Eric Dane is back—and he didn’t come home to the bright lights. The two-time Hall of Famer and eleven-time World Champion chose Birmingham, Alabama, and an abandoned factory on the city’s south side to build his future.

“I healed here—my body, my mind, my soul,” Dane said. “Birmingham gave me something back I hadn’t had in a long time. So I started thinking about how I could repay it.”

That repayment became the Star Forge, a stripped-down, punishing training ground that doesn’t just build wrestlers—it breaks the weak. Out of it has grown Iron City Wrestling, a promotion as raw and unpolished as the building it was born in.

“This game ain’t for everyone,” Dane told us. “It takes a special kind of psycho to endure.”

Now the clang of steel echoes through the Foundry as Birmingham fans pack in fifty at a time to watch the next generation tested in fire.

Read the full story of Dane’s disappearance, his redemption, and the rise of Iron City Wrestling in our feature: Re-forged in Birmingham, the Eric Dane story.