Rogan Karguis Interview – PWDU Talks To The STW Champion Rogan Karguis

Hello friends and welcome to a special chat with Perth’s Southern Territory Wrestling’s Heavyweight Champion, Rogan Karguis. We go into a bit of his history with wrestling as well as the struggles in the Australian Wrestling scene and where he thinks things are going. We also discussed his upcoming championship defense on June 21st at STW Destined for Victory.

---

RAZ – I want to start this with the big question. How does it feel being the STW Heavyweight Champion?

RK – I guess it’s a lot of responsibility. When you’re a wrestler in a promotion it’s kinda like, come and go, but when you’re given the responsibility of pretty much being the guy for a company, it starts to be kinda like a weight on your shoulders I’d say. Once that weight is placed on your shoulder, you feel like everything you do as a champion is representing the company. So, more eyes are going to be watching you basically, not just the fans, but also your peers.

---

RAZ – You were saying at the start of your career obviously that you were given a run where you were told that this is the place to be. How did it feel stepping out of these boundaries and how did it feel to you to completely leave that company and make this name that you’ve made for yourself now?

RK – It’s um, like, the moment I actually left was in 2022. I started in a company called New Horizon Pro Wrestling; they are a smaller company in Perth. When I first left, when I actually left it felt very much like jumping without a parachute because I had contacted EPW beforehand to start training, but I hadn’t received a reply. So, I left without receiving that reply, so I was very much like “what happens if EPW doesn’t accept?” you know what I mean? I had those thoughts running in my head that I just cut ties with the only company I’m training with, now I’ve got no company. So, it was very; very scary at first but now that I’ve grown to understand how things operate and how welcoming EPW was, um, that this is the way it is, this is how it should be. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy that I was trained from New Horizon. They taught me how to be a wrestler, and they showed me the intricacies of being, you know being responsible in the business.

---

RAZ – What is your thoughts on the WA wrestling scene at the moment?

RK – I feel like we’re in a boom period personally. I feel like there has been a couple of downtimes within Perth, especially when I first started. Melbourne as always, has been the most dominant place to be with Australian wrestling. But I feel like last year, especially around the EPW side of things, we’ve just been killing it with Perth.

---

RAZ – Do you see yourself working in other states?

RK – That is definitely the next step, I feel like I would love that. Just to have the opportunity to go over there. I’ve been to Adelaide once, but that was a couple of years back for a company called ACW. But I would like to just go around the country and get my name to that level.

---

RAZ – What are your thoughts on your opponent at Destined for Victory?

RK – The Great George! My opponent. So, this guy is a very smelly Macedonian. I’m allowed to say this because I am it too, he is a very smelly wog. And I don’t like smelly wog’s, if you’re a wog, you need to at least have some kind of deodorant to mask your smell. You just smell; you just stink alright. Wash your gear too. My god, Great George if you’re watching, please wash your gear, like at least once. When I get in that ring and all I smell is rotten eggs and whatever the hell he eats for dinner, it’s insane.

But I’ll get serious. Great George is a great wrestler, a very underrated wrestler in Perth. I feel like anytime his music hits no matter how annoyingly and disgustingly crap it is, it gets over so well. Like it’s just insane the pops he gets, and I’m just perplexed why he isn’t used more in the Perth wrestling scene.

Every time I’m wrestling Geroge, it’s always a great time because I know I’m gonna have a good match, I know he’s gonna protect me and I’m gonna protect him, we just have that level of rapport with each other and I’m very happy to finally, not finally but wrestle him again because every time we wrestle it’s always been different. I’ve had opponents where I’ve wrestled multiple times and it’s kind of pretty much the same match every time. It’s always different, there’s always different ideas, different stories that go into them and June 21st will be no different. I’m sure it’ll be a great match and looking to having nothing more, well nothing less than that.

---

RAZ – I want to go back in your life a bit, I want to find out where your passion for pro wrestling started, how you first learnt about pro wrestling, and what gave you that drive to pick up the phone to contact a wrestling school?

RK – So this might be a bit of a strange one. I think I was maybe 3, 4 years old. No, it was definitely 4. My dad had just won money at the c**ino (ah the fun of spending money only to be censored), and decided that it would be a great idea to spend all that money in a penthouse suite at the Crown Hotel. So, we all went there one day, I barely remember the night itself, but I do remember that there was a TV. A quite expensive TV at the time and RAW was on and it was a wedding between Kane and Lita. I remember Kane choke slamming Matt Hardy off the stage, and I was thinking to myself in my three- or four-year-old brain “what the hell is that?”, that is very interesting. Ever since then I’ve been hooked.

As for the other question, which is a completely different story on how I got into wrestling. I was in grade 10 and I just felt lost. You know how every teenager feels when they come up to the point in time where it’s just like “oh what do I when I grow up” kind of thing. Everyone had their kinda ideas, or everyone didn’t, and I was just one of those guys who legitimately had no clue what I wanted or what direction I wanted to go in, so I said as soon as I graduate, because I was told by my parents that “you have to graduate, because we don’t want you to drop out.” It got to that point that I didn’t know what to do, so I looked up on Google, first pro wrestling and NHPW popped up, waited until I graduated and sent an application in and got into one of their tryouts.

---

RAZ – STW has also announced that they are renaming their women’s division to the Valkyries, I know you may not know the answer, but do you have a thought process on why they have done this and what initiated the change from being a women’s division to the Valkyries?

RK – Honestly, I’m not exactly sure, I would wager to think it would mean because they are trying to start up more of a surge, I guess of interest. Personally speaking, when I was seeing, I mean I still am wrestling there, that the women’s division was getting a bit stale, I guess. The attention wasn’t being given to them. Now I feel like with the rebranding, I’m guessing, at least I’m hoping that will give them more of a surge to it, more interest, more intrigue. But I guess we will see how it goes. But I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes.

---

RAZ – How do you think the Australian wrestling scene is handling the uptake of popularity compared to other industries and other professions?

RK – Yeah, I think we are spectacular. Like I said, the fact that we have so many companies now wanting to showcase their talent on our soil it’s fantastic. The more that we knock at that door, the more we barge that door down, the more people will see that we have been hungry for a very long time, and we deserve to be fed. I feel like if we keep doing what we are doing now and just keep killing it, whether it be MCW, EPW, STW or whatever. Eventually more people will see, more people will notice, and we’ll get more companies to come down.

---

You can check out the full interview over at the Pro Wrestling Downunder YouTube page. PW Downunder – YouTube or the video below

For those of you in Western Australia, you can grab your tickets for STW Presents: Destined for Victory 2025 via the link below.

Southern Territory Wrestling Presents: Destined for Victory 2025