By Kalilu Jawara
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
There’s not much decor inside this large warehouse space in Dundalk, Md. Outside of a few chairs scattered around, a table off in the corner and some mats, the only furniture is the wrestling ring in the middle. Several aspiring wrestlers are lined up in one corner of the ring. They each take turns running to the opposite corner, vaulting themselves over the top rope before safely making their exit.
One wrestler, Dan Gutierrez, adds a bit more flair to his routine, attempting a back flip off the top rope. He sticks the landing on the first go-around. On the second, the landing sticks him, as he plummets face-down onto the canvas. The rest of the group winces and asks if he’s okay. Gutierrez casually brushes himself off reattempts the drill, landing on his feet this time.
While others in the gym are lifelong fans, Gutierrez only got into professional wrestling in 2019 after being invited by a friend to watch that year’s Wrestlemania. He’s not afraid to try new things. It’s what brought him here to the Eastern Wrestling Alliance, a professional wrestling organization headquartered in Dundalk that runs shows across the Baltimore area.
“He told me to think of it as ‘professional murder gymnastics,’ and I was like, ‘Okay!’ I’ll try and enjoy it that way,” he said. “I watched it and really enjoyed it, and kinda came away from it wondering how much of it I could do, and decided to try and find out.”
When not performing in front of crowds, most recently in Bel Air on May 13, Gutierrez and other wrestling hopefuls can be found honing their craft at EWA’s home base, a warehouse on North Point Boulevard nicknamed “The Pain Factory.”
Several stars have walked through EWA’s doors, including former WWE Cruiserweight Champion and Baltimore native Rich Swann and current AEW star Adam Cole. While many dream of performing in front of crowds as large as the 80,000 fans who filled SoFi Stadium for this year’s Wrestlemania, their first steps start at local independent promotions such as EWA.
The entire operation is run by Jim Christian, who in the 1980s decided he wanted to get into the business himself. In a time where professional wrestling was considered to be “The Land of the Giants” however, Christian’s 5”11 frame didn’t cut it for most promoters.
“In 1984 I wanted to start, they told me I was too small,” he said. “I started in ‘87, got hurt, started back up in ‘89, and by [the age of] 32 I was the Mid-Atlantic Champion.”
His career took off from there, and he wrestled across the East Coast facing opponents who are well known to wrestling fans, such as The Dudley Boyz, Tito Santana, King Kong Bundy and Jake “The Snake” Roberts. In 2000 he opened EWA, his own promotion, where he’d have more control.
“I got tired of all the politics of other companies,” he said. “I run my company like a family type thing. So I don’t like all the other egos, the drugs, all the things that are bad about wrestling, I just don’t do that.”
Sit in on a training session at The Pain Factory, and Christian’s approach will be evident. As wrestlers file into the building, they kick off the evening stretching in the ring with a chorus of water cooler talk about the wrestling industry. But the laid-back environment ends when they begin warming up with tumbling exercises resembling a gymnastics routine, replacing the chatter with rolling thumbs against the canvas about as loud as a thunderstorm.
They eventually begin sparring, with wrestlers facing off in the middle of the ring before rotating out. Gutierrez steps in against Michael Anthony, who at 6’3” and 350 pounds, wouldn’t look out of place on an NFL offensive line. Still reeling from his prior face plant, Gutierrez makes a quick plea to his much larger foe.
“Hey man, my neck is still a little stiff,” he said. “Could you go easy on me?”
Anthony doesn’t seem willing to give in. The two grapple for a little bit before Gutierrez is sent running into the ropes. On the ricochet back, he’s stopped dead in his tracks by Anthony’s shoulder, which sends Gutierrez crashing to the mat for his second hardest fall of the night.
“How’s your neck now?” Anthony taunts.
While the focus tonight is on the fundamentals, there’s another aspect of wrestling that is equally important: showmanship. In front of an audience, wrestlers are athletes and performance artists at the same time, blending elements of theater into their stunts. In its most basic form, some wrestlers perform as “the good guys,” referred to as “faces” in wrestling lingo. They face off against the bad guys, or “heels,” whose job is to rile up the crowd and get them on the face’s side.
Gutierrez, under the ring name “Oldman Youngboy,” has only been a face. Meanwhile, Anthony has exclusively played as the brash, tough-talking villain he portrayed earlier, tasked with drawing the ire of the crowd whenever he performs.
“It sounds terrible, but making people angry is fun,” he said with a laugh. “Anyone can come out and suck off the crowd like, ‘Yeah you guys are great and I love being here.’ It takes a special person to be able to go out and find something to upset somebody.”
Not everyone at the facility is looking for the same thing out of their experience at EWA. Some, such as Gutierrez, want to go as far as wrestling will take them.
“I think if I could get to the point where I can go to another country,” he said, “I know a few people who made it to that. I think that would be a pretty big accomplishment for me.”
For others like Anthony, working local independents like EWA is just a side gig.
“I’m gonna be 42 this year. I have two eight year olds at home. This is fun, once a month shows, this is all I wanna do,” Anthony said. “At this point in my life, EWA is perfect for what I need.”
Whatever their intentions, it matches the spirit of what Christian envisioned EWA as–introducing wrestlers to the business and giving them the opportunity to live their dreams, no matter how lofty—or down to earth—they may be.
“I wanted to do something to give back, from me being in wrestling all these years,” Christian said. “Everybody dreams about being in a wrestling ring and doing it, a lot of people won’t give them a chance. I give everybody a chance.”