Hero Lee inspires new generation of wrestling fans

Macy Lucas, a local professional wrestler from 2002-03 to 2014-15 known as The Freak Show, has come out of retirement to wrestle as Hero Lee.

Chris Abbott

Editor

Macy Lucas is back.

Known in as The Freak Show for more than a decade of professional independent wrestling, Lucas now has a whole new persona.

Coming out of retirement in November 2024, Lucas created ‘Hero Lee,’ making a full-circle comeback with Mike Shea’s Independent Pro Wrestling, a promotion which had six shows planned in Brantford this year.

“My first match back was an IPW fundraiser in Hamilton.”

Lucas, who lives in Delhi and works in Simcoe, said the more he watched wrestling, whether it was on TV or at Indie shows (independents), the more he saw people wearing face paint… and face paint was one of the things that set Freak Show apart from everybody else.

“Even the tattoos, because now everybody has tattoos, everybody is tatted up. So if I was to come back as the Freak Show, ‘the look’ is gone.

“These kids today are so athletic. So you’ve got to try to keep up to these kids, in that sense, but I’m not going to be able to - they are 20 years younger than me. So I thought, with that creative flow, ‘I should get rid of this gimmick, I should do something new. I’ve got to rely on martial arts.’

Enter Hero Lee.

“My love for Bruce Lee is still there… and I like super heroes.” It’s loosely based on Kato, the Bruce Lee chauffeur/valet character in The Green Hornet. Dressed in black, Lucas does not wear a mask, but he wrestles wearing a chauffeur cap. He also enters the ring wearing a chauffeur-style coat.

“It’s the evolution. Not just the character, but yourself as well, because you also grow as you get older. And I think differently. I don’t listen to heavy metal music like I did when I was Freak Show. The only mosh pits I’m in these days is when my three grandkids start running into me,” he added with a laugh.

“It took a while to get the fans back, in a way, because now, after so long, you’re building a relationship with a new crowd. The crowd doesn’t know you, so how do you get the crowd? ‘Oh yes, this is how…’ And I’d start to do my thing. Now, after about a year with IPW, I can safely say I’m one of their top faces.”

Lucas, who began his career with Shea in 2002-03 (OPW) in Tillsonburg, soon switched to Jay McDonald’s Pro Wrestling Xtreme (2004), which was succeeded by McDonald’s Classic Championship Wrestling (2010), both based in Tillsonburg. Always a fan-favourite, The Freak Show continued to wrestle with another company after his CCW ‘retirement’ in 2014-15, but he remembers doing a couple more shows for McDonald in Delhi.

“He (McDonald) let me be the bad guy,” said Lucas, who was a heel in his last full season. “We had a lot of heat. I just want to add that we were a really good ‘bad guy,’ not just a good ‘good guy.’”

Wearing a kilt, he was known as Mr. Lucas for his last local match teaming up with Evilyn.

“I didn’t get the full 15 years (of pro wrestling), but if you add those three years after retirement…

“It was emotional, stepping away from it, but yet it wasn’t. At the time, when you’re hurt, you’re thinking ‘Is this worth it?’ Plus, there were times when I had three shows on the weekend, but I would have my kids on the weekend when I was going somewhere to wrestle. One year was totally like that – I missed a whole summer with my kids. So I was sore, I was losing love on it and I just wanted to hang out with the boys (two sons).”

Today, professional wrestling is thriving even more than when Lucas got his start.

“Social media helps out a lot,” he noted. “There are more wrestling promotions, more shows available. If every wrestling promoter was to put me on every show they have, I’d have a full year. I’d be busy just here.

“But I won’t book myself to wrestle six times a month. If I wrestle once or twice a month, I am happy with that.”

He is enjoying the martial arts aspect of wrestling entertainment, and sometimes guiding young wrestlers.

“I need to be able to incorporate my stuff with his, because he’s going to strictly do this kind of thing. If I can teach somebody, if I can help them out, that’s one of my missions. Come back, work with the new guys and have good matches.

“My love for wrestling is back tenfold. I had to take some time off… started going to wrestling shows and I was right into it as a fan. I was having so much fun as a fan, I started thinking, ‘I might want to get back into this.’”

Coming out of retirement meant getting back into wrestling shape. “I wasn’t working out, wasn’t keeping in shape. I noticed climbing stairs was tough. Injuries were still there. I said ‘Enough with being lazy about this kind of thing, it’s time to get back into it.’”

He started lifting weights again, and started going to physiotherapy and massage therapy (The Functional Approach in Simcoe).

“Now I do martial arts five times a week in the morning, do my workouts, and I feel great. Everything’s starting to get better.

“I’m also doing this for my grandkids - it gives me a third life. With YouTube and Facebook, they will be able to see something else that poppa loves, and hopefully inspires them. When you look at social media, you don’t see ‘heroes’ anymore. You see influencers, you see streamers, you see all these people and they are not your heroes because all they want is money. They are just doing it for the money, and me, I’m doing it for the love, and to give my grandkids somebody to look up to.”