Interview: Lili Edea, Chronic Illness and Death Match Wrestling
Australian indie wrestler, Lili Edea, has never let chronic illness stop her from pursuing her dream of becoming a wrestler. James initially spoke to Lili in April for Autism Awareness Month, where she discussed her experiences as an autistic wrestler (which you can read here).
Recently, James caught up with Lili to discuss her experiences of chronic illness, near-death experiences, and her big wrestling dream: to compete in a death match.
Thank you to Lili for taking the time to conduct this interview.
*Content Warning: Discussion of near-death experiences and medical procedures.
Q: Since we last spoke, you’ve been on the Australian Mastermind and battled with further health complications. What happened, and how are you now?
“Earlier this year, I was struggling with ‘costochondritis,’ which was an inflammation in the chest, along with burnout. I’ve been doing better lately (knock on wood). Moving to Wrestle Strong Dojo has helped me to find a better wrestling-work/job – personal life balance. I live with my uncle, who is in his 70s, and I am his primary carer, and my father in Tasmania has been dealing with cancer this year too.
I like to think that the adjustment has helped me mentally as well as physically. I do wrestling training once or twice a week, a form of gymnastics on a Thursday (classes) or Friday (trampoline park practice), and try to hit the gym for lifting weights to build strength, and plyometrics for my joints.”
Q: What chronic illnesses do you experience?
“With my pre-existing health conditions, my lungs collapsed six different times in my twenties. It was spontaneous, and the doctors never gave a cause for it. Further research has led me to a connection with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which can sometimes cause collapsed lungs if you have VEDS [Vascular Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome], so I’m in a long-term process of looking into that diagnosis, which might take years and costs and all that stuff.”
Q: How does this impact your pain threshold?
“My pain tolerance is a strange thing. I would say that things that are typically painful for other people that I don’t feel the same way. I experienced a situation where my lung had collapsed beyond a certain threshold that’s safe to re-inflate it on its own. If you don’t get it deflated or don’t puncture the lung to drain the excess air, it can cause a tension pneumothorax, and that can kill you in five minutes. They have to deflate the collapsed lung, but puncturing the chest with a tube that then stays inside your lung for five days.
The tube is the width of my thumb and 8 inches long. I can send you a graphic image of it if you want [James politely declined]. That tube and insertion are not allowed to knock you out, and whatever they gave me, it did not have enough time to kick in properly, so I felt everything. After that experience, nothing is comparatively painful. When my ten was getting stabbed in the chest.”
Q: You are also interested in death match wrestling. What got you interested in that sub-genre? And long-term, do you want to wrestle in death matches?
“The match that made me actually want to do wrestling, rather than just watch like football, was Mick Foley vs. Edge at WrestleMania 22. I want to get put through a table. That looks sick. I’ve been very outspoken about this since coming into wrestling, and apparently, that’s not the way you go about that, which, oppsies, it makes you look like you are there more for the stunts and fame and attention than the love of the game, love of the sports, and of the craft.
Trust me when I say, as much as this is the pinnacle of what I want to do in wrestling, it’s not at the expense or detriment of solid foundational training. I like to think that I’ve stuck with the solid foundational training for four years rather than go off and smash light tubes over my head, yet is a testament to that.
Put me through a god damn table. Light me on fire! Where are the thumbtacks? That’s the holy grail for me. I feel like once I get that death match, it will be the time I potentially have the conversation of how much longer I will need to keep doing this for.”
Q: What are your thoughts on the criticism of death matches as “garbage” from wrestling personalities like Gail Kim and Jim Cornette?
“I think everyone is entitled to their opinion on whether they LIKE death matches or not, but it’s not their place to say whether they should or shouldn’t exist. I think of it like film genres. It’s understandable when someone who prefers romantic comedies doesn’t like a gory slasher. But that doesn’t mean horror shouldn’t be allowed to exist at all. Don’t like it, don’t watch.”
Q: Is there anything critics get right but also get wrong about death matches?
“I think the main thing people get right is the severity and danger involved in. I’d rather have people who take it seriously as a risk and avoid it because they think that level of risk is stupid, than people who just think it’s ‘edgy’ and below them, jump in to prove they can do it, completely underestimate the actual risk, and then get themselves or their opponent seriously injured.”
Q: Have your experiences with chronic illness impacted this interest in death matches?
“Getting morbid, I’ve had a few near-death experiences come from these situations. One time after a surgery, I blacked out in the bathroom, having an assisted shower. I was thinking, “Mum, I think I’m going” and I was sideways and the next time I knew I’m being carried back into the bed, Code Blue, with doctors around me. Then another time was between the lung collapsing, over 50% and then blacking out, vomiting, and thinking this is it, I’m gone, and passing out.
Photo Credit: New Photography Studios/Lili Edea
I think there’s a story that’s there in death match in terms of how I would love to pursue that. I know for a lot of people, it’s just carny BS, but I would love to reclaim that experience of pain. It’s called a death match. It’s in the title, so being able to reclaim that experience, I’m doing this because I’m choosing it. You see that blood over me? That’s me choosing this.”
That concludes our wonderful interview with Lili Edea. LWOPW is extremely grateful for her time.
More From LWOS Pro Wrestling
Header photo – New Photography Studios/Lili Edea (lili_edea on X) – Stay tuned to the Last Word on Pro Wrestling for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.
James is an English teacher and passionate wrestling fan turned writer/analyst with a love of exploring big, small, controversial, and complex with wrestling from different perspectives. I dissect prevailing narratives to uncover different truths. I write about half-naked men fighting in tights through a philosophical, sociological, psychological, and/or literary lens.
