Krule issued his first statement since the Berwyn controversy first emerged, apologizing and taking full responsibility for what happened during the late March incident at the Berwyn Eagles Club in Illinois. He said he threw the first punch in the altercation and told the detective he did not believe he had been stabbed, even as rumors spread that the injury to his side came from a knife.
He said he prepared a statement two weeks ago and chose to speak now because he wanted to correct what had circulated online. “I accept full responsibility for everything that occurred,” he said, adding that he had “failed and made a bad decision.” He also said, “I do not know how this injury occurred, only that it occurred during the incident.”
The injury became part of the wider fallout after footage showed a fan in a physical altercation with many others at the event, including other wrestlers, and a later police report determined that a stabbing had never occurred. Krule said staff at Berwyn found the injury after he returned to the locker room and helped bandage him and tend to the wound before he was driven to the airport for an early flight the next morning for another booking. “Did you get stabbed?” he said detectives asked him, and he said he answered that he did not think so and may have fallen on something during the altercation.
The Berwyn Eagles Club announced earlier this month that it would no longer present wrestling shows, ending a run that had lasted more than two decades and forcing promotions including GCW to move planned events. That decision followed the episode at the Ruthless Pro Wrestling card, which turned one night at a longtime independent venue into a broader disruption for the scene. Krule said, “To be absolutely clear, I never wanted nor asked that this story be represented as fact nor made public,” and added, “I regret not addressing this immediately and allowing misinformation and assumptions to circulate without clarification.”
His statement closes one of the messiest stretches to hit independent wrestling in recent memory, but it does not undo the damage already done to the venue or the promotions that had to scramble after the shutdown. “I am speaking to all of you now not as a character, but as myself,” Krule said, leaving the scene with accountability on one side and a repaired reputation still a long way off.
