Simon crossed the Atlantic to build a wrestling career. In America, he found a wife, a home, and a future he had never planned.
At a press conference in Jacksonville in early 2019, Simon watched as the roster of a new professional wrestling promotion was revealed. Then Olivia walked onto the stage. He knew her immediately. They had been messaging each other from opposite sides of the Atlantic. What he did not know was that she had secretly signed with the same company.
Olivia had not known about Simon, either. Both were bound by nondisclosure agreements. Neither had been able to tell the other.
“Hey, we’re going to be colleagues,” Simon texted her.
He thought they had just become coworkers. He did not yet know they were beginning a shared American life.
To wrestling fans, they would become Kip Sabian and Penelope Ford, two of the most recognizable personalities in All Elite Wrestling. Behind those personas were Simon and Olivia—two people who had followed the same unlikely ambition from opposite sides of an ocean.
Before Jacksonville, Simon’s American journey had begun alone in a parking lot in Wales.
He had just finished an independent wrestling show and was preparing for the six-and-a-half-hour drive home when an email arrived. It contained an offer to sign with a new American promotion—one that had not yet been publicly announced. For years, America had represented the possibility of turning wrestling into a sustainable career. Now that possibility was sitting in his inbox. Simon climbed into his car and drove home in near silence.
“That’s one of those memories that stays there, hopefully forever,” he told us.
The offer was the culmination of a dream that had started when Simon was 16. A lifelong Spider-Man fan, he saw a masked wrestler with a superhero gimmick combining comic-book theater with in-ring storytelling. It opened his eyes to what wrestling could be: athletic competition, character, and imagination brought together in one performance.
He began training soon afterward.
England gave him his start, but the independent circuit offered little financial stability. Wrestlers performed before modest crowds, traveled long distances, and often returned home with no clear path toward making the profession sustainable. Simon understood that if wrestling was going to become his life’s work, he would eventually have to leave England. Like many young British wrestlers, he looked toward the major American promotions and wondered whether he could earn a place among them.
Olivia reached the same profession through an entirely different route.
She was 21 when a friend brought her to a local independent show. That chance introduction led to an 800-squat tryout that left her unable to walk comfortably for a week. Instead of driving her away, the experience drew her in. With a background in gymnastics and cheerleading, Olivia already understood the physical discipline behind performance. Wrestling gave her a new place to use it. What began as an unexpected night at a local show soon became her career.
By the time they arrived in Jacksonville, Simon and Olivia had each accomplished something improbable. Separately, they had earned positions with the same emerging American company. The roster announcement was the first time either realized that their professional futures had been moving toward the same place.
Their personal lives soon followed.
Not long after the press conference, Simon flew over to New Jersey for their first date. The friendship they had maintained across the Atlantic became a relationship, and the relationship eventually became a marriage. For Simon, that changed the meaning of America.
“Thanks to her, I decided to build my life over here,” he says. “I don’t know what I would have done—I love the States, I love living over here. But I don’t know if I would have made the decision that this was going to be my long-term home if it wasn’t for meeting my wife. Everything fell into place in a real poetic kind of way.”
Wrestling brought Simon to America. Olivia gave him a reason to make it home.
Their shared profession has helped them sustain a life that would be difficult for many couples to understand. Both know the injuries, early flights, late nights, and long drives home after a show. Neither needs the other to explain the physical and emotional demands of the work.
The travel that might have separated them has instead allowed them to experience the world together. Living in the United States also means they can often fly to a show and return home the same night, rather than spending weeks commuting from overseas.
When Simon describes his American dream, he does not begin with fame or professional recognition. He begins with stability.
“For me, being an English boy living out his American dream, my main goal in life was to be able to have a family, have a house, and be able to provide for my family,” he says. “I’ve been able to do that through living my American dream. I would say I’ve already achieved it—it’s just that I’m still dreaming through the process.”
Simon and Olivia are now looking beyond the ring. They plan to continue developing their combined brand while building the foundation for a family of their own.
At that press conference in Jacksonville, Simon believed he was watching two professional careers unexpectedly intersect. Looking back, it was something larger.
He had crossed the Atlantic to become a wrestler. What he found was a wife, a home, and an American life they are still building together.