Wrestlecade 2021 – Meeting Leyla Hirsch, Thunder Rosa, and KiLynn King
One of my favorite moments of Wrestlecade was meeting someone who wasn’t advertised to be there: Leyla Hirsch. I’ve been a fan of Leyla’s since she debuted in AEW. I’m a big fan of her moveset and I’ve got high hopes her upcoming heel turn is going to give her some momentum over the next several months.
Brandy and I were standing in line to meet Thunder Rosa whose table was next to KiLynn King. Thunder Rosa takes her time with the fans and so the line was a little slow moving. As Brandy and I looked around and chit-chatted, she noticed someone chatting with KiLynn and asked me if that was Leyla. I looked up and sure thing it was! We decided we would track down her table once we finished meeting Thunder and KiLynn.
Our meeting with Thunder Rosa went fantastic. She was incredibly personable and Brandy got to ask her a pressing question: how many outfits do you have? (The answer: somewhere around 25-30, but she sells them in order to have new ones made.) We got our picture and a t-shirt and then made it over to KiLynn.
KiLynn was incredibly gracious and friendly. She seemed happy to be hanging out at Wrestlecade and we asked several questions including where was Lelay’s table. KiLynn said she actually didn’t have a table and instead was just there hanging out. This blew my mind, because there were some questionable “big stars” who were less deserving than Lelay of a table. Nonetheless, I decided to try and see if I could run into her if I saw her amongst the crowd.
It didn’t take long to find Lelay and I called out her name just as she was about to disappear into the sea of people. She turned around and smiled, and I gotta say, she was one of the friendliest people we met. I didn’t want to bother her too much, so I just asked if we could get a quick photo, but she stopped and asked us how were we enjoying the event and just took her time to chat. It blew both Brandy and I away. We took our picture and gushed over our fandom and despite being just a few feet away from Kamille’s table, I told her how we watched the NWAs’ Women Show just to see her take on Kamille, then I told her she definitely got the best match out of Kamille’s career and she smiled and acknowledged my comment. I joked when I saw Kamille looking our way and said she might have to protect me if she heard me. Everyone laughed and it was a fantastic meeting.
I told Lelay I hope she has a table next year and I really hope she does. She honestly seemed unphased about making money at the event and just said she was there because it sounded cool and there were lots of great people to meet. It’s funny how these little moments can really enhance your fandom and after mine increased ten fold after seeing what a kind person she really is.
