Hulkamania runs wild in Brantford: The Results
BRANTFORD -- It was a night that wrestling fans will remember as the day Hulkamania returned to Brantford. Professional wrestling returned to the Brantford Civic Centre for the first time since 1995 in the form of Championship Wrestling International (CWI) president...
Indy World champ crowned at inaugural Germanfest tournament
"Cowboy" Johnny Mantell's inaugural Germanfest Wringenmiesterschaft Tournament, held April 29-May 1, 2011, in Muenster, Texas, was easily the most ambitious indy show produced over the last few years, and included the crowning of a Indy World Champion in Tim Storm. No...
Austin Aries pulls a swerve at Dragon Gate USA’s Open the Ultimate Gate 2011
ATLANTA – Austin Aries said all the right things for several minutes on Sunday at Dragon Gate USA's Open the Ultimate Gate 2011. The next few minutes after that were the ones that came as a surprise. Aries had just lost what was billed as his farewell match to Jimmy...
Emotional Firestorm Memorial show capped by belt presentation
VANCOUVER - There are moments that transcend the politics, ego and character of wrestling, or, put another way, moments that matter. The Adam Firestorm Memorial Show held Friday in North Vancouver was a collection of such moments, a night comprised both of heartache...
Final IWS show filled with blood, nostalgia and great wrestling
By PATRIC LAPRADE and YVES LEROUX Hardcore wrestling hit a peak in 1999. ECW got a national TV deal with TNN, and the WWE, wanting to capitalize on their little brother's success, had just created a hardcore title and the TLC matches they had were off the roof. In...
Benjamin, Helms, Grenier, Demolition cook up hot T.O.W. show
MONTREAL - T.O.W. seems to have found a winning recipe to attract today's wrestling fans, as indicated by the 1,500 or so that showed up at the Centre Pierre Charbonneau Friday night. The recipe is a little like this: Mix in a few of yesterday's stars, sprinkle in...
CHIKARA debuts in Detroit with Danielson in tow
CHIKARA's debut foray into Michigan has taken on added sizzle in the last week. Bryan Danielson will make his return to the independent scene when CHIKARA debuts in Metro Detroit at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Taylor Town Trade Center in Taylor, Mich. Danielson, who was...
Championship calibre matches make PWA Supercard
CALGARY - It seems cliched when a big show is referred to as said promotion's Wrestlemania. Even Starrcade, which started before the WWE's event, was often referred to as WCW's Wrestlemania. While PWA's Night of Champions VIII card in Calgary on June 19th may not have...
Fans and wrestlers connect on day 2 of WrestleReunion 4
LOS ANGELES - When you put legends together, some who haven't seen each other in years, it can be both amazing and distracting. Fans gathered for breakfast early on Saturday morning to listen to a Q&A with Bruno Sammartino, Larry Zbyszko and Stan Hansen and heard...
Giants battle on Rougeau Christmas shows
MONTREAL - It's now a holiday tradition. Each year, Jacques Rougeau's Lutte 2000 promotion runs shows after Christmas. This year, it featured a clash between giants. Essentially, Lutte 2000 shows have been mostly a showcase for Rougeau’s wrestling school students....
Kerry Brown tribute show touches family, peers
WINNIPEG -- It was a night of memories and old school wrestling as family, wrestlers, and fans came together at an all-ages tribute show for the late "Pitbull" Kerry Brown two months after his passing. Brown's mother, Bernice Martens, was in attendance at the Skyview...
Montreal’s TOW show features many past WWE stars
MONTREAL - Friday night in Montreal, the TOW promotion managed to get the longest reigning WWE Intercontinental champion and the very first Intercontinental champion on the same show. Plus add a TNA rising star, a fitness guru and a surprise guest, and it was a major...
Femmes Fatales debut hot in Montreal
MONTREAL -- In a city known for beautiful women, Saturday's NCW Femmes Fatales gala was something altogether different. The gathering of top female wrestlers was a riotous affair, featuring some of the top names in the business and some great matches. At the...
Danielson says his goodbyes at Dragon Gate Chicago
CHICAGO - Two days after making its pay-per-view debut, Dragon Gate USA wrestling made its debut in Chicago this Sunday for its "Open the Untouchable Gate" show. Delivering the hard-hitting, quick-paced style of action that its Japanese counterpart is famed for, DGUSA...
Rougeau has giant plans for Christmas
MONTREAL -- Jacques Rougeau Jr. has always had a vision of what wrestling should really be -- a family buying tickets to a Lutte 2000 event, and leaving the arena with satisfied smiles and memories of great matches without any violence. He believes he has achieved...
Memories of Bearman McKigney flood back after indy show
KESWICK, Ont. -- The memories came flooding back to me Saturday night, as a special card put on by the Great North Wrestling Alliance honoured the one-of-a-kind Canadian wrestling character, Dave "The Bearman" McKigney. The show, billed as the Battle for the Belt, was...
Rain doesn’t dampen Edmonton supershow
EDMONTON - Mother Nature can be the ultimate ribber. While a thunderstorm put a damper, pun intended, on the Prairie Wrestling Alliance's largest show in history, Night of Champions, the end result was incredible matches, death-defying moves, superstar appearances,...
Ouellet makes Nash tap out in grudge match
MONTREAL - In what was billed as the second biggest grudge match in the history of Quebec wrestling, trailing only behind the 1985 match between the Rougeaus and the Garvins, Pierre-Carl Ouellet and Kevin Nash fought once again on Saturday at the IWS 10th anniversary...
Marathon matches bring in 3,000 pounds for food bank
PORT COQUITLAM, BC - It was a particularly rough weekend for Kyle O’Reilly and 19 of his wrestling brethren this past weekend in Port Coquitlam. As a rule, independent professional wrestlers don’t have the easiest schedule on the weekends, but the schedule that 20...
AAA conquers America all over again
SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The Mexican wrestling promotion AAA brought a tight, exciting tour to America this past week, including a stop on Sunday at a nearly-packed, enthusiastic HP Pavilion Arena. The second half of AAA's current American tour restarts April 2nd debuting...
Abdullah the Butcher says adieu to Montreal
MONTREAL - Abdullah the Butcher has been the talk of the town for several weeks now, with his supposed final show in Canada taking place this past Saturday. Needless to say, the match -- a loss to Hannibal -- went down in typical Abby fashion. The main event at the...
PWC debut in Vancouver a success
VANCOUVER - The much-anticipated debut of Pro Wrestling Canada happened this past Friday with a bang! A solid crowd of 380 people attended and, after it was all over ,fans were dancing in the aisles. PWC has brought together wrestlers from ECCW in Vancouver and other...
PWA entertains in Edmonton
Fans in attendance at the Prairie Wrestling Alliance’s show at the Extreme Zone in Edmonton knew they were in for something special when the main event was announced. During PWA Champion Chris Steele’s October 9th title defense against Tex Gaines the two men battled...
NOAH successfully invades England
Pro Wrestling NOAH invaded the United Kingdom on Saturday evening, for what was said to have been one of the greatest wrestling events ever held in Europe. The Coventry Skydome - which has a capacity of 4,200, though significantly less made available for this event -...
Suede not a gracious Pacific Cup winner
VANCOUVER, BC - The 2008 Pacific Cup is over and a new champion has been crowned. Unfortunately, he wasn't exactly a gracious champion. "Brilliant" Billy Suede wrestled three hard-fought matches to earn the right to call himself this year's Pacific Cup champion and it...
XPW return violent and emotional
LOS ANGELES - Xtreme Pro Wrestling's big reunion show was called Cold Day in Hell, promising that anything -- and everything -- would be on tap. In true XPW fashion, they certainly delivered the goods on Saturday night. The matches were, well, intense, and while not...
Border City Wrestling makes triumphant return
WINDSOR, ON -- It’s Saturday, May 3rd, just a few hours before bell-time for Border City Wrestling’s Awakening, the company’s return event after a four year absence, and the anticipation in the building is palpable. There’s a flurry of activity going on everywhere in...
PWA’s seventh anniversary a success
EDMONTON - In the world of professional wrestling, promotions come and go. It truly is an accomplishment for any wrestling company to survive for any length of time, and achieving seven years is an impressive achievement. Edmonton’s Prairie Wrestling Alliance...
Stranglehold show in memory of Dewey Robertson fun and bizarre
HAMILTON, ON -- On Saturday night, a legendary Ontario wildman was paid tribute, as Stranglehold Wrestling held the first annual Dewey "Missing Link" Robertson Memorial Tournament to crown the company's inaugural champion. With that, and a few other moments that...
Toronto Stranglehold show violent … and then some
TORONTO - The cult of hardcore recruited some more members last night, as Stranglehold Wrestling brought its unique brand of violent action back to Toronto. Scores of first-time fans could be seen among the company's long-time faithful, all of them expecting a night...
Rain delay: Time to talk at Ballpark Brawl
BUFFALO, NY -- It's Thursday, and there's a big outdoor wrestling show about to go on at Buffalo's Dunn Tire Park. But it's raining. For a writer, that's not a bad thing, as the promoter, local wrestlers, and a legend had some time to kill, chatting with Slam...
Ottawa SuperEx show full of nostalgia
OTTAWA - Attending the recent When Legends Collide wrestling event in Ottawa was similar to seeing your favorite classic rock band, the members may have grown older and grey but can still deliver the hits. The card was largely filled with 1980s-era WWF stars like Koko...
Alberta supercards leave fans happy
More then 1,500 combined fans in two cities flocked to what many consider the biggest independent wrestling cards in Alberta in five years. The Bad News Allen Coage Tribute show, held May 25th in Cochrane, and PWA Mayhem on May 26th in Edmonton, featured an...
Bishop prevails in UWA Deathmatch chaos
BOLTON, Ont. -- What dangers would you expect to encounter in a Death Match? At the UWA Hardcore Wrestling King of the Death Match (KoDM) tournament, competitors had to face weapons ranging from the dangerous -- razor-sharp barbed wire, shards of glass, piercing...
Tamer UWA heads into Deathmatch weekend
Mississauga, Ontario-based UWA Hardcore Wrestling had a banner year in 2006, capping off the year with a November weekend featuring a number of international stars, including the legendary Ultimo Dragon. In 2007, the company's goal is to raise the bar even further....
Bittersweet Stampede farewell for Neidhart & Wilson
CALGARY -- It can be said that true legitimate emotion is missing these days from pro wrestling. But then there are nights however when that emotion comes to the surface and makes a person remember what it is that captures their imagination about the sport. Such was...
Combat Zone Wrestling: A Photographer’s Eye
PHILADELPHIA, PA. -- After 15 years of shooting wrestling from ringside, I've seen up close the risk and bumps wrestlers take -- and even felt them first-hand on occasion. With such experiences, it's safe to say I even reached a comfort zone when standing so close to...
CZW has something for everyone
PHILADELPHIA -- Combat Zone Wrestling isn't as well known in Canada as some other promotions, and those who have heard of it are probably only aware of its reputation for death matches and ultra-violence. While the company's "Strictly CZW" event on Saturday night...
Elmo, Power Rangers, Sailor Moon: An animated show
The Toronto Congress Center was invaded on two fronts this past Saturday with an afternoon of unconventional mayhem. The worlds of Japanese anime and professional wrestling collided in what can only be described as a coming together of two unique brands of...
Rougeau shows off latest crop
Jacques Rougeau Jr., the former tag team and intercontinental champion of the old World Wrestling Federation recently had his third of a series of four wrestling cards planned for this year in St Hyacinthe, Quebec with his Lutte Internationalle 2000 federation. This...
Stampede Wrestling – Past, present and future collide
COCHRANE, AB -- In the world of professional wrestling things often don't go as planned. Devon Nicholson, promoting Friday night's Stampede Wrestling card at the Spray Lakes Sawmill Sportsplex in Cochrane had reason to be worried. Rhino had no-showed the event with...
Cage victorious in Toronto homecoming
TORONTO - Though NWA Heavyweight Champion Christian Cage is from the Toronto area, it's rare he gets the chance to perform here. This weekend, though, the champ came home, appearing at a Blood, Sweat, and Ears show in Mississauga. BSE has traditionally featured TNA...
Turned off by naked women wrestling
TORONTO - Say what you will about Carmen Electra's Naked Women's Wrestling League, but they have absolutely nothing to hide. Unlike some other wrestling companies that merely tease their fans by having their women appear in scanty outfits but never deliver the goods,...
Harry Smith Bret’s mystery man in England
When Bret Hart was announced for a weekend of independent shows in England, he said he wasn't coming alone. For the past few weeks, 1 Pro Wrestling (1PW) out of Doncaster, England had been promoting the "mystery wrestler" that Bret was bringing over to face Jeff...
Milwaukee show pays tribute to The Crusher
MILWAUKEE -- Everyone, whether they're a wrestling fan or not, knows that The Crusher, who passed away in October, was "The Wrestler Who Made Milwaukee Famous." On Friday, wrestlers such as Al Snow, Traci Brooks, Buff Bagwell, and King Kong Bundy were on hand at a...
Rhyno topples Abyss in loud indy show
A week before TNA's Turning Point Pay-Per-View, several of the company's stars appeared at the latest Blood, Sweat, and Ears show in Mississauga held this past Sunday. Though the card would have been a solid indy show without the TNA presence, the big names definitely...
Big crowd takes in NY church show
With a wrestling ring on the altar, WWE stars on the show, and pastors in the front row, Power Wrestling Alliance (PWA) made its Long Island debut on Veterans Day in front of a packed house of over 2,000 fans. Headlined by Shawn Michaels and Kane, fans eagerly flocked...
Storm interrupts November Reign
PHILADELPHIA -- Lance Storm made an extreme impact by running in during the main event match at the Hardcore Homecoming November Reign show in Philadelphia's ECW Arena on Saturday night. Indeed, it was a full Impact Players reunion as Storm, along with Jason and Dawn...
Fight Network starts swinging
TORONTO - Mix boxers, wrestlers and mixed-martial artists with some savvy television minds, a little media, and a whack of VIPs and an after-work party crowd, and it's a combustible atmosphere. But in what other kind of setting would you launch a station called The...
Ultimo Dragon invades NYWC
It is a rare occasion to see Ultimo Dragon wrestle an independent wrestling card as he simply doesn't do them. Aside from one appearance in December 2004, Dragon has been absent from the indy scene. On the October 8th edition of NYWC (New York Wrestling Connection)...
