Kevin Featherstone (born February 26, 1971) is an American professional wrestler who competes in the Mid-Atlantic and East Coast independent circuit. He is a longtime mainstay of the National Wrestling League and House of Pain Wrestling Federation as one-half of Old School with Scott Vaughn. One of the promotion's most dominant and popular tag teams, they have won the HoPWF Tag Team Championship twice and the NWL Tag Team Championship three times. One of their title reigns lasted a record of two years.
Featherstone has also held the NWL Tag Team titles with Spazman Anthony and John Rambo as well as being a former 3-time HoPWF Heavyweight Champion. He is also involved with the promotion's wrestling school.
Career
Early life and career
Kevin Featherstone was born in Washington, D.C., on February 26, 1971, and later moved to Sterling, Virginia. A wrestling fan growing up, he was fan of "Mr. USA" Tony Atlas and Bruiser Brody. He also recalled that he and his friends would play mock battle royals in his backyard after watching wrestling on Saturday nights. Shortly after graduating high school, he became interested in becoming a professional wrestler himself. He followed up on some newspaper and magazine ads and nearly went to a wrestling camp in North Carolina run by Ivan Koloff. After working the late shift at Pizza Hut, Featherstone was watching late night wrestling at a friend's house when he saw a commercial for Max Thrasher's AWF Training Center in Hanover, Pennsylvania.
Thrasher agreed to train him and Featherstone eventually made his professional debut in 1987. He spent the next several years wrestling on and off in various independent promotions in the Mid-Atlantic and East Coast region, during which time he helped set up rings and other maintenance, until the late 1990s.
National Wrestling League and House of Pain Wrestling Federation
2001-2003
In early-2001, a friend of Featherstone's did a brief two-week stint for the National Wrestling League and House of Pain Wrestling Federation shortly after graduating from Axl Rotten's Bone Breaker Training Center in Baltimore. Afterwards, he told Featherstone about its "open door" policy and contacted promoter John Rambo. He was invited into the NWL/HoPWF and, after a period of training, joined the promotion within the year.
In one of his earliest matches for the promotion, Featherstone was disqualified in a wild bout against Johnny Dowe in Ben Salem, Pennsylvania when he hit referee Mike DiMuzio. That same month, he took part in a 4 Way Dance with Master of Disaster, Jake "The Machine" Davis and "Epic" Cashis Carter in Ben Salem on August 28, 2001. While he and Cashis Carter were brawling outside the ring, Master of Disaster ended up winning the match via referee decision. On May 18, 2002, Featherstone faced NWL Heavyweight Champion John Rambo in his first "hardcore wrestling" match. The ring ropes and corner were wrapped in barbed wire while 20 lumberjacks stood at ringside.
Featherstone won his first title defeating Spazman Brian Anthony for the HoPWF Heavyweight Championship in Hagerstown, Maryland on October 15, 2002. He held the title for almost 2 months before losing it to Aidean in Greencastle, Pennsylvania on December 7, 2002. At the end of the month, he and Spazman Anthony won the NWL Tag Team Championship from The Highwaymen (Leslie Leatherman and Jake "The Machine" Davis) on December 28, 2002, although their alliance lasted a few weeks when Featherstone was forced to surrender the belts back to Leatherman and Davis when Anthony no-showed a scheduled title defense a week later. On February 8, 2003, he and John Rambo unexpectedly ended The Highwaymen's third title reign and defended the titles for over three months until their loss to Leatherman & Flex Fenom on May 24.
That summer, Featherstone regained the heavyweight title from Latin Tornado in Martinsburg, West Virginia July 8. He won the title once more from Tank Thomas on August 30, being awarded the belt via forfeit, before finally losing the title to Pirate of the Caribbean in a Dog Collar match on September 6, 2003.