how I can get that reaction out of the crowd. I felt liberated by doing it. It’s an opportunity to also play with my own childhood trauma and bring it out.

It can also be a form of therapy. I’m n advocate for therapy, I think it’s really important to have this seperation from character and identity. You can get lost in your character quite easily, especially if you’re a performer who is their character in-ring and online, on social media.

I made it clear from the beginning that Cara is a character. I, Tom, play Cara.

It also means that if that’s it for Cara and I want to change then Tom can still perform as something else. Wrestlers should have credits because we are performers. It’s no different to scenes played out in soap operas.

It’s fair to say it’s been a wild couple of years for Cara Noir. When was the moment you thought there was something with Cara that you were missing before?

That’s an interesting question. When I started doing Cara I stopped judging myself through my performances, I could filter it all simply through the character without it being personal. I can be a bit too humble sometimes and it takes me a long time to admit something is good or working. I like to look back and dissect things through audience reaction.

It was definitely fast, let’s put it that way. It’s hard to say when the exact moment was. Winning 16 Carat was an honour, so was winning the PROGRESS title. But, it’s hard to clarify whether you deserve it. It’s an honour those companies are investing in you but the rise was so quick.

Covid has allowed us to normalise for a period of time and reflect.

Cara Noir is the current PROGRESS champion.
Photo: @cara_noir/@theheaddrop/PROGRESS Wrestling

How has it been to be the new face of PROGRESS but having to return with no fans?

It’s just meant that what I would normally look for is an audience reaction and that’s really hard to not have. Luckily the commentary team has been nearby so I can judge the tempo based on what they’re saying.

Wrestling needed to have Speaking Out and I think a lot of things have changed since them. Yes, we’re in a new environment with a lot of fresh faces in a lot of companies.

I’m not in a process of trying to help everyone and bring everyone up. That’s what it’s meant to me, to be setting the bar with how good taped performances can be. I’m really excited for what’s coming, PROGRESS have developed so much through the pandemic. They’ve adapted and changed and they’ve massively looked after all their performers, which I don’t think they get credit for.

We spoke to Luke Jacobs about his match with you and how much he learned from it. Is it nice helping that next generation of BritWres develop?

Yeah, but it also helps me. It’s been a great pleasure to work with the younger talent, like Luke, but it also means I have to work differently. I have to learn what’s current to them.

I watched Luke and Ethan Allen in Germany at wXw and they had a match which was incredible - one of the best on the card.

I found out the match was going to happen and I knew it was going to be really good. He’s such a humble performer. He said he learned a lot from me but I learned a lot from him too. Especially someone with a different style, like Luke.

How much are you looking forward to stepping out at PROGRESS in front of a crowd again?

I’m really looking forward to it and I’ll probably cry because it will be so overwhelming. But there’s also a part of me that will worry that I’ll walk out and people won’t care anymore.

It’s different trying to connect with an audience at a taped show, because there’s no direct feedback so you don’t know if they’re invested.

But I can’t wait to step out. It’s going to feel like coming home. I always see fans as friends, because they’re the ones willing to invest in you. So it will be like seeing friends, it will be breathtaking.

I want to take you to Riptide now and what looked like a storyline building there. You were having these incredible matches against TK Cooper, Cassius, Chris Ridgeway and of course PAC and just coming up short each time. Was that part of a storyline they had for you?

There was a plan for it. I don’t know how much I can give away, but there was an end goal. Josh at Riptide was very giving and allowed me to craft a path with where we were going with it. It’s a story that would have challenged me as a performer like nothing else I’d ever done. Maybe it can be revisited.

Is that something you’d like?

Yeah, it’s interesting because I always overthink everything. Maybe it would be good to revisit it but also it might be something that would’ve worked two years ago but maybe not now.

Cara Noir vs PAC at Riptide: Point Break
Photo: @cara_noir/@theheaddrop/Riptide Wrestling

And we have to talk about the match with PAC. When did you find out you’d be facing him?

I found out three or four months before the event. But it’s interesting because I’d been booked in big matches before that just never transpired. I’d been booked before, in other companies, to wrestle Chris Hero and Ricochet but both of those got cancelled. So it wasn’t until the day of the event where I walked in and saw him and realised it was actually going to happen.

It was so enjoyable, he’s such a professional and so giving. I remember watching the footage back and the reaction he got and I don’t even think the on demand does it justice - it was so intense. It took everything in my being to not get overwhelmed and cry in that moment.

It was a big moment for me, I had to hit it out the park. And PAC made it really easy.

Standing in the crowd the pop PAC got sounded insane, how was it in the ring?

It was like a ripple at first. A few people knew the music and it fed round from the people that saw him first. And from that point on it was hysteria. Everyone was so excited and that fuelled the energy of the match even more.

And the standout moment I want to ask about is the handshake spot, where you kept asking him to shake your hand, when was that thought out?

PAC had a few matches in the UK on the indy circuit before ours and I wanted this to stand out. I didn’t want it to be just a PAC match or just a Cara Noir match. I wanted it to be something we work on and develop together.

The idea for me is that Cara is a bit of a bastard, but then PAC is the king of the bastards so of course Cara would want to shake his hand. It went from there and it’s such a good key moment from that matches. It gives the match its own identity and style.

As someone who is so busy, both in and out of the ring, is there a plan for Cara Noir moving forward with where you’d like to go with it?

It’s an ever evolving character and there’s no point where I’ll ever pigeonhole it into a particular style. I can see it evolving and changing in my thoughts. When it’s ready and it’s the right time it will either gradually evolve or it will be all or nothing.

Thanks to Tom Dawkins for talking to us.

You can follow him, and Cara Noir, on Twitter at: @Cara_Noir and @LondonMoveCoach

To find out more about Play Fight visit playfightlondon.com

You can watch our full interview with Cara here: https://youtu.be/UmJn_MWTkJA