It’s WrestleMania week, and this Baltimore wrestling fan is living out his dream

For Brian H. Waters, wrestling isn’t a sport. It’s a way of life.

Walk into his Northeast Baltimore apartment and you might think you’ve accidentally wandered into a pop-up shop or comic book store.

You’ll find autographed replica and custom wrestling belts on the walls with the signatures of Hall of Famers such as Bret Hart. Scattered across the floor are dozens of wrestling video games dating back decades and a special collection of wrestling show DVDs.

This weekend, Waters can be found by “The Grandest Stage of Them All”: WrestleMania, the biggest event in wrestling. He’s watched the event — where the best and brightest WWE pros have entertained audiences for over 40 years — for as long as he can remember. But these days it’s not just as a fan.

Waters turned his lifelong passion into a career.

The Baltimore native is in Las Vegas, racking up interviews with wrestling stars as they gear up for the most important weekend of their lives. He works for The Ringer, a sports and pop culture podcast network under Spotify, for which he produces shows such as “The Ringer Wrestling Show” and “The Masked Man Show,” and doubles as a host and producer for “The Ringer Wrestling Worldwide.”

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He heard about the job in 2021 as he was contemplating leaving work as a media communications specialist at Johns Hopkins, where there were a lot of changes happening. “I was praying because this is the job that I want,” said Waters, 38. “This is everything.”

He has amassed thousands of followers across platforms who tune in for his wrestling expertise. Some have kept up with him for more than a decade, listening to “The Wrestling Wrealm” podcast he launched with fellow Morgan State alum Dwayne T. Allen in 2011.

“It’s like, ‘Man, people really listen to what we have to say,’” Allen said.

Waters’ mom believes his fandom was revealed in the womb, where she said he would kick every time the sport was on TV.

“She [said] she knew from that moment on I was going to be a boy,” he said, sitting in one of his favorite WrestleMania jackets.

The excitement was generational. Waters’ grandfather, father and uncle almost always had wrestling on television. Sometimes the family tested moves on each other. Waters, known as the “submission specialist” growing up, recalled tapping out in pain when his younger sister, Meagan, put him in a move called the “Steiner Recliner.”

Waters’ career has allowed him to parlay his knowledge of the sport into amazing opportunities: traveling to premium live events, talking to wrestling legends such as Shawn Michaels about the infamous “Montreal Screwjob,” and connecting with fans of his shows in real life.

“The day-to-day is fun. The quick turnaround, it’s a thrill, because you watch ‘[Monday Night] Raw’ for all the night before, and then the next day you’re editing, cutting it up, boom, you gotta put it out there so fans can hear,” Waters said.

“It’s been a blessing to watch my brother take his passion and really turn it into something that he’s always dreamed of doing,” said Allen, 37, who dubbed Waters “the wrestling encyclopedia.”

Waters and Allen are part of a larger community of Black wrestling fans who connect over the sport through online communities. They feel they are well represented in the characters and storylines of wrestling.

“It’s the place where we can express our art and our desire and our love for the art,” Waters said.

It’s also a community he can share with his kids. Jonathan, 15, and Aryanna, 10, enjoy watching wrestling. Aryanna in particular is happy to see Black women in the spotlight, like her favorite wrestler, Bianca Belair.

“It makes me feel good to see them enjoy it as much as I do,” Waters said.