Indie Watch: Addy Starr

Indie Watch is our regular series that looks at all of the amazing talent working the independent circuits around the world. Some are veterans revitalizing their careers, some are indie prospects hitting their peaks, while others are names to be on the watch for! This edition looks at one of the women who star with the UK’s Pro Wrestling EVE, “The All American Canadian” Addy Starr, who returned to wrestling after a two year hiatus.

Born in Guelph, Ontario, a small city about an hour west of Toronto, Addy Starr began wrestling at the age of 17 years old when an ex-boyfriend thought she’d do well in the indie death matches, which he himself was working. “I actually didn’t grow up watching wrestling, so I never had personas that I imagined before I started training,” she said in an AMA on Reddit in 2012. “I was introduced to it at the age of 17 when I was actually brought to a training school and put in the ring without really knowing anything about it.” Debuting in 2005, she took to the new sport. “He decided it would be a great idea for me to do the same so I could get over really quickly. I was inexperienced, so I just went along with it,” she said in the AMA. “Luckily, it worked, and I got over, but I soon realized I was also a good wrestler, and didn’t have to just rely on the hardcore stuff to be respected.”

By 2006, she was working for Pure Wrestling Alliance (PWA), the local promotion that worked around the Guelph, Cambridge, Kitchener-Waterloo area. By 2009, she had relocated to the Ottawa area, where she became a regular with Ottawa’s Capitol City Championship Combat (C4) and Acclaim Pro Wrestling (APW). But it was in Montreal’s Inter Species Wrestling (ISW) – a combination of Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW) and CHIKARA – that she started to make her name, becoming the Queen of the Lego Death Match. She would also work some US indies, like Women’s Superstars Uncensored (WSU), Anarchy Championship Wrestling (ACW) in Texas, and Beyond Wrestling.

https://twitter.com/AddyStarr/status/1008096224216526850

At the end of 2013, she was on the move again, this time heading to the UK to enter the emerging UK indie scene. She debuted with Preston City Wrestling (PCW) in December of 2013 and went on to work with PROGRESS, IPW, Revolution Pro (RevPro), Tidal Championship Wrestling (TCW) and Pro Wrestling EVE over the next three years. Over the years she would face a who’s who of wrestling – women and men – including Chris Dickinson, Jinny, Rhia O’Reilly, Nixon Newell (now Tegan Nox in NXT), Pinkie Sanchez, Cheerleader Melissa, Cherry Bomb (IMPACT’s Allie) and Courtney Rush (aka Rosemary), teamed with the likes of Matt Tremont, Jimmy Havoc and Mark Andrews, and was emerging as a rough and ready force on the indie scene. She was an early pioneer of intergender matches on the indies, working in some of the hardest hitting intergender matches since LuFisto‘s early days. But then in 2016, she suddenly retired. Her final match was a retirement match against Canadian indie veteran Shitty in C4. She disappeared from the wrestling world for two years.

She made her return to the squared circle this January, returning to a company she had just debuted with months prior to her retirement, London, England’s all-women’s promotion Pro Wrestling EVE in a battle against British women’s veteran Pollyanna. She made her return at January’s Not Made To Be Subtle event, entering into the EVE Championship Rumble. She didn’t dethrone Champion Sammii Jayne, but she did return to wrestling once again. Now based out of Cambridge, England, “The All American Canadian” has become a regular with EVE, facing the likes of Jamie Hayter, Rhio, and Australia’s Charli Evans, taking part in the War Games match at Wrestle Queendom, and tagged with Rhia O’Reilly in Bars & Stripes (the two faced Jimmy Havoc & Super Smash Bros.’ Evil Uno in a Fans Bring the Lego Death Match at X Wrestling Alliance (XWA)/EVE WrestleFriends 2). She still returns to her old haunts though – she still works with C4 and Inter Species Wrestling (ICW), where she’s just won the IWS Championship from Chris Dickinson this past September.

https://twitter.com/AddyStarr/status/1046268702365298689

Addy Starr is only 30 years old and now hitting her prime, and with other UK stars moving on to the likes of NXT UK, opportunities are opening up in the vibrant UK scene, and Addy Starr is on her way to becoming one of the next women to be recognized for her dedication to the sport.