In an industry that churns out synthetic smiles and six-pack dreams by the dozen, Heidi Howitzer is a brick wall someone tagged with spray paint and middle fingers. She’s wrestling’s outlaw daughter—equal parts Saturday morning cartoon villain and roadside bar bruiser, with a wardrobe raided from a Mad Max film and a soul stitched together from steel chairs and half-empty PBRs.
Born Sarah Slack in Houston, Texas—the belly of heatstroke and hard knocks—she didn’t enter the squared circle until 2019, but when she did, it felt less like a debut and more like an arrival. Wrestling didn’t know it needed her. But it did.
She stormed onto the scene at Rocky Mountain Pro, flattening Simone Lockhart like a wrecking ball through drywall. And the name fit. “Wrecking Ball” was her first moniker, but Heidi Howitzer was the evolution—the full-blown war machine painted in face glitter, denim vests, and chaos.
At 5-foot-8 and 170 pounds of controlled fury, Heidi isn’t delicate. She’s dynamite in Doc Martens. And in a business that too often rewards polish over passion, she made a career out of being everything the mainstream said she shouldn’t be: loud, proudly queer, and allergic to the idea of being boxed in.
She’s carved a path through the American indie scene like a buzzsaw through old vinyl—Deadlock Pro, Women of Wrestling, Hoodslam, and her spiritual home, Lucha Libre & Laughs, the Colorado-based promotion that feels like a fever dream inside a lucha mask. There, she racked up gold like beer tabs on a barfly’s fridge—LLL Super Champion, two-time Women’s Champ, and one-half of the tag champs alongside Bentley Powell.
She didn’t do it for clout. She did it because the ring was the only place that made sense.
When AEW came calling, it didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet. Heidi was slotted into the sacrificial lamb role—a recurring extra in someone else’s star-making vehicle. Riho, Ruby Soho, Nyla Rose—they all got their arm raised, but Heidi got something better: footage of her getting up, again and again, middle finger raised to the lights.
She wasn’t there to play underdog. She was there to remind you that the dogs who bite hardest are the ones you don’t see coming.
But it was in Japan where Heidi went from indie darling to international menace. In 2023, she touched down in Tokyo alongside Max the Impaler, her Wasteland War Party tag partner and fellow post-apocalyptic wrecking queen. Together, they decimated Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling’s landscape like two Hell’s Angels on a detour through a Shinto shrine.
At TJPW Tokyo Joshi Pro ’23, they captured the Princess Tag Team Titles by taking out Saki Akai and Yuki Arai—two idols dressed for a dance recital who found themselves face-first in Heidi’s suplex symphony. It wasn’t a match. It was a demolition.
Heidi and Max weren’t just champions. They were the first all-LGBTQ team to ever hold those belts. In a country where tradition clings like summer humidity, that mattered. It mattered in ways that didn’t make the highlight reel but lived in the hearts of kids who never saw themselves reflected in the heroes of yesteryear.
They defended the titles with wreckless abandon—three times, across Japan and the U.S.—before finally falling to the pop punk buzzsaw of Maki Itoh and Miyu Yamashita at Grand Princess ’23. Loss or not, the legacy was etched in steel and eyeliner.
In between tag wars, Heidi popped up in DDT Pro, partnering with Max to beat Antonio Honda and Super Sasadango Machine in a match that looked like a kaiju brawl and felt like a punk rock mosh pit. They capped the tour with a win in Los Angeles at TJPW Live, beating Miu Watanabe and Shoko Nakajima and riding off into the sunset like queens of the wasteland.
Stateside, she continued to make rounds. Ring of Honor gave her a proving ground match against Athena in late 2023. She lost, sure. But Heidi’s never been about the W. She’s about the war. She shows up, throws bombs, and leaves her mark. Whether it’s a boot print, a bruised rib, or a fan now screaming her name—it all counts.
She’s the kind of wrestler that indie posters are built around: loud fonts, louder gear, and a promise that if she’s on the card, something will burn.
Off the mat, Heidi is married to fellow wrestler Austin Reddick, which feels like the kind of love story that starts with a steel chair and ends with “I do” in a dive bar chapel. It’s fitting. She’s real like that. All gravel, no gloss.
She’s also proudly, loudly queer. No press release needed. Just existence. Just presence. Just being unapologetically herself in a business that’s taken decades to even begin accepting difference. Heidi doesn’t ask permission. She plants her flag in the dirt and dares you to move it.
Rankings? Yeah, she’s been on a few. PWI slotted her at No. 231 in their 2023 Women’s 250, and alongside Max, they cracked the top 100 tag teams at No. 92. But stats miss the point.
Heidi Howitzer is an experience.
She’s the match that wakes the dead crowd. The chaos that no script can contain. She doesn’t wrestle pretty—she wrestles like her life depends on it. Every forearm. Every slam. Every smirk at the camera before doing something insane.
Her career isn’t built on a rocket push or corporate machine. It’s built on duct tape, grit, and the kind of fight that lives in the pit of your stomach when the world tells you to shut up and sit down.
And Heidi?
She kicks the table over.
