Fight For Life - The Life Tour

FIGHT FOR LIFE | THE LIFE TOUR

Fight for Life, a youth awareness program, was started by professional wrestler Sean 'Massive Damage' Dunster in 2011. The goal has been to educate people on the issues of substance abuse and mental health, while providing an alternate outlet and mentorship to those interested in learning about wrestling. Sean received the 2014 CAC humanitarian award and was part of the Edmonton Honour Roll for the work he’s done in the community.

Sage ‘The Matriarch’ Morin joined the organization in 2023. Hailing from Saddle Lake Cree Nation, Sage teaches Indigenous youth about the practice of “Miyo-Pimotsowin”, which best translates to living “a good life”. Using the medicine wheel to find balance across one’s mental, physical, spiritual and emotional beings, Sage teaches the steps to reclaim one’s health and balance.

For 50 years, wrestlers like Sean and Sage have travelled through rural Manitoba on Tony Condello’s Northern Wrestling Tours. The Tour visits remote Indigenous communities in Northern Manitoba that are only connected by ice roads a few weeks each Winter.

While filming “The Death Tour” documentary in the winter of 2023, the wrestlers and the film crew were impacted by the loss of several of the local community members - including some youth who had taken their own lives. What many learned on this trip is that systemic racism, isolation, generational trauma, and limited access to essential resources all contribute to death and suicide rates among Canada’s Indigenous population. Rates that are triple the national average - and it’s even higher in many isolated Northern communities.

Local Indigenous fans of the Northern Wrestling Tour have told the wrestlers and film crew that the Tour should be called ‘The Life Tour’ not only because the trip gives Southerners a taste of what life is really like on many Indigenous reservations across Canada, but because the events themselves feel like a cathartic celebration of life and shared passion that both the communities and wrestlers anticipate year-round.

Tony Condello’s Northern Wrestling Tour is often the only non-community organized event that happens in these ice-road communities. Children of multiple generations in these communities have attended these events and it provides a lot of happy memories. Due to the isolation, it is very cost prohibitive to get outside health assistance, nevermind entertainment.

Sage and Sean were motivated to return to those communities visited while on the Northern Wrestling Tour in order to bring their Fight for Life program to the youth.

This coming February 2025, after Tony Condello’s Northern Wrestling Tour, Sean and Sage will double back to the communities the film visited during the filming of “The Death Tour” in order to present the film directly to local audiences and put on their Fight for Life seminar for the families, youth and children of these communities.

Donations will go toward Sean and Sage’s “Fight for Life - The Life Tour” in February 2025 and the expansion of the Fight For Life program in Indigenous communities across Canada.