Photo Credit: Robert Bellamy
Featuring Allie Kat | By John Silva
From dazzling mic skills and high-quality gear to legendary feuds and annoying smarks, Songs From The Squared Circle explores the similarities between the kindred subcultures of music and pro wrestling…
There’s no shortage of wrestlers with animal gimmicks. Just look at Chikara, a Philadelphia-based promotion that literally has a stable called “The Colony”—as in, of ants. The magic of wrestling is that fans are able to suspend disbelief and enjoy a fantasy world in which animals and humans alike can battle for that same championship title. Throwing some anthropomorphic critters in the ring is a great litmus test for who in the audience “gets it” and who may be taking things a little too seriously. Take Allie Kat, for example. When she slashes her opponent across the back with her paw, the true marks in the room gasp over how much that must hurt, because, well, she is a cat after all, and cats have claws.
Wrestlers like Allie Kat prove that there’s more than one way to enjoy a match, but she also exemplifies that there’s more than one way to enjoy life. As a hardcore fan who identifies as straight edge, Allie Kat knows you don’t need to get fucked up to have a good time. While drinking often goes hand in hand with both pro wrestling and punk rock—especially at indie shows—seeing your favorite band play or watching a cat and dog tag team together is so fun that no alcohol is necessary.
If you do like to throw back a few at the show, that’s obviously fine, but for wrestling and punk fans who prefer to keep it edge, Allie Kat is in your corner!
What are your three favorite bands right now?
I hate questions like this. I’m so indecisive! Does Lady Gaga count?
Of course she counts!
OK, I worship the ground that woman walks on. Lady Gaga’s one. Twitching Tongues is another favorite, and—I’m gonna say It— Prevails.
I think I saw you in a Twitching Tongues video recently.
You totally did. I wrestled in Chattanooga, [Tennessee], that afternoon. That show was in—I forget what city it was in, but it was two hours away from [Indianapolis], and it was on the way home from Chattanooga, so I drove, and I made it in time to see Twitching Tongues. I was so lucky. I was like, ‘Fuck yes!’
Photo Credit: Sarah Souders Photography
What were your three favorite bands when you were a kitten?
[Laughs] Did you see that match poster that was posted of me for the Midwest Mixtape?
Was that the one with the Good Charlotte t-shirt?
Yeah boy! I loved Good Charlotte from, like, third grade to seventh grade. Honestly, the junior high years are stuff I love and worship and still look back on, ‘cause it was almost 10 years ago—that’s more than 10 years ago, fuck me! My Chemical Romance. I listened to a lot of local stuff when I was younger. I loved Sky Eats Airplane.
People sometimes make fun of those bands, but they’re great gateways into other stuff.
That’s exactly what happened! It was like, Good Charlotte, then I listened to From First To Last and My Chemical Romance, and then, from there, I went to, like, shitty stuff like Emmure. Then, from Emmure, I met people who were straight edge, and they showed me Have Heart and stuff like that.
How did you get into straight edge? I know you’re into hardcore, are you specifically into straight edge hardcore?
I’m just into general hardcore. Straight edge hardcore gets a little bit repetitive. It’s like, “OK, we get it. Talk about something else.” I just don’t wanna listen to the same song over and over and over again. Just like how I wouldn’t wanna listen to a breakup song five times in a row, I don’t wanna listen to a song about straight edge five times in a row. So, that’s my take on it, but I’m not knocking anything, ‘cause I still listen to it.
But that’s exactly how it happened: I was hanging out with people who were doing nothing with their lives in high school, and it was chill, whatever, but then, I met this guy who showed me what Have Heart was, and he was straight edge. Spoiler alert—he’s definitely not straight edge anymore! But he was straight edge, and I met other straight edge people, and I was like, “I like these people more! They’re fun, and we don’t have to, like, get fucked up.” So, I was like, “I don’t wanna drink anymore. I’m done with it,” and that was that. It was real easy, and I’ve still been straight edge ever since.
Photo Credit: Robert Bellamy
I know straight edge kind of started because people saw how drugs were wrecking the punk scene, and I know, in the wrestling community, there’s a history of addiction to pain medication. Is that part of the reason straight edge appeals to you as a wrestler, because you’ve seen some of the damage [drugs] have done to the wrestling community?
I’ve really never looked at it like that, because all the people I know in the wrestling community who know about straight edge know nothing about where it comes from. Almost every single person I know who talks about straight edge in wrestling, if they weren’t into hardcore or punk, they immediately think of CM Punk. Like, that’s all they know about straight edge and punk, so they don’t really get the implications of it. They don’t really get what it stems from, the community, etc. Honestly, a bunch of wrestling fans or wrestlers who know about straight edge—it doesn’t hold the same weight as it does if you learn about it and where it historically comes from. So, it’s really weird, and I’ve never connected straight edge to wrestling because of it, because so many people are like, “Yeah, I don’t drink. I’m straight edge!” and I’m like, “That’s not really how it works, but OK, you do you.” Or “I don’t do drugs. I’m totally straight edge too, right?” I’m like, “Um, you know, I’m not gonna tell you what you can and can’t do or say, but—not really.”
I totally forgot about CM Punk and how that might be how a lot of wrestling fans find out what [straight edge] is. Does that water it down a little bit?
Exactly. The core values are still there; they get that from watching CM Punk, like, “Oh, he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t do this,” whatever, but in reality, it’s not like he got on the mic and was like, “So, Minor Threat, you guys!” [Straight edge] was just a descriptor. It was a thing he was, but you never knew why or how. He talks about, with his family, he grew up with alcoholics, but that was about it.
Photo Credit: @grenwail
What are some similarities between the hardcore scene—whether it’s straight edge specifically or just hardcore in general—and the independent wrestling community?
Well, there are so many douchebags in both. I grew up going to shows, and it’s like there’s all these stupid, arbitrary rules you have to [follow to] fit in and be cool, and most of the people who are “cool” are bad people. So, it’s like, I was never one of the cool guys, and now, in wrestling, it’s kind of the same. I do not want to fit in with bad people, and if that takes me longer to get somewhere, that’s gonna happen.
Then, the other part is, I had friends in bands, and I never understood—I was like, “Guys, you’re always complaining about being broke. You drove this-many hours to this [show]. You didn’t get paid. When are you gonna be in stadiums?” I never understood why. Then, I became a wrestler, and I was like, “OK, I get it,” ’cause now, I’m driving 10 hours for no money to wrestle in front of people who don’t care about me; they’re there for the main event. It’s definitely like a you-start-from-the-bottom-and-work-your-way-up-to-the-top business, just like music is. There are so many parallels to both, it’s kind of creepy.
It sucks that you get all those douchebags, ’cause the appeal of hardcore for a lot of people is that community aspect. It’s a place you can fit in.
Exactly. With hardcore, yeah, there’s good people, and then there are the bad people, and people will still just turn a blind eye to it. Same thing in wrestling: there’s really good people, and then there’s bad people, but we turn a blind eye to them sometimes, ’cause we wanna get booked by them. It’s stupid.
What’s your go-to song when you’re trying to get hyped for a match?
I feel like that changes a lot when I find different songs. Definitely, for the longest time—and sometimes I still come out to it—I would come out to “World War V” by Twitching Tongues, because that song got me hyped! All the time, people would be like, “That song doesn’t make sense. Why are you coming out to that?” I was like, “Well, ’cause I like it and it gets me stoked and it pumps me up when I come out!”
Did they think it didn’t fit with your character?
Yeah! They’re like, ‘That has nothing to do with being a cat!’ I’m like, ‘OK, but neither does being a wrestler! But here I am!’
Photo Credit: Michael Watson
Is there any music you’ve discovered because of wrestling, whether from entrance music or from other wrestlers?
No one’s entrance music, really, because A) I already know it, or B) it’s, like, butt-rock. Usually, if I drive with someone, a lot of people will just listen to radio music, so I already know that. Mostly, I enjoy driving alone so that I can listen to whatever I want. That’s usually when I discover stuff, ’cause I’ll get on my Spotify Discover Weekly playlist and I’ll find things that way. So, that’s usually how I find new music; I’ll have an eight-hour drive and I’ll be like, “All right, I’m tired of this playlist. What else do you got for me?”
You let the algorithm take care of it.
Pretty much. Spotify’s not too bad with that. All the “for you” playlists they have for me are pretty good, and there will be, like, one or two bands peppered into it that I’ve never heard of.
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