Wrestler grapples with business for Apprentice fame

Lord Sugar, 64, is offering to become a partner and plough £250,000 of investment into the winning candidate’s business idea.

The eighth series of the hit BBC1 show kicks off next Wednesday with the tycoon warning the wannabes in typically abrasive style: “Don’t try and hide. We’re not playing ‘Where’s Wally’ here.

“I’m not looking for Lord Lucan, I’m looking for somebody who is going to put themselves forward and show me that they have got the aggression and business acumen to be my partner.”

He tells them: “If I wanted a friend, I’d get a dog. I’m looking for a partner, the Marks to my Spencer, the Lennon to my McCartney.”

Nick Hewer and Karren Brady return as Lord Sugar’s trusted advisers, whittling down the contestants as they perform a series of tasks over the next 12 weeks.

The candidates include 26-year-old recruitment manager Ricky Martin, from Hampshire, who is a professional wrestler in the evening and at weekends.

He boasts: “I truly am the reflection of perfection.”

Another contestant, Katie Wright, is a 26-year-old editorial and research director, who lives in London.

The married Fulham football fan, who wishes she had been the brains behind Heinz baked beans, says: “I would call myself ‘The Blonde Assassin’.

“I let people under-estimate me just so I can blow them out of the water.”

Several candidates profess to have had an entrepreneurial streak at a young age.

Bilyana Apostolova, 25, a risk analyst who “got myself from a Communist block of flats in Bulgaria to the top of a skyscraper in the heart of the city of London”... says she collected snails from her grandparents’ farm to sell aged six.