The Riot Act is a tag team that has been taking eastern Pennsylvania and beyond, by storm. Riley Krowe and Angel Metro are two female wrestlers that can wrestle any style. They have done deathmatches, hardcore matches and traditional wrestling matches. With some of the top female deathmatch wrestlers stepping away from the business, I believe that Riot Act can be a team to rise up and make their name known.

There are not a lot of women’s tag teams in the indies right now, and even fewer that regularly work hardcore matches. Angel said that as soon as she met Riley, she knew they were going to be a team. “Riley and I met facing off against one another at an SSW show. It was actually at that same show that I told her we were going to tag together one day. She treated me with respect and cared about my thoughts and ideas. She didn’t belittle me the way others might have, and that stood out to me. I also saw her not being appreciated as much as I felt she deserved for how hard she worked. I wanted to change that because I liked her as a person. Riley was trained at the Wild Samoan training center so she can lay it in and can brawl too, which was right up my alley. I didn’t have to worry about her being delicate. We were just a great fit together and got along well. We became friends and TRA was formed.”

At your more family friendly shows, Angel and Riley are typically big fan favorites and have a connection with the fans, especially the younger girls. A friend of mine who does photography for shows that Angel works at in Ohio, told me that Angel has an especially strong connection with the young girls who are fans of her. I asked Angel about this and she said, “I think part of it comes from me taking the time to actually see them. Children are often overlooked and in public often treated as accessories to their parents more than people. I like taking the time to have a genuine conversation with them. They have their own thoughts and ideas that should be heard by others too. Regarding girls specifically, maybe it’s because l’m someone they feel comfortable with or see some of themselves in. Children are very perceptive. It is something I’m proud of. Being able to show young girls abilities they’ve never seen women have before can be incredibly impactful. For me that came from watching Chyna, and it means a lot that I get to pass that along to the next generation in a small way.”

Angel stated that Chyna was someone that she has looked up to. “Chyna had a big impact on me and how I perceived women especially in wrestling because she was doing things so much differently than the other women were allowed to. When I decided to start training I made a conscious choice to not shy away from any opponent based on their gender or size. I wanted to challenge myself and not get too comfortable and because of that I’ve had a lot of intergender matches. I was taught with the mentality that we are wrestlers, first. Nothing comes before that, and as such I refuse to be boxed into a certain role or image because of my gender. That’s actually where my moniker ‘The Great Equalizer’ takes some of its inspiration from.”

Both members of The Riot Act have never been ones to shy away from an opponent. Riley has taken on some of the top female wrestlers like the legend Missy Sampson, AEW star Nyla Rose, TNA Knockout Zia Brookside, WWEID wrestler Zayda Steel, and MLW star Janai Kai.

Riley has also taken on some top male independent wrestlers, like Cowpoke Paul, the heart of Northeast Pennsylvania wrestling, Uncle Masty, Ricky Pryce, ETU Tag Champion J Boujii, no ring matches against Zack Xander and Philly Mike, as well as a cage match against Luca Mancini. She has also had deathmatches against Philly Mike  and Lady Blakely.

One of Riley’s recent rivals, Journey Burke said of her, “Riley is a hard hitting bad ass who is always ready to stand up for her people. Her creativity and fierceness is essential to the riot act and I hope we get to beat each other up for a long time.”

Riley can be seen as a bit of a measuring stick of Eastern Pennsylvania Women’s Wrestling, as she is a bit of a veteran now and never holds anything back. 

Angel has also been in the ring with some of the top stars in independent wrestling. I asked her about some of the top deathmatch wrestlers that she has worked with, including working at Rickey Shane Page’s promotion. Angel said, “From RSP I learned how brutal the industry can be and how hard I have to constantly push myself to reach higher standards if I want to keep up. I respect him very much as a wrestler and so being able to work with him a little to improve my fundamentals some was priceless. The first time I trained with him and got his feedback, once we were done I went to my hotel room and beat myself up really badly about it. But eventually I got over myself and just kept showing up as much as I could. You don’t know what you don’t know, and once you realize that then it’s a little easier to avoid the self pity and just focus on learning. I also learned that the baddest bad guys in wrestling can be extremely kind and caring and go out of their way to help someone, even if they may not always have the best bedside manner. They still care.“

Angel on facing Mad Man Pondo: “From Pondo, man where do I start? I love Pondo, he’s the best. We bonded at a No Peace Underground show after I was attacked during a match I was reffing. Because that was a last minute to have me ref, I didn’t have appropriate gear on for a deathmatch, I just had shorts on. So I got cut up pretty good especially on my knees, and was bleeding into my boots. He checked on me after and helped me clean up and showed me some stuff. And basically since then we’ve been good friends and stay in contact fairly regularly. We’re both big horror fans too so that helps. Whenever we’re together I’m always shadowing him and asking him questions about deathmatch and he’s very supportive. I could go on and on about Pondo, but from him I learned, well one- that I’m apparently batshit crazy. Haha Because of what I’ve done so far I guess and how I responded to it. But honestly when the Mad Man calls YOU crazy, how can you not feel a little cool for that? The second thing I learned is there are people you can ask for help, they want to help. I tend to try to handle things on my own a lot. It’s really difficult for me to ask for help even when I find myself it bad situations, I just hate being an imposition on anyone. But with Pondo I’m comfortable with him and know it’s okay to ask.”

Angel on recently taking on Lowlife Louie in a deathmatch: “Lowlife Louie was such a fun match. I knew he would push me but it’s so hard not to have fun wrestling him. Louie is old school like Pondo and I always seem to get along really well with that generation of wrestler. I enjoy talking to the vets and hearing stories and learning and just being around that vibe. They have such invaluable knowledge and stories it’s wild to me they aren’t constantly hounded in the locker room. I mean other than by me. lol  Atticus Reighns is another vet like that. Deathmatch Santa is the man. Anyway, from Louie I learned it doesn’t have to be super intricate wrestling to be good. He made me really think about each weapon in there and what it means to take all of it. At the end of the day deathmatch is a fight and fights get ugly. So thinking about the environment you’re in realistically and the crowd. I also just had a solid dose of love and kinship from him. Louie is a friend of my former partner Markus Crane who is a very beloved deathmatch wrestler that passed away in December 2021. He’s the reason I started training. He wanted to teach me himself but his passing was sudden and unexpected due to a medical condition and we just hadn’t had the time.

After he passed I was severely traumatized. In truth I can only remember bits and pieces of trying to sort everything with his family for him and his service. My brain just blocked out parts. I knew Markus would not want me living like that, in constant agony and broken inside, and I felt like I was letting him down, but I couldn’t help it and I didn’t know how to pull myself out. Wrestling did that for me. It gave me a reprieve from reality, gave me purpose, it forced me to feel again through physical pain which helped the emotional stuff too. It made me smile again, and it helped me keep some small part of Mark here. It’s difficult for me to talk about this stuff even now but I make a point to because I want people to know how important and special Markus Crane AND Mark Pobanz was, his contributions to wrestling, his loving nature, and how strong he was. How funny he was. How literally just his laugh could make you laugh too because it was so goofy. And how he did everything he could for me. Because of all this Louie and I became pretty emotional in the back and we just hugged and cried together. It meant so much to both of us, and the fact that it even happened, the odds of me just becoming a wrestler to be able to do that with him, it was a special moment. Markus never got to see me wrestle. The most he ever got to see was trying to teach me a lock up or give me arm drags on a trampoline. lol He never even got to see me run the ropes. So when I started I kept my most goals simple: Make Markus proud, and make myself proud. As long as I was doing those two things I was on the right track wherever I went. But sometimes it hits me really hard that he can never see what I’ve done, what I’ve learned and what I’ve become so far, how hard I’ve worked and how I’ve tried to hold it down for us both and be strong as I can. We were a tag team in life and I just really wish he could see sometimes…

Being in the ring and wrestling his friends are the closest I can come to that. It’s the closest I can come to wrestling him for real too. So when they want to recreate a spot they did with him or a move, that means a lot to me. Because I’ll never get his feedback or advice outside of what I already had before I started, and it can be easy to feel lost sometimes. And when I do well and they put me over or tell me they’re proud of me like Louie, it’s just overwhelming how that affects me. It means so much to have their encouragement and respect. Wrestlers outside of deathmatch that don’t know my story don’t really understand sometimes, but that’s alright because it’s my journey and the only one it needs to make sense to is me.”

Both Riley and Angel trained at incredible schools and not ones necessary known for hardcore or deathmatch wrestling. However, their journeys to the ring were very different. Riley had been a wrestling fan since she was little and started training with Samu at the Wild Samoan Training Center. She was able to learn from some of the best at this school, including some of the Samoan Dynasty that would stop by, like WWE Hall of Famer, Rikishi.

She said that she learned to hit hard there and says that whenever she kicks, punches or throws forearms she does it all the way and will apologize afterwards. Riley has been wrestling since 2016, but did take some time off when she had her son. She said that one of her goals after coming back to wrestling, after giving birth, was to have higher profile matches in bigger promotions and against more established wrestlers. Angel says that there is not much of a difference between Riley inside and outside of the ring.

“I don’t know that there are massive differences for her between the two from my perspective. She’s tough as hell and had to fight her entire life and that’s true outside of the ring too. She’s creative and I love that we are always bouncing ideas off of each other, that goes for life problems sometimes too. I’d say the biggest difference between her in and out of the ring is that she is very sweet outside of the ring and you don’t always get to see that side of her to the extent you might outside.”

Angel trained with Jimmy Valiant, who was not getting in the ring at that time, but was helping instruct the classes. Before she started training to be in wrestling Angel was a musician and was in a couple bands. She said that she was able to bring a lot of what she learned while being a musician to her wrestling career.

“I feel music and wrestling are like cousins. Regarding the treatment of women between the two, yes there are some similarities as well. However, I would say that regardless of what you do, if you do it as a woman there’s a good chance you’ll be harassed at some point. In hardcore and deathmatch I’m more comfortable than I might be at a regular show because folks look out for one another a little better. The scene is smaller and everyone knows pretty much everyone.”

Angel says that her plan was always to be a deathmatch wrestler. “That was the plan since day one. And I’ve had to justify that choice pretty much since day one too. lol It’s can be difficult to describe the ‘whys’ for the love of hardcore and deathmatch if you don’t have that passion, but Johnny Kashmere put it well in an interview I did with him. He said, ‘I can tell you love wrestling, why else would you do all the hardcore stuff?’ He’s spot on. We take a lot more damage and risks doing that style of wrestling, but we are also capable of suspending belief and evoking emotion you don’t see in other wrestling matches. When you see someone hit with something or go through something and they start bleeding in front of you, you know it’s real. You can see the injury and imagine the pain from it, it hits on a different level.”

You can find The Riot Act as a tag team and in singles matches at Smash Master Wrasslin’, X Brand Wrestling, High Tension Wrestling and many more places in Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and beyond. Angel will also be in X Brand’s first Deathmatch tournament, joining deathmatch legends like Mickie Knuckles and Nick Gage.

You can find The Riot Act online at:

Angel Metro

• X: MetroAngel
• Instagram: angelmetro

Riley Krowe

• X: RileyKrowe00
• Instagram: Riley_Krowe