Michael Hutter has been a professional wrestler for over 20 years, competing as EC3 for companies that in industry-speak are known as “promotions.” The Willoughby native recently came home to start an independent wrestling company, no easy task in an industry rife with unique challenges.
Exodus Pro Wrestling debuted in August, packing the Masonic Cleveland theater for a show not-so-coincidentally titled “The Journey Home.” EC3 headlined the event, winning his match and promising fans in a post-fight monologue of more excitement to come.
Should EC3’s promise come true, Exodus will be a family-friendly attraction that focuses on characters and storytelling over blood, guts and salacious content. Nor is the new enterprise simply vying with other area wrestling companies for fan attention, EC3 said.
“In reality, when you’re competing for dollars, you’re competing with everything from a movie to a concert to other promotions,” said EC3. “I’d love to collaborate and work with (other companies), because we can all deliver fantastic shows for fans in certain ways. But there’s an aspect of competition, too. You look at it as striving to do your best each time, and with that, the fans will come.”
EC3’s “passion project” has been percolating since the beginning of the pandemic, he said. A concussion and a layoff from industry flagship World Wrestling Entertainment spurred the launch of a school, Control Your Narrative , described by EC3 as a “training ground for the serious professional wrestler.”
Cleveland-based CYN conditions students to be believable, television-ready wrestlers as well as savvy businesspeople, considering the industry mostly operates on an independent contractor basis, EC3 said.
Exodus spun off from CYN, with EC3 and his team teaching the psychology of TV wrestling – in essence, creating a compelling in-ring story combining physical action, character work and audience engagement. The school and its supporting promotion seeks new and seasoned performers, all of whom will eventually make the leap to the show.
“We’re not old school, but we’re using what worked in the old school and evolving it to the future of the business,” EC3 said. “It’s about taking the elements of everything I learned and applying that to the here and now.”
Creating a new legacy
Despite two decades as an industry mainstay, EC3 admits to needing help on the business side of the promotion - an industry term for a wrestling company that performs regular shows. Included on the CYN/Exodus ownership team is EC3’s lifelong friend and fellow Willoughby native Gary Caluducan, by day an employee at a Fortune 500 financial firm.
Northeast Ohio has hosted a handful of independent wrestling organizations in recent decades. Absolute Intense Wrestling in Cleveland, for example, produces several shows monthly at various local venues. At Exodus, EC3 wants to create a gritty, hard-hitting atmosphere akin to the famous Hart Family Dungeon. The notorious wrestling training room, sequestered in the home of late Canadian pro wrestler Stu Hart, utilized a punishing atmosphere in producing industry stalwarts such as Bret “The Hitman” Hart and Chris Jericho.
“That’s a legacy – there’s nothing I can do to match what they’re known for,” said EC3. “But I love the fact that their training was bare bones. Half the time, they were in a basement on mats tearing each other apart. I’m way happier with a hole in the ceiling and broken air conditioning, and we’re just grinding and sweating and we have our space. It’s ours because we made it our own.”
If EC3 has his way, The Treelawn social club and music hall in Cleveland’s Waterloo Arts District will be that dedicated space. The venue hosted an Exodus show on Oct. 7 – a night that included an appearance from National Wrestling Alliance owner and Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan.
Corgan announced during the event that Exodus will serve as a feeder system supplying NWA with future talent, and that the promotion would be known from now on as NWA Exodus Pro.
Should a longer relationship with Treelawn materialize, the venue would host shows far afield from the edgy and controversial content that became a staple of professional wrestling during the early stages of EC3’s career.
“At an Exodus show, you get the best action and the best characters, but you’re also getting something decent and wholesome to an extent that you can bring the family,” EC3 said. “That’s what made me want to wrestle; watching with my old man and going to shows with my friends.”
A matter of trust
Jerry Mires, known professionally as J-Rocc, battled EC3 in the main event of the “Journey Home” show in August. Mires trained EC3 in the early 2000s – the days when wrestling schools were somewhat of a secret society, said Mires.
“There were schools, but you didn’t know about them, and it was much harder to get in,” Mires said. “Now, if you’re a kid, you can google search it and it’s right there for you. There are at least four places in a 30-mile radius (of Cleveland) where you can plop money down and start wrestling tomorrow.”
An influx of fly-by-night facilities has oversaturated the national marketplace, which leads to poorly trained performers and an overall degradation of the business, Mires added. What separates Exodus is the pedigree of EC3, a current touring champion for the National Wrestling Alliance with far-reaching name recognition.
“One of the things they’re shooting for with the school aspect of Exodus is reconditioning,” said Mires, also a part-time trainer with the promotion. “Just come here and let’s forget everything you’ve learned, and we’ll reteach you how to do this stuff the right way. Opening a school is not enough.”
Even experienced wrestlers must be willing to acclimate to new surroundings, noted Chelsea Ebbert, a Cleveland-area grappler who performs under the ring name Celeste. Ebbert was trained at the Jacobs-Prichard Wrestling Academy in Tennessee, founded by 40-year industry veteran Tom Prichard and former WWE star (and current Knox County, Tennessee Mayor) Glenn Jacobs.
Production design at Exodus shows includes a built-out entrance stage and other vital aspects of a television-ready program, Ebbert said.
“One of our biggest things is putting on an experience – I love that we have a chance to build this from the ground up,” Ebbert said. “It’s exciting to watch it grow from the first show to what we have planned for the next show. (Exodus) will be the best, and we’re going to make sure of that. I’m right there behind (EC3) and so is a group of us who believe in what we’re doing.”
Exodus TV events like the company’s December 1 “Colder Weather” show are available on the Premier Streaming Network, a home for wrestling shows, podcasts and other industry-related programming. In the meantime, EC3 is taking a crash course in marketing, talent budgeting, and developing a full-time venue. While grabbing fan attention is a challenge, EC3 believes he has the formula to make that chemistry work.
“The hardest thing to do at any entertainment venue is convincing people to leave the comfort of their own home,” said EC3. “You have to work hard to earn people’s trust with their dollar.”
