Ethan Stryfe

Kevin Ross Pierce (born 10/31/1983) is an American professional wrestler and businessman better known as **Ethan Stryfe**who is currently a free agent but is known for his time around the independent scene and his time in Florida's **International Championship Wrestling Alliance (ICWA)**where he was the promotion's longest reigning world champion and a founding member of the "**Dominion**" stable.

As of April the 16th of 2019, it was announced that Ethan has signed with the Omega Wrestling Alliance, and sorted into their Olympus brand.

## **Early Life**:

Ethan was born in the heart of the Northwest Arkansas area in the college town of Fayetteville and was on both his junior high and high school’s rugby and wrestling teams. His first introduction to professional wrestling was when he visited his family visited his grandparents in Dallas Texas where he would watch matches from the regional World Class Wrestling Alliance promotion based out of the DFW area.

When he was sixteen, Ethan informed his parents that he wanted to become a professional wrestler but while they supported him in this endeavor like everything else, he agreed to get a degree first so that he would have something to fall back on and he would eventually graduate from college with a business degree.

## **Year Zero-the Dojo and starting out**:

After graduating from college, Ethan sought out a couple of wrestling schools before eventually finding himself at the infamous “Slayton Family Dojo” in Cameron North Carolina where he trained alongside Reno Dumont, Jenna Rhodes, Kenta Tseng, Kevin Ortiz, and Cameron Locke in Marcus Slayton’s unique hybrid style of Puresou and submission wrestling.

Graduating from the Dojo, Ethan and his fellow graduates Kevin and Cameron were signed to the International Championship Wrestling Alliance where he made his debut on May twenty first, two thousand in a winning effort against Dan Lea in a hard fought match that would showcase a hint of the kind of wrestler that he would become.

Two months later, Ethan would be apart of what many people called a “Dojo War Match” that had Ethan paired with Kenta Tseng against the Insane Wrestling Federation World tag team champions in “Screaming” Chris Morton and Reno Dumont-Dangerous Minds-in a hard fought tag team match at ICWA’s “Genesis” PPV which Ethan’s team lost.

Ethan would then be put into a tournament to crown a new ICWA Television champion due to the previous champion, Peter Graves, being forced to relinquish the title due to injury, Ethan would have a furious uphill battle to contend with a he would have to face off against in his first round match against the veteran submission specialist in the “Bulldog” Bryan Buchanan that he barely won due to  Ethan being able to roll the older Buchanan into a pinning situation while he had Ethan locked in a painful submission hold but in comparison, the next two matches were somewhat easier as he was able to overcome the high flying antics of Ricky Nova and the brutal power of the “Enforcer” Jeremy Grant before reaching the one man who would become Ethan’s biggest rival in the finals of the tournament;

The “Sin City Ronin” Jamal Creed.

The two men didn’t so much wrestle but had a brutal war in their very first encounter with Jamal eventually hitting his finish on Ethan to become the new television champion, even going so far as to hit his finish, the “Throat Cutter” power bomb cutter, a second time on Ethan before planting his foot squarely on the middle of Ethan’s chest while holding his new title high.

Things would eventually become even more bloody between the two men as Jamal would be recruited into Robbie Stevens “Stevens Enterprises” stable which in turn helped to keep the TV title around Jamal’s waist for the next three months before things finally came to a head at a joint PPV between the ICWA and Frontier Wrestling Alliance promotions which was called “Clash of the Titans: Devil’s Night” where Ethan wrestled twice in one night, first defeating his long time nemesis to finally win the TV title after a brutal ladder and chairs match but he was also the mystery member of the joint Team ICWA/FWA in the massive twelve man war games match against Stevens Enterprises for control of both promotions.

At the end of the pay per view, a bloody was celebrating the end of the hated Robbie Stevens stable that had run roughshod over a series of promotions which not only included ICWA and FWA but also the Phoenix Promotions Wrestling as well.

However, it was during this time that Ethan was taken under the wing of the veteran Eric Gibson and became his new tag team partner and the latest recruit into Gibson’s “Reign of Terror” stable in NWA’s Memphis based promotion of Music City Wrestling, becoming not only a two time Southern States Tag Team champion but also a three time NWA World Tag Team champion as well with Gibson.

## **Year One-the Golden Year**:

Two thousand and one started off rather well with Ethan being a champion in both the ICWA and NWA, even though he dropped his tag team titles shortly after the new year, Ethan would continue to be the ICWA Television champion for the next three months, holding the belt against such challengers like Bryan Buchanan, Maverick Feral, Jason Rage, the “Dragon Master”, and even his hated rival in Jamal Creed who finally used his rematch clause and almost winning the title back but failing.

In a moment of utter surprise, Peter Graves made his ICWA return four months ahead of his scheduled in ring return as Ethan’s mystery opponent at the 2001 Genesis PPV and after a hard fought back and forth match, Graves would hit a running power bomb into the corner on Ethan to reclaim his Television title with a tense moment after the match when Ethan snatched the title away from the ref and then personally handed the title to Graves, showing respect to the man who beat him.

After this Ethan wouldn’t appear on TV for a couple of weeks, having taken some time off to recover from a mild concussion that he gained during Genesis but during this time, a new cancer would be growing in the heart of the Summit Wrestling Alliance of promotions.

A cancer nurtured by former Frontier Wrestling Alliance’s beloved commentator in Nick Corvin in the form of his “Network”.

Corvin’s stable brought together the remains of Stevens Enterprises, the Nation of Devastation, the Coven, and the Mavericks to form one large and powerful stable that ran roughshod across several promotions within and without the SWA including Thomas Greenbriar’s World Wide Wrestling and Edward Brown’s Superior Championship Wrestling.

Ethan was brought into the branch of the Network operating in SCW as “Reaper”, one half of the “Dead Pool” tag team where he would quickly win the Superior Championship Wrestling Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight championship and hold it for three months before dropping it in a ladder match against former Network stablemate in Ricky Nova.

Back in the ICWA, Reaper would run roughshod through the promotion and even enjoying a two month run as the United States champion after beating fan favorite Maverick Spyder for the belt but like all good things his time with the ICWA came to an end when his contract ran out with the promotion and he wrestled his last match for ICWA on July the eighth, two thousand and one.

It was during this time that Ethan went back to the Dojo to help train some of the next class of students which included the Reaver’s own son in Devon Slayton who he took on as his own personal project to help the younger man out.

After enjoying a brief tenure as a free agent, wrestling for promotions like the National Wrestling Alliance’s Pacific States Wrestling promotion out of Oregon and Terry Chono’s CRASH promotion in Japan, Ethan would eventually find himself in of all places the Ohio Valley region of the United States where the vice president of the recently started Ohio Valley Wrestling promotion in one Garrett McKinney offered him quite the incentive.

On November the ninth after the “Crippler” Kent Stevens won the OVW Heavyweight champion, the lights in the arena suddenly went out followed by the sudden haunting whistles of Rammstein's “Engel”.

But when the lights came back to full life, standing there before Kent was a person that McKinney had been saying was his ultimate surprise all evening as the Reaper had come to OVW before Ethan laid out the champion with his signature “G-Virus” finisher and then simply walking away.

The Reaper would then go onto become apart of McKinney’s “New World Order” stable which the VP had filled with three other Dojo graduates in Kenta Tseng, Kevin Ortiz, and Cameron Locke with Reaper and Kenta becoming the first holder of the OVW Southern Tag Team champions while Locke would go onto win the OVW championship which in turn caused problems within the stable as the title had originally been promised to Reaper but McKinney simply told him that he had a plan to bring them all of the gold.

At OVW’s “Saint Valentine’s Massacre” pay per view, the new “Dead Pool” of Reaper and Kenta managed to just barely defend their titles against President Colin Ayers hired “assassins” in the form of Slash and the “Enforcer” Jeremy Grant, the infamous “Bad Company” tag team, who took Reaper and Kenta to the limit but Kenta was able to hit his signature “Death Star Press” on Slash which Reaper followed up with a Ganso bomb for the win.

Later on in the main event, Cameron went toe to toe with Ayers’ other hired gun in the form of one of the men who trained him in Chris Slayton and lost the OVW championship to him and then doing the last thing that Reaper would’ve expected to happen;

Chris Slayton said that he would see him at Summit’s “Hell’s Gate” deathmatch tournament and even put the OVW title up at the event to sweeten the pot to entice his former student into the tournament and against the orders of McKinnely-he did.

## **Year 2-the "Year of Hell":**

The infamous Summit Wrestling Alliance’s “Hell’s Gate” event was a two day long deathmatch tournament which featured wrestlers from throughout the Alliance as a whole and from outside as well with each and every match being some kind of messed up hardcore match and it was here that Reaper entered, hunting for his former trainer.

Reaper would fight his way through both days of intense, bloody fighting and he would go onto defeat several of the toughest innovators of hardcore matches including Bad Company’s Slash, Maverick Feral, Justin Sane, Ubas, and even his former trainer in Chris Slayton to win not only the OVW Heavyweight championship but also to be crowned the 2002 “Devil’s Gate” tournament champion.

However Reaper’s time at the top would quickly end as he would lose both of his titles in quick order as he would lose the heavyweight title in a brutal six way match which included Kent Stevens, Cameron Locke, Alex Slayer, Marcus Owens, and Jamal Creed but in the end, it was his hated rival that was helping an injured Reaper into the back after Owens drove both of his feet hard into Reaper’s head with a chair assist from Cameron.

At the next OVW show, McKinney handed over Reaper’s half of the tag team titles to Ortiz and announced that the Reaper was out of the NWO until he “understood where his place was once more”.

Reaper was off television for the next three months, recovering from a concussion that he received during his last OVW match and he toured with Super Japan Pro Wrestling then Omega Wrestling Alliance, acting as a temporary manager for the fledgling “Dark Circle” stable composed Reno Dumont, Chris Morton, Jenna Rhodes, Jason Wrath, and Kevin Renzor.

Even though he was keeping busy, Reaper had his eyes set on returning to the ring and proving himself once more to the OVW wrestlers and fans but at his four month check up-Ethan’s return hit a major bump in the road when revealed that there was still some signs that the concussion was still affecting him and his doctor pushed back his return another three months at which point Reaper started to work even harder to try and get ready for his return...even though his doctor told him that might not be in the cards.

In June, President Ayers had his back against the wall as McKinney was trying to take full control of OVW from him with his NWO stable holding most of the gold in the promotion when Kent Stevens said that he had a plan on how to deal with the NWO and started to recruit people into what he would call his “Dangerous Alliance” since it was composed of Jamal Creed, Brian Renzor, and the Tempest Brothers tag team of Chris and Eric Storm as well as a former NWO member in Kenta Tseng who had been kicked out of the group following his and Ortiz’s loss to the Tempest Brothers four months prior.

With the “Ring Wars” event fast oncoming and his Alliance short by one member, Jamal said that he had the perfect man for the job but wouldn’t say who it was in the weeks leading up to the event but right when it looked like the NWO was about to perform a clean sweep, the lights went out in the Rupp Arena in Lexington Kentucky to Cameron Locke gloating into the face of a bloodied Kent Stevens…

Suddenly there was a boom as the lights blazed back to life to show that Jamal’s mystery man was none other than the very man that McKinney had betrayed at the start of his quest-but it wasn’t the Reaper who was standing in that ring;

**It was Ethan Stryfe.**

In a new set of ring gear set in the colors of the University of Kentucky, Ethan Stryfe cleaned house and then following not one but two “Omega Events”-won the first ever OVW “Ring Wars” event and full control of OVW to President Ayers!!

During the celebration in the ring, Ethan went to leave but was stopped by President Ayers who invited him back into the ring where the two men, who had been on bad terms throughout the entire year, shook hands before Ethan raised Ayers’ hand in victory.

At the OVW show after Ring Wars, former Vice President McKinney came out with his NWO stable and announced that he was in fact the winner due to Ethan, as Reaper, still being under contract with McKinney which meant that Ayers had cheated and thus forfeited the match and thus started to make the changes that \*HE\* felt was right until Ayers came out and said that he was willing to put up something at the second major OVW show of the year, “Wrestlecade” from the Value City Center in Columbus Ohio-this time winner take all with Cameron Locke as McKinney’s chosen champion taking on Ayers’.

McKinney agreed but said that Reaper couldn’t be Ayers’ champion to which Ayers agreed.

Ayers then proceeded to make a match of Jamal Creed and a partner of his choosing to take on Kevin Ortiz and Ashe Dio for the tag team titles later that same night.

When it came for the main event as Ortiz and Dio stood in the ring waiting for their opponents-they were surprised to see that Creed would teaming with his hated rival in Ethan and they were even more surprised by the unlikely team won the match with Creed even handing Ethan his half of the titles before the celebration would begin.

Two months later at Wrestlecade, while he wrestled with Jamal on the under-card, Ethan was still ringside for Kent Stevens versus Cameron Locke for control of OVW with McKinney screaming at the former Reaper to get in the ring and do his job...which Ethan did by hitting the G Virus on McKinney, putting him through a table at ringside and allowing the ref to finally do his job and count the pin for Stevens and once again securing OVW for the Ayers Administration!!

The rest of 2002 was filled with minor bits of mayhem which included Jamal and Ethan losing the tag straps and Ethan once again forming his team with Kenta to reclaim them for what would be the third and final time.

## **Personal Life**

Even though he was trained in Puresou, Ethan's wrestling style is heavily based on several of the wrestlers that he grew up watching from the Dallas/Fort Worth area when he was a kid, so it has more of a Southern "flavor" to it.

Ethan holds a bachelor's degree in Archaeology with his specialty being Egyptology from the University of Arkansas' Fayetteville campus.

In 2016, Ethan was misdiagnosed with what was in actual fact a heart defect which meant the right side of his heart was beating out of sequence with the left. This allowed large volumes of fluid to build up in his body for which he had to take some time off from wrestling as during his illness and recovery he put on, and then lost, roughly forty to sixty pounds in weight.

Ethan is a noted coffee aficionado and enjoys cooking, as he has a blog that covers some of his favorite recipes and dishes as well as holding high personal values and presenting himself as a professional, in both his personal and work life.

From 2016 through 2018, Ethan was in a relationship with fellow professional wrestler Rachel Dumont AKA "Celes Dumont" before they broke up due to undisclosed reasons.

## **In Wrestling**

**Finishing Moves**:

* The **"G Virus"** (Chokeslam backbreaker)
* The **"Omega Weapon"** (Wrist-lock transitioned into a short-arm discus elbow smash)
* The **"Omega Event"** (Elevated double arm DDT)

**Signature Moves**:

* “Mafia Kick” (Running arched big boot)
* “Crash Zone” (Rolling release suplex)
* The "Blackout" (Inverted headlock transitioned into a discus elbow smash to the back of the opponent's head)
* "Ju-on" (Anaconda vice combined with a Straight jacket choke)
* “Jacob's Ladder" (Arm-hook sleeper hold)
* "Dark Kiss" (Elevated double chickenwing wheelbarrow facebuster)
* "Gigas Breaker" (Vertical suplex lifted and dropped into a double knee backbreaker)
* "End of Heartache" (Fireman's carry double knee gutbuster)
* "Original Sin" (Spinning lifting DDT)
* "Destroyah" (Three-quarter facelock iconoclasm)
* Indian deathlock piledriver
* Johnny Saint special
* Multiple forearm smashes
* Elbow smash
* One-arm powerbomb
* Running corner European uppercut
* Mongolian chop
* Boston crab, sometimes single leg
* Crossface
* Superkick
* Backward roll into a standing corkscrew senton
* Cravate
* Multiple suplex variations
* -Cravate

* -German
* -Hammerlock
* -Leg hook belly-to-back
* -Trapping
* -Belly-to-back
* -Cradle
* -Dragon
* -Double underhook
* -Electric chair
* -Northern Lights
* -Tiger

* Running knee lift

**With Devon Slayton as the "Dominion"/"Maverick INC":**

* The **"Maverick Virus"** (Elevated flip into a modified aided Michinoku Driver II)
* The **"Trouble Seeker"** (Running Knee Smash (Devon)/Superkick (Ethan) combination to a kneeling opponent)

**With Eric Gibson as the "Hellfire Express"**:

* "Erebus Drive" (Powerbomb (Ethan)/Neckbreaker (Eric) combination)

**With Kenta Tseng as the "Dead Pool"**:

* Aided Super Powerbomb

**Entrance Themes**:

* **"I hope you suffer" by AFI** (current singles theme/2nd UWC theme)
* **"The Vengeful One" by Disturbed** (Mavericks INC tag theme)
* **"Ichiban" by Yonosuke Kitamura** (FPV special event theme)
* "Your Disease" by Saliva
* "American Bad Ass" by Kid Rock (theme w/Eric Gibson)
* "A Welcome Burden" by Disturbed (Regin of Terror stable theme)
* "Engel" by Rammstein (Reaper/1st OVeW theme)
* "Greed" by Godsmack (Network theme)
* "Du hast" by Rammstein (SCW theme)
* "N.W.O." by Ministry (NWO theme)
* "Turn the Tables" by Saliva (Dark Circle stable theme)
* "Redeemer" by David Draiman (2nd OVeW theme)
* "Cold" by Static-X (WCWO theme)
* "Disposable Teens" by Marilyn Manson (2nd ICWA theme)
* "Rock is Dead" by Marilyn Manson (1st FWA theme)
* "Deep" by Nine Inch Nails (1st UWC theme)
* "Crush 'Em" by Megadeth (Rogue Horsemen 7th theme)
* "Hybrid Stigmata-the Apostasy" by Dimmu Borgir (Dominion 1st stable theme)
* "Hell" by Disturbed (Dominion 2nd stable theme)

**Nicknames**:

* **"The Merchant of Mayhem"**
* "Wrestling's Anti-Christ" (during his "Reaper" phrase)
* "The Death Rider" (early UWC-Dominion)
* "The Walking Apocalypse"
* “Stone Pitbull” (1st ICWA run)

**Managers**:

* **Ezra Rosenberg**
* **Jamal Rockworthy**
* Nick Corvin
* Garrett McKinney
* Colin Ayers
* Yeh Shen Li
* Joseph Lockwood

**Wrestlers Managed**:

* The "Dark Circle" stable <OWA/E> (Zell Hunter, Reno Dumont, Devon Slayton, Chris Morton, Jenna Rhodes, Natasha Booth, and Jamal Rockworthy)

**Stables**:

* The "Dark Circle" stable <OWA/E> (Zell Hunter, Reno Dumont, Devon Slayton, Chris Morton, Jenna Rhodes, Natasha Booth, and Jamal Rockworthy)
* NWO <OVeW> (w/Kenta Tseng, Kevin Ortiz, Cameron Locke, and Garrett McKinney)
* The "Dangerous Alliance" <OVeW> (w/Jamal Creed, Brian Renzor, Chris Storm, Eric Storm, Kenta Tseng and Colin Ayers)
* The Dominion <Universal Wrestling Corporation> (w/Devon Slayton, Colt Kawaii, Angela Dante, Talia Yamahara, Kanaida Sharpe, Karl von Eichmann, Jamal Rockworthy, Tidus Hunter, Brenda Storm, Thomas Bane, Korra Farron, Celes Dumont, Amy Slayton, Athena Asamiya, and "Dragonfire" Kien Lun with Ezra Rosenberg)

## Championships & other accomplishments:

**ICWA/International Championship Wrestling Alliance**:

* ICWA World Heavyweight champion x2
* ICWA World’s Television champion
* ICWA United States Heavyweight champion
* ICWA World Tag Team champion x4 (x1 with Kenta Tseng, x1 with Sabin Richards, and x2 with Jericho Morton)
* ICWA Feud of the Year (Ethan Stryfe vs. Jamal Creed)
* ICWA Match of the Year (Stryfe/Creed for the ICWA TV championship, ICWA/FWA Clash of the Titans 2000: Devil’s Night)
* ICWA Match of the Year (Stryfe/Gibson for the ICWA World Heavyweight championship, ICWA Genesis 2014)
* ICWA Record Breaker (ICWA World Heavyweight champion/433 days)

**SCW/Superior Championship Wrestling**:

* SCW Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight champion

**OVeW/Ohio Valley e-Wrestling**:

* OVeW Heavyweight champion x2
* OVeW Southern Tag Team champion x3 (twice with Kenta Tseng & once with Jamal Creed, inaugural)

**NWA-MSW AKA MCW/National Wrestling Alliance Mid-South AKA Music City Wrestling**:

* NWA Southern States Tag Team champion x2 (with Eric Gibson)

**NWA-WCWA/National Wrestling Alliance World Class Wrestling Association**:

* Texas State Tag Team champion

**WCWO/West Coast Wrestling Organization**:

* WCWO Heavyweight champion (Inaugural and only)

**SWA/Summit Wrestling Alliance**:

* SWA Unified Heavyweight champion
* SWA Unified Tag Team champion
* SWA “Devil’s Gate” tournament champion (2002)
* SWA 2015 & 2016 Summit Games winner (as ¼ of the “Dominion”)

**NWA/National Wrestling Alliance**:

* World Tag Team champion (x5-x3 w/Eric Gibson and x2 w/Devon Slayton)
* World Heavyweight champion
* 2016 Crockett Cup winner (with Devon Slayton as the Dominion)

**FWA/Frontier Wrestling Alliance**:

* FWA International Heavyweight champion x2
* FWA World Tag Team champion (x2 with Devon Slayton)

**UWC/Universal Wrestling Corporation**:

* United States champion x2 (inaugural)
* Brass Knuckles champion
* World Tag Team champion (x4 with Ethan Stryfe)
* 2015 Armstrong Cup tournament winner

**NWF/National Wrestling Federation**:

* World Tag Team champion (x3 w/Devon Slayton)
* Television champion