Felix Carroll: Pinned to a dream, two Berkshire wrestlers have themselves a brawl

Felix Carroll photos — Justin Day (AKA “Justin Kase”) of North Adams gets his game face on before his bout at last Saturday’s Snow Brawl at the Berkshire Mall. 

This article first appeared in The Berkshire Eagle.

By Felix Carroll

A full 24 hours before getting kicked in the testicles after hitting a guy over the head with a foldout chair, Justin Day was sitting on a bench in the Berkshire Mall reminiscing about his childhood dreams.

As far back as he can recall, he yearned more or less to get professionally kicked in the testicles while trying to hit someone over the head with a foldout chair. He never wanted to be an astronaut, nor a fireman, nor a cowboy. He wanted to dress in superhero hand-me-downs and step into a wrestling ring surrounded by cheering and jeering devotees and enemies. 

Just a pipsqueak growing up in North Adams in the 1990s, he wanted to be a pro wrestler in the vein of big men like Stone Cold Steve Austin or Hulk Hogan or “Macho Man” Randy Savage.

“It’s all I talked about,” says Day, 34.

His mother can attest to that.

“Yeah, it’s all he talked about,” she said. “Believe me.”

He was picked on by his peers. It got ugly.

While his friends in high school were choosing colleges, he was saving his money to attend Killer Kowalski’s pro wrestling school in Boston. Who even knew Boston had a pro wrestling school run by Killer Kowalski?

Well, Day did. It was a lonely childhood at times.

How unfortunate that a mere 20 miles south, in Pittsfield, a boy named Lance Madewell was dreaming a similar dream and the two never knew each other? Madewell, too, was getting picked on. 

“Brutally picked on,” clarifies his mother.

He was overweight. Kids called him “Madewrong.”

He would get the last laugh.

While the retail life of the Berkshire Mall gasps for breath, a full-scale resurrection is underway in space once occupied by Old Navy. That’s where Madewell, 31, in cahoots with a fellow wrestler named Wolf CJ Scott from upstate New York, have founded Truly Independent Wrestling. And that’s where Madewell and Day are living the improbable dream.

The business, which opened last winter, trains would-be wrestlers from throughout the region three nights a week. It also hosts full-scale wrestling events, such as last Saturday evening’s “Snow Brawl,” which drew 250 people whose ovations and hissings echoed down the nearly empty mall, bouncing off the bare shelves of Sears.

The evening featured nine bouts in all, including current champion High Voltage Omar’s successful defense of his belt. With flair, with gravitas, with bursts of confetti and heavy metal music shoved through the sound system, one by one wrestlers in spandex and pleather, masks and makeup — some beefcakes and others with beer bellies — bounded through a red curtain in pursuit of glory. 

But it was the second to the last match that proved the highlight, featuring the only two pro wrestlers known to exist in Berkshire County: Day and Madewell, hamming it up with all the obligatory grimaces and groans befitting good performance art.

You know pro wrestling’s not “real,” right? Pre-planned, good guys vs. bad?

Just checking.

Day, for one, can recall the moment he found out. He was 12 years old. It was the great Tito Santana who broke the news to him when they met at a wrestling show in North Adams. Day approached the big man and proudly told him he was training hard to be a pro wrestler — that he was learning how to do leg laces, waist rolls, classic freestyle wrestling moves. Santana raised an eyebrow, then he sat Day down and told him pro wrestling’s equivalent to the facts of life.

“I was shocked. I was destroyed,” recalls Day, hastening to add, “— but for just a second.”

Yes, just for a second. Instead of burning all his wrestling T-shirts and posters and swearing off WrestleMania forever, he grew even more intrigued.

Madewell, too, had a similar reaction at a similar age.

“I’ve seen some kids react, and they can’t handle it,” Madewell says. “But I remember I became even more impressed with it. I thought, ‘It’s crazy that they’re acting,’ but if anything, it made me like wrestling even more.”

“Like” may not be a strong enough word. After high school, Madewell took his savings and invested in pro wrestling classes in Troy, New York, learning the classic moves: bumping, body presses, Mongolian chops, cactus clothelines, forearms, facewashes, head butts, pile drivers. 

In January 2014, somewhere in the boondocks of upstate New York, he had his first pro match. Though Madewell was summarily defeated, the legendary Tommy Dreamer came to his rescue before he was turned to mincemeat.

The evening was everything Madewell knew it would be.

As for Day, whose wrestling name is “Justin Kase,” he did in fact pack his car at the age of 19 with three grand in his pocket, bound for Boston, for Killer Kowalski’s wrestling school.

When he pulled up to the door, the place was shuttered. This was back before the all-knowing Internet would have divulged such pertinent information.

Not knowing what to do next, Day moved in with his grandmother in Peabody and eventually took a job as a security guard. But because the world is a strange and enchanting place, wouldn’t you know it that a fellow security guard was training to be a pro wrestler. He shepherded Day to a wrestling school on the North Shore, and “Justin Kase” — physically ripped at this point, by the way — made his first $10 as a pro wrestler in 2005, in a show run by Tony Atlas.

He spent the next five years collecting crinkled cash from shows set up in the bruised-brick mill towns of eastern Massachusetts.

“They loved me in Saugus,” Day says. “They’d come with ‘Justin Kase’ signs. I still have one.”

After five years of that, when World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., did not come calling, Day made his way back home and became a nurse at Hillcrest Commons. He would occasionally split town to become Justin Kase in far off places. It wasn’t till Madewell made his move and opened Truly Independent Wrestling that Day would become one of two hometown heroes to Berkshires’ burgeoning and baying wrestling enthusiasts.

The fans went wild at last Saturday’s Snow Brawl when the silver-tongued ring announcer, Daniel Perruzzi, introduced all 200 sculpted pounds of Justin Kase with an intonation that suggested divinity. Same thing with his opponent, weighing 290 pounds, Lance Madewell-Madewell, echo-echo.

The fans went wild when Madewell lunged for Kase, delivering a vicious spear takedown even before the opening bell sounded. They went wild when Kase delivered an inverted elbow to Madewell’s forehead making him see stars. Kase tried to deliver a superkick but missed his mark and knocked out the referee instead. In the confusion, Kase exited the ring and returned with a fold-out metal chair with which he promptly bludgeoned Madewell.

The crowd gasped. After a couple low blows by Madewell, Justin Kase fell to the canvas, vanquished.

As management would have it, Madewell was the victor. As fate would have it, both men went home with a little money in their pockets. They are professional wrestlers, after all, just like they always said they would be.

Felix Carroll can be reached at felixcarroll5@gmail.com.