Gia Scott slams Aria Palmer in a bout during Autumn Armageddon in October 2018 (JIM WATSON)

Severn (United States) (AFP) – On first meeting Kierra Scott, it is hard to imagine that the warm and polite 19-year-old makes her living from fighting, provoking and taunting others.

Yet that is precisely what makes her a rising star of the women’s wrestling scene in Maryland, where Scott plays the role of match villain with great panache.

Under the stage name Gia Scott, she launched her career when she was still in high school, and in less than a year has fought a dozen bouts and even taken the title in the MCW, Maryland’s local wrestling league, making her the youngest champion in the division’s history.

Her specialty is playing the “heel,” or bad girl who aims to provoke the audience. And when she steps onto the canvas, Kierra becomes Gia, forgetting her friendship with her opponent and sending a thrill of antagonism through the crowd.

“I feed off the crowd’s energy, it hypes me up more,” she said in an interview in her home, all the while playing with her pet dog.

“It’s very much different from my everyday life. When I’m in the ring, you’ll see aggressive Gia. But when I’m out of the ring, it’s just me, it’s just Kierra, nice, smiling… girl.”

And off stage, Scott lives a life similar to other young women her age, posting pictures on Instagram, going skating and hanging out with her boyfriend, who is also a wrestler with the stage name of Deion Epps.

In wrestling, it is the show that excites the audience, he said. “If you are good on the ring and not doing anything special, just wrestling, they won’t care about you,” said Epps, whose real name is Carlos Carroll.

– ‘The pain is real’ –

Scott discovered her calling when she was just 14. 

“I wanted to become a model or a wrestler. It was either-or,” she said.

Her uncle took her to see a match at the WWE, a popular American wrestling show, and it was a revelation for Scott.

“I remember feeling the crowd’s energy, how loud it was and hearing the sounds go off, the pyros. I lost my voice because I was screaming so much,” she recalled.

Scott had a difficult childhood — she moved frequently and was put in a shelter. Her mother died when she was 17, and it was for her that she launched herself into her new career.

“If it wasn’t for my mom, I wouldn’t be here at such a young age,” she said. Having just come of age, Gia rushed to sign up for the Maryland Championship Wrestling school to learn her new trade.

And while the bouts may be choreographed, she insists that “the pain is very much real.”

“When you are in the ring and actually get the bumps and actually fall, it hurts,” she said. 

Scott often trains with male wrestlers, and that is even more painful. “It feels like being run over by a train,” she said.

“I thank the guys for going hard on me.

“When I have the opportunity to hit them back, I try to hit with my full force,” Scott added.

“The girls that we have, they have as much fire and intensity as any for the guys do,” said Scott’s trainer and heavyweight champ RJ Meyer. “We just don’t have enough of them.”

In fact, they have just one female wrestler for every 10 men.

“It’s a man’s sport, there is more pressure for me when I get in the ring,” said Scott. It is harder, but not impossible.

And in 2016, she noted with approval that the WWE had dropped the sexist-sounding title of “divas” to denote its female competitors and replaced it with the name “superstars.”

“They are evolving, they are stepping up,” she said. “It feels more serious, it sounds more serious.”

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