Earl Haggerty has done and seen nearly everything you can on the indie circuits, in his lifetime. As a teenager in North Dakota, Ace would drive out to a wrestling school in Minnesota, first just to help out around the gym. As soon as he was old enough, he began training in earnest, and a year later, moved out to Minneapolis independently. Within five years (and one or two ill-advised gimmicks later), he'd contested for championships in several states and become a gatekeeper of sorts for his home promotion in St. Paul; finally settling on the name of Ace Andrews, dashing pulp hero, he began finding booking outside of the Midwest, and soon was a popular name on rare Internet tape-trading email groups.

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Nothing lasts forever, though, and a long career spanning North America (and the occasional milestone journey to Japan or Europe) finally crested. Ace, seeking stability and a place to settle down, married his former kayfabe manager and longtime sweetheart Dale Mason and took over as the booker of a struggling federation in San Luis Obispo, CA. With Ace's name backing the card, the Explosive Wrestling Alliance gained some notoriety in the Central Coast town, and shortly Ace and XWA opened their own gym in nearby Atascadero.

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Though Ace insisted he didn't want to make the gym about him, Dale and the rest convinced him that it was his name and his work that had turned the promotion around, and so grudgingly, he christened the school Ace Alley, and the federation became Ace Alley Wrestling.