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It was the very first day of shooting for and I was nervous. Now I'd got the gig with these guys, how would I make it work? First up: filming with top banana Mark Dallas, the man who created it all. He began with a great icebreaker: “This film better not be rubbish, mate.” Hmmm. Nice. OK.

Later I met Jack Jester who told me pretty much the same thing — only with a lizard called Gallus in his hand, which made the whole thing that much more surreal.

Finally, I met up with Grado. We chatted about soup, Ayrshire potatoes and anything else to do with food. Grado photographed everything he ate. At the end of our meeting, he patted me on the back and offered some friendly words of wisdom: “Listen pal, just don’t f*** it up.”

So what was different to that time I had first encountered them? I now realise that they’re performers as well as athletes; that they know their own brand; that they appreciate theatricality.

And that’s when I understood what I had to do: given enough time and space, I could just wind these guys up, point them in a direction and let them go. Like the infamous bunnies in the advert, they would just run and run and run.

All I had to do was film it.

I can remember when the words ‘road trip’ were first brought up. All of us just smiled; something had clicked into place. My boss, Elspeth, had a cheeky glint in her eye but I couldn’t work out why. I think it’s that right then she knew how smelly, filthy and messy the lads were going to get. Let’s face it: three guys away from their partners, meeting pals along the way and drinking every day was never going to end well.

The bus that wrestled

What I hadn’t expected was that it would be so much fun. We met soap stars and reality TV kings; we watched in a mixture of shock and awe as people had menus stapled on their fleshy body parts; and almost every monument we passed got climbed to crown it with a cone.

Behind all the fun, however, Insane Fight Club 2 is about whether the boys could take their brand of mania out of Glasgow and into England — and they succeeded. Sure, some of the cities on tour were more receptive than others, but on walkabout strangers would always come up to them and ask for selfies or autographs.

I watched as people from far and wide came wearing Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW) merchandise they could only have got at gigs to chant their names. This brand really had travelled. From Newcastle to Birmingham, Liverpool to Leeds, ICW had more than arrived.

Insane Wrestling has become huge, even for non-wrestling fans. The ICW wrestlers, even the ones I didn’t film, put on shows to remember. They jumped off balconies, smacked their heads off bar taps and performed moves that seemed pretty dangerous to me. It was a riot, but even as the last plastic glass was being swept up in Birmingham, Mark Dallas was thinking about the next event: Glasgow’s Barrowland Ballroom, where Jack Jester and Drew Galloway were having their title match.

As the big day got closer, Mark decided who would win and become the new face of Insane Championship Wrestling. Watching both these athletes put on the show of their lives for the audience — that was quite something. And my favourite moment of Insane Fight Club 2? That’d have to be the nod to each other at the very point the match ends. For me it was a sign that, behind all the stories and posturing, in and out of the ring, these were just best pals doing something they love.

I hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it.