New pro wrestling company aims to bring back regular shows, offer outlet to local fans, performers

Urijah Upton moved back to Sioux Falls from the West Coast after high school for two reasons: to save money and learn professional wrestling.

The 22-year-old spent part of his youth in South Dakota but finished out high school in the Northern California city of Rio Vista. It’s warmer there but expensive, and Rio Vista didn’t have something Sioux Falls did: Nick “Eugene” Dinsmore. The one-time WWE star and longtime pro wrestling trainer moved to Tea in 2016 and, until about two years ago, ran a wrestling school in the town’s industrial park.

Upton had dreamt of performing in the ring since boyhood, so Dinsmore’s migration to the Northern Plains felt like “almost a match made in heaven,” Upton said.

“He was right there in the town I used to live in, the town where my mom still lived,” Upton said. “So I thought I might as well move back and start training.”

It has worked out well so far. In the 2 1/2 years since his return to the prairie, Upton has suplexed, body-slammed and hopped off top ropes in Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and Montana.

But Upton’s opportunities to perform in Sioux Falls have been limited lately by slow bookings from Flagship Pro Wrestling for the past year or so. The promotion has been all but dormant since its last show in March, which came a few months after its purchase by out-of-state investors.

Fans and performers have been in the lurch in Sioux Falls as a result, in spite of the city’s growing crop of homegrown pro wrestling talent. Dinsmore has moved to Florida; Flagship’s local owners still wrestle but have stepped out of management.

So the talent stepped up. Four Dinsmore-trained locals launched New Sound Wrestling this spring, with an eye to offering fans and wrestlers something consistent and widening its net to draw in more regional and national talent to play off local performers.

One of the co-owners has a story similar to Upton’s. Keagan Hicks was 20 years old and living in Sioux City four years ago when COVID hit. He took it as a reflection point, asking himself what he wanted to do with his life.

And what he wanted to do was wrestle.

“I literally Googled ‘wrestling schools near me,’ and Eugene’s school was the first to come up,” Hicks said.

He made the call to move to Sioux Falls in May of that year. Dinsmore’s former school “is pretty much the only reason I’m here.”

In character as wrestler “Tommie Douglas” – the real name of the grandfather who got Hicks hooked on pro wrestling – Hicks performed with Vinnie “Dagz” Olson and Nick “Lucky Lund” Lund, the duo that sold Flagship last fall. Olson and Lund have since thrown their support behind New Sound.

“After Flagship, I had a moment of not wanting to have any more bosses. I wanted to be my own boss,” Hicks said.

Amanda Mensing and her husband, De’Lorian Diggs, are two other partners in New Sound Venure. Like Hicks, they felt like Sioux Falls was hungry for more consistent wrestling shows.

Kaedin Brasel, Amanda Mensing, De’Lorian Diggs and Keagan Hicks

Also like Upton and Hicks, Mensing is a lifelong fan. The physicality of the art form drew her in initially, Mensing said, but the soap operatic storylines were the eventual hook for a deeper appreciation of the culture. She knew there was a well of interest in Sioux Falls, but it wasn’t until Dinsmore’s first few shows at the Coliseum back in 2016 that she realized just how many of her fellow residents felt the way she did about pro wrestling.

“I remember those first few shows. There were lines around the block,” Mensing said. 

She was reminded of that early excitement as local shows grew more sporadic over the past year. She and her partners felt someone needed to step up.

“We knew the market was there. It’s just a matter of getting the word out there.”

New Sound had a practice-run show in March in Valley Springs and hosted another soft launch-style show last week outside Herb N’ Legend on the southeast edge of downtown Sioux Falls.

Saturday, New Sound will host former WWE star Paul London and hand out its championship belt at the South Dakota Military Heritage Alliance on West Russell Street. It’s set to be the first in what Mensing expects to be monthly or bimonthly ticketed events. General admission is $20; front-row seats are $25.

That all four owners – Hicks, Mensing, Diggs and Kaedin “Krash” Brasel – started as fans and then trained as performers should count as a selling point for the new promotion, they say.

They know what they want from a show, but they’ve also all taken their share of “bumps.” That’s wrestling parlance for a solid landing on the back after a body slam or suplex that sometimes doubles as a measure of a performer’s commitment.

“People talk about wrestling like it’s fake, and it’s absolutely not. Every bump I’ve taken hurts. I’ve actually been speared by my own husband,” Mensing said, referring to a move akin to a high-speed football tackle to an opponents’ midsection.

Mensing met Diggs at Dinsmore’s training school. The Milwaukee native and South Dakota State University graduate had noticed her as a “front-row person” at shows but “really noticed her” when she showed up for class. The two were married in April.

Diggs did a bit of backyard wrestling as a teen, but it wasn’t until his start in Sioux Falls that he began to learn the ins and outs of a good show. 

“These wrestlers feed off what the crowd is doing,” Mensing said. “That’s what makes it so much different than a show in a giant venue or something on television.”

That’s a key element for Diggs too. A good indie wrestling show, he said, is more immersive and personal than something you’d see on television or in a stadium. 

“With some wrestling arena shows, unless you’re sitting up front, you don’t get that up-front experience,” Diggs said. “When it comes to indie shows, you get more interpersonal with the fans.”

For those who’ve yet to experience an indie pro wrestling show in Sioux Falls, Mensing stressed that there’s a significant difference between wrestling on television and wrestling in person.

That’s especially true in smaller venues where the performers can feed off the crowd to build the story of each match, Mensing said.

Mensing sees New Sound’s four-person team and its roots in Sioux Falls fandom as a major upside to the new promotion. 

Hicks is a self-taught video editor who said he has a hand in “a bit of everything.” Brasel does social media posting and designs posters for the shows. Mensing and Diggs deal with bookings and a lot of the business end of New Sound — Mensing’s day job is project management. 

All four have a hand in storylines and match ideas. 

“We’re really good at bouncing ideas off of each other,” Mensing said. “That’s good and bad because sometimes you can get too many minds and too many opinions, right? But I think four is kind of a perfect spot.”