Bane (RLS CAS)

Bane appearing at Bring Down The House in 2022

**Egil Ronningen** *(born 2nd September 1985, in Jessheim, Norway)* is a Norwegian professional wrestler and acromegaly campaigner**1** currently signed to UNION Wrestling, where he performs as **Bane** alongside partner Zander Adder, as **Invicta**.

He has wrestled all over the world, in places like Japan and Scandinavia. He also heads up the charity Growing Pains**2**, which offers support and helps fund treatment and support for sufferers of acromegaly and gigantism in third world countries.

## Career

### Training, Move to UK (2005-2009)

Ronningen was trained in his hometown of Jessheim, Norway, by his father Karl and elder brother Truls (who was well known in BWF as Maelstrom**3**). Like his paternal grandfather, also a professional wrestler, he was diagnosed with acromegaly, and eventually gigantism, at a young age. Though he had his pituitary tumour removed in his late teens, he'd already grown to nearly seven full feet, needing only slight boosts in his boots to achieve his billed height.

After his initial training concluded in 2007, the Ronningen brothers moved briefly to the US, to work for Eddie Hamer in EHP: Pro Wrestling. This was where they debuted the monster characters Bane and Balthazar, who became two of the most popular non-Junior members of the roster. They ended up feuding brutally with Junior duo Dynamite (known later as Mikey Ace) and Piranha, with controversies over low budgets and costumes**4** eventually leading to all four departing the promotion.

They then moved to the UK in 2009 to pursue a career on the alternative wrestling scene, wrestling under the name Eagle**5** and earning positive reviews due to his charitable works and attitude to working. A proposed move to BWF, alongside his brother, were touted around this time, but never materialised as he ended up accepting an offer from Exhibition Wrestling to work in their Japan territory.

### Japan & Return to Norway (2010-2013)

Continuing to work as Bane, he debuted on EW: Japan as a monster not bound by the rules of the promotion, and generally caused havoc before being beaten by an up and coming face character. He also notably founded Growing Pains around this time, after speaking to a fan in Osaka who suffered from gigantism.

He did, notably, win the Japanese Championship in 2011 from Rik Matsumoto (later known as Matsuda) before dropping it four months later to Naito Yamada. However, the promotion ran almost exclusively live-shows at the time, and rebooted in late 2011**6** in order to take part in cross-promotional shows with EW's Mexican and Canadian brands, thus leaving it's legitimacy as a reign in doubt.

### BWF Run (2013-2014)

Bane would appear on-and-off for BWF between 2013 and 2014, usually entering battle royals or answering open challenges from cocky heels. This would mark what would arguably be his first proper run as a face, though he didn't acknowledge this in-character, still acting like a monster heel while getting cheered. The promotion would begin to wind-down just as plans for a brother vs. brother feud with Maelstrom were put in place, which both would say they were saddened by.

### UNION Wrestling (2014-2018)

Bane would, after much persuading from Mikey Ace, team up again with the Hamer family for PWU/UNION Wrestling in 2014. He feuded with Zander Adder on the live circuit, eventually joining forces with him to form The Coalition, which won praise for the Frankenstein/Monster dynamic between the pair, before Adder's injury late on in the tour separated them.

The two would be entered separately into the tournament to crown the first UNION Brawl Champion, with Bane defeating Matsuda and Adder defeating guest Booker T before the two met in the next round. In a six-second long match acclaimed as being "proof that comic relief in wrestling wasn't a dead art form" by Squared Circle Insider, Adder defeated Bane by "submission" after besting him at Rock, Paper, Scissors**7**.

The Coalition would debut as an actual team on Live From The UNION in March 2017, defeating HDMC by submission. They'd win the Tag Team Championships from the departing Dudley Boyz a month later. After feuding mostly with Ambition on programming, they retained in their first official defence of the titles against the United Kingdom at European Invasion 2017 in Prague. After spending the next month simply observing the other teams scrambling to face them, they were called out by temporary GM The Maverick as "non-fighting champions", leading to a shock, impromptu loss to HDMC.

They'd eek out a title defence to Ambition on the next LFTU, leading to a feud between the two teams that ended at Open Challenge 2017, where Bane used a chair on DJ Laine while the referee was downed, leading to another retention. They'd similarly beat HDMC at Heavy Metal 2017 to end the first season as champions.

They lost the titles to The Deck (Mikey Ace and Mayhem) in the first UNION Wrestling LIVE! show, which kicked off the second season, in a Ladder Match. They'd return to winning ways against HDMC on episode 2 of UNION Unleashed, and won again against the United Kingdom on episode 3 of LIVE!, before defeating The Deck with their signature brand of mind games on UNION Charged, setting up a Team Warfare match at Uneasy Alliance between Team Coalition (The Coalition and Broad & Noone) and Team Deck (The Deck and The Cairn Bros.) which the former won with Adder last eliminating Mayhem. This feud would culminate at the Deadly Weapons 2017 event, in a Deadly Weapons Match, where Ace would eventually retrieve the titles for his team.

Bane would only appear in two more matches on UNION programming, both ending in losses for the Coalition against the Cairns and Spectrum, before leaving in early 2018 in protest of the treatment of Mikey Ace, along with Adder.**8**

### Indy Scene (2018-2019)

The duo continued to team as the Coalition (as UNION didn't own the name) on the alternative wrestling scene in Britain and the US, notably appearing for Tetsuya "Mighty" Nishii's UWU promotion**9** and briefly holding the Fife Wrestling Kingdom Jacks Championships in 2019, before a serious leg injury put Bane on the shelf for six months.

### UNION Return (2020-*present*)

Bane, along with Adder, confirmed their return to UNION Wrestling shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic forced them into hiatus in early 2020. They'd appeared a handful of times before the promotion pulled their shows, and have confirmed that they're contracted to come back in 2021.**10**

Fully returning in November 2021 as "Invicta", Bane and Adder would pick up largely where they left off, wreaking havoc on Matsuda & Cowpoke as well as some local competitors before introducing a third member, the unsettling character known as "The Three" at the Touchdown '22 show in January 2022. Bane would team with The Three against Jack Fry and Tyrone Riske- who they'd attacked at Touchdown '22- at the Aberdeen show at the end of the month, with Bane pinning Riske after The Three had seemingly hypnotised him with some kind of chant.

At the UNION Bring Down The House event in March 2022, at the UNION Arena, Bane would win his and Adder's second UNION Tag Team Championships by defeating #AMBITION in a First-to-a-Finish Tag Team Match. INVICTA, as a trio including rookie Brody Shires, would challenge The Deck's Mayhem and The Maverick to an unsanctioned match on the debut UNION Charged in April 2022, with the villainous stable looking the favourites to win until Mikey Ace returned and turned the result on it's head. He and Adder gained a small revenge on the first UNION Unleashed, attacking Mav and Mayhem before their planned First-to-a-Finish Tag Team Match.

## In-Wrestling

### Signatures

Overhead Belly-to-Belly 8

Tilt-a-Whirl Slam 2

### Finishers

**Throttleslam** *(Two-Handed Chokebomb)*

### Nicknames

The Monster

The Monster of the Coalition

**The Monster of Invicta**

## Accomplishments

2x UNION Tag Team Championships *(with Zander Adder as the Coalition/Zander Adder & Brody Shires as INVICTA)* 2017, 2022

## Trivia

* Ronningen is married to fellow UNION Wrestling alum Lara Grey, having been engaged for several years.**11**
* As part of the Coalition in UNION Wrestling (where tag team matches routinely ended only with the full elimination of one of the teams), Ronningen became synonymous with the "Double Count-out Trick", where he'd keep an opponent outside the ring long enough to get them both counted-out, leaving Zander Adder to defeat the other member of the opposing team.**12**
* Ronningen is a huge fan of football (soccer), and often travels home to watch his local side, Ull/Kisa.**13**

## Behind-the-Scenes/Notes

1. The condition has always been a important part of the character, so I wanted to reflect that in the narrative.
2. The charity is just an affectation to show what the kind of character the "real" man behind the Bane mask is.
3. Maelstrom was one of my favourite characters in the MDickie/BWF days. Sadly, I've never been able to find a place for him in the WWE 2K era.
4. In reality, I was just *awful* at designing CAWs in those days... they were terrible. Imagine Bane as you see him in the picture in the infobox, but with a woolly hat for some reason, a bright red leather jacket, and what appeared to be slippers.
5. The name "Eagle" is actually nothing to do with his forename, which is a coincidence I admit to missing entirely until writing up this wiki entry. The name actually came from a play on "Hawk", as the Ronningen bros. were at the time a Road Warriors ripoff called Eagle and Beast.
6. This is just narrative smoothing of the fact my notes often contradict each other due to writing so many of the damn things.
7. This (obviously) didn't happen in-game, and was just an amusing affectation I thought fit the characters at the time.
8. This was because I wanted to use them in PRIZE after moving to PC, but never got around to introducing them, unfortunately.
9. UWU was my short-lived 2K20 Universe diary on the 2K forums, available here.
10. They'll be coming back should I pull the trigger on a full reboot. I couldn't do UW without them.
11. This is purely just to flesh out the CAWs as people, to make them easier for people to hopefully form attachments and "give a damn" about.
12. I first did this in 2K17 by accident, and it fit so well I just kept doing it.
13. Ull/Kisa are actually where my love of Jessheim comes from, having managed them several times in the Football Manager series.