Four grandmothers from Cardiff flew to Las Vegas and, through a seat mix-up, ended up befriending a professional wrestler. Their friendship has since spread online and drawn interest from a film producer who wants to turn it into a movie.

• Lynn Crawford, Susie Matthews, Rose Sulley, and Christine Goodwin met wrestler DeReiss Gordon after a seat mix-up on an April flight.
• Their friendship went viral, and producer Nick Barton has approached the group about a film.
• The women, all from Cardiff, have since stepped into a wrestling ring and gained a chanting fan base.

A Trip That Began With a Mix-Up

The four women, ages 71 to 80, were traveling to Las Vegas in April for a personal reason. Rose Sulley wanted to scatter the ashes of her late husband, Pete, and her friends came along to help. As they boarded, they found DeReiss Gordon, who wrestles under the name Man Like DeReiss, sitting in a seat they believed was theirs. Gordon later joked that he was outnumbered from the start. The group was a little annoyed at first, but the mood did not last.

By the time the plane landed, a friendship had formed. Gordon invited the women to watch him perform at WrestleMania, and they accepted, even though none of them knew much about wrestling.

From Viral Story to Film Interest

The friendship did not stay private. It spread online and reached news coverage, catching the attention of Nick Barton, the producer behind Calendar Girls, the Full Monty, and Kinky Boots. Barton first heard about the four women and their wrestler friend in May. He has said the story reminded him of the crowd-pleasing British films he had worked on, and he reached out to Gordon and the group, saying he believes it could make a good movie and that he is working on the next steps toward production.

The women had already joked about the idea themselves, but the report places the encounter on a flight to Las Vegas. It does not connect the story to Madison, IN, which lies outside the account.

Grandmothers in the Ring

The group has not been idle while the film talks continue. They reunited in Cardiff for a wrestling event, where professional wrestlers trained them before they climbed into the ring themselves. Susie Matthews put a wrestler in a headlock, and fans waved banners with the women’s photos and chanted for them. The weekend also included an open-top bus tour of the city, a night of bingo, and a group photo in oversized pineapple-shaped sunglasses. Gordon described the four as natural performers.

The reunion turned the four into something like local performers for the weekend, cheered by a crowd that had followed their story online. For women who had known nothing about wrestling only months earlier, stepping between the ropes showed how far the chance meeting had carried them.

Saying Yes to the Unexpected

For the women, the lasting takeaway is about openness to new experiences. Goodwin said the whole thing encouraged her to embrace unexpected opportunities. Matthews, who once worked in a care home, said she had long promised herself that she would not be the person sitting in a chair wishing she had done more. Sulley described the experience as a dream she never wants to wake from. Whether or not a film is ever made, the group says the story has already been worth it, having started with a stranger on a plane.