The wrestler in the skeleton face paint is Lion City Hit Girl. Amid the shouts and roars of excitement from the 200 or more spectators around the ring at Foochow Building in Jalan Besar, there is no denying that she is here to terrorise her opponents and entertain the crowd.
But before she hits the ring, she is Alexis Lee, a chatty 29-year-old who stands at 164cm and weighs only 50kg, a physique that may not strike fear in anyone’s heart, until…
she transforms into her fiery alter ego, a rampaging figure of death, who will stomp and body slam her opponents swiftly and ruthlessly.
With a natural athleticism and unwavering tenacity, Lee has won a few championship titles, including the All Action Wrestling (Australia) women’s championship, the Championship Wrestling Entertainment Vixen title, and the coveted Singapore Pro Wrestling (SPW) Queen of Asia belt, which she held until she lost it in November 2023 to Japan’s Yuki Kamifuku.
She has been Singapore’s first professional woman wrestler since she tried her hand at wrestling when she was 18. Lee did a tryout with SPW in 2013, after hearing about its show. She began training with SPW and made her debut that same year.
Lee said her ring name Lion City Hit Girl is “catchy and very local”. A ring announcer made it up on the spot a long time ago, and it stuck.
Lee’s own parents and younger sister have watched her in the ring only once because they cannot bear to see the physicality of wrestling.
Though they were initially worried about her well-being, they have since accepted her love of wrestling. Thankfully, she has not suffered any serious injuries over the years.
Lee works full time as a restaurant guest relations executive and also has a part-time gig as a trainer at two gyms, to supplement her income.
She fights eight to 10 matches a year, making about $3,000 a year from pro wrestling, including the sale of merchandise such as T-shirts and paraphernalia, which she personally designs. Lee’s mother also gives input on the designs.
Pro wrestling, especially for women, is not a mainstream sport in Singapore. Lee is the only professional female wrestler managed by SPW, which also represents 23 professional male wrestlers.
SPW – a local professional wrestling company – usually sets up her fights here with competitors from other countries, particularly Japan, where wrestling is hugely popular and established.
A few times a year, she wrestles overseas in countries such as Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Japan, the United States and Australia.
It is not only women Lee wrestles – she also takes on men twice her size in the ring.
Lee said she was bullied as a child, and watching wrestling on both the internet and TV became an ideal escape for her.
SELF-DEFENCE
“I watched a lot of WWE wrestling clips and I often fantasised about gaining the upper hand, overcoming the bullies one day when I grew up.”
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the US-based pro wrestling organisation, provides what is the ultimate platform for many pro wrestlers. Lee aspires to be featured in WWE. Recently, Singaporean wrestler Sean Tan Li Hao, who performs under the name Dante Chen, made the news for becoming the first Singaporean and South-east Asian wrestler to sign with WWE.
Professional wrestling for women in South-east Asia is some way from WWE – it is very much a niche sport in the region, although it is gaining popularity in Vietnam.
Even there, men still significantly outnumber women.
In Asia, Japan is the most lucrative market for women’s pro wrestling.
The top female pro wrestling federation there used to be Gaea Japan, founded in 1995 by Chigusa Nagayo, a top wrestler who has since retired. Now, the most popular ones are World Wonder Ring Stardom and Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling.
As Lee waits in line for her McDonald’s breakfast of Sausage McMuffin and Milo after finishing work at the gym early one morning, the other patrons probably cannot imagine that she can fly through the air, perform outrageous acrobatic moves, and slug it out with men twice her size.
Despite having been in the industry for over a decade, she has no thoughts of retiring at the moment. “I will fight on until my body cannot take it any more,” she said.
