THE SECRET ORIGIN OF HARLEY CAMERON’S VENTRILOQUIST ACT

We wouldn’t want you to have to go much more than 24 hours without some Harley Cameron content*, so...

Ever since I learned about Cameron’s surprisingly great ventriloquism skills during her holiday Cameo sales drive (shout to Earl and travel-sized Earl), I wondered how she learned and perfected them. Now that her ventriloquist act has become a popular part of her wrestling one in AEW — and played a big role in setting up her match against Mercedes Moné for the TBS title at Grand Slam Australia this Saturday (Feb. 15) — my colleagues who actually interview wrestlers are getting the scoop for me.

Rick Ucchino, now over at SI.com’s The Takedown, spoke with Harley about it in an interview posted last week.

“I used to work at a cabaret for many years and there was a lot of variety acts there and such. The cabaret itself, which was Dracula’s Cabaret, was very big on puppetry. They’re an amazing show. Every year they’d do a different puppetry act. So I became obsessed with puppetry from that and it kind of made me dive down this rabbit hole of doing it at work and then doing it in my own time at home.

“I studied a lot of voice techniques for a long time. Also, years ago, I lost my voice and I had to take speech pathology to basically learn how to sing and talk around what I had, what are called, vocal nodules. Which is where you get calluses on your vocal chords. It was a blessing in disguise really, because it taught me a lot of helpful things that helped with this particular act. So I was upset that I lost my voice back in the day and now I can use puppets. So, it turned out all good.”

Cameron also shared that story with the UK’s Daily Star, and added a bit about bringing ventriloquism into pro wrestling:

“And I never thought I would do it when I became a wrestler. But here we are. I made mini Mercedes — she was an arts and crafts. And I have to say a big thank you to Chris, who works with us in the wardrobe department. He made her gear, which was actually some of my gear that I lent to her, and he created that fashion. So it was a group effort.”

So thanks to the whole team... but mostly to Harley.

And Lil’ Mercedes, of course.

* Tried to warn you...

2025-02-10T23:45:05Z