‘The Blue Ridge Beast,’ Rex Keller, has eyes on launching Valley-based wrestling promotion

In the ring, Rex Keller is every bit “The Blue Ridge Beast” – 6’3”, 330 pounds, reminds you of Big Van Vader, the former NFL player Leon White, who won championships in WCW and WWE.

Out of the ring, Keller is a gentle giant named Dustin Lloyd, the graduate of a small Christian school in Rockingham County, who made it in pro wrestling on his second go-round.

“I grew up during the Monday Night Wars, so I kind of got into it there. I tried to train when I turned 18. I went to Atlanta, and basically, they took my money, beat me up, and sent me on my way,” said Lloyd, whose second go at pro wrestling had him enrolling in Boogie’s Wrestling Camp, a training school in Southwest Virginia run by the legendary Jimmy “The Boogie Woogie Man” Valiant, 84, who starred in the Mid-Atlantic territory in the 1980s.

Lloyd debuted as the masked Rex Keller in 2019, and has been wrestling on the indy circuit throughout the Mid-Atlantic region from his home base in New Market for the past seven years.

Looking ahead, Lloyd has his eyes on launching a Valley-based wrestling promotion, to run shows in the Augusta County-Rockingham County area that was a popular stop for Jim Crockett Promotions in the territory days into the late 1980s.

The likes of “Nature Boy” Ric Flair, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Ricky Steamboat were regulars on local cards at Augusta Expo and Harrisonburg High School in the salad days for the local pro wrestling scene.

“There’s nothing regular here these days, and I feel like that’s something that’s missing,” Lloyd said. “Wrestling brings about a community. I want to do something for the community. I grew up here, I love it here, and there’s just nothing for wrestling fans. That’s basically what inspires me.”

Lloyd hopes to have Blue Ridge Wrestling up and running next year.

The shows would feature talents that Lloyd has gotten to know from working the regional circuit and from the alumni network with Boogie’s Wrestling Camp.

I can speak from experience, both as a kid who grew up a fan, and attended matches at Augusta Expo and Harrisonburg High School that routinely drew a couple of thousand fans per night, to my brief run on the promotions side of the wrestling business – I was part of an effort to stage a nationally televised pay-per-view at Augusta Expo in 2011 that drew nearly 3,000 paying fans in addition to the TV audience – there is a market for live wrestling here.

“I talked to Boogie and told him about what I was doing, and he says, Man, that used to be Crockett. That used to be Crockett. That’s hot out there, buddy. He’s giving me encouragement to push forward,” Lloyd said.