On Saturday, October 18, 2025, at Premier Events Center in Clinton Township, Michigan, after months of publicity and hype, XICW (Xtreme Intense Championship Wrestling), the “longest-running promotion in Michigan independent professional wrestling,” celebrated its 25th anniversary with a stacked card of Detroit favorites, returning legends, and a highly anticipated in-ring debut from the biggest free agent in pro wrestling today.
Upon my arrival to the Premier Events Center, it was clear this would be one of the bigger audiences in recent XICW memory, with the line of those waiting to get inside winding through the parking lot, and many wearing Killer Kross t-shirts. It wasn’t long before XICW MCs Johnny Delicious and Jeremiah Goldmain came out to greet the crowd, with Delicious joking, they’ve been doing this for twenty-five years, so everyone should know they never start on time, but after only about a 30-minute delay, it was time to begin the show at 8:00 PM.
But before the first match of the evening, the XICW roster all came out to the ring, to celebrate this momentous occasion, and have a toast to twenty-five years of XICW. Malcolm Monroe II, The DBA, said this used to be a dream, but now it was a reality, and everyone raised a glass to XICW.
The opening match was “The Second Sun” Caden Monroe versus Aaron Orion. Both men had their fans in the crowd, but Orion’s fans were just a little more vocal in their support. This was a fast-paced, hard hitting wrestling match, with no shenanigans or surprise gimmicks. It was the type of match young Caden Monroe needed to prove himself to the XICW crowd, and even if he may have surprised the audience by defeating the bigger Orion with a rollup pin, I think he also earned their respect.
The next match was announced as a 25th Anniversary Scramble, and featured a total of seven combatants, including 24 Karat, Schwartzy, Randi West, Great Tiger, and “Rodrageous” Rod Lee. Both 24 Karat and Lee came out to different Bruno Mars songs (“24K Magic” and “Uptown Funk”), and I’m not sure if that was a coincidence. There were two other men in this match, but I admit I missed their names. Being a scramble, this match was mostly chaos, with a flurry of fists, kicks, and spots. In the end, all that matters is 24 Karat pinned Rodrageous.
Johnny Delicious described the match that followed as a “gatekeeper versus gatekeeper” match, and it featured Jumal Kyng versus the Soultaker. I wasn’t as familiar with Kyng as I was with Soultaker, but Kyng looked like one of the few men Soultaker’s faced that nearly matched his formidable size. Perhaps this lit a fire in Soultaker, because he hit Kyng with some of the hardest chops I think I’ve ever heard, like he was breaking a baseball bat on the chest of Kyng. Kyng got his licks in, as well, but Soultaker emerged victorious after choke-slamming Kyng, then after the match, Soultaker continued to beat Kyng with his shovel, which the XICW crowd cheered.
Next up was a “lightweight legends” match between the XICW “Icon” Jaimy Coxxx and Josh Raymond. Coxxx has been wrestling in XICW since the very start, twenty-five years ago, with less frequency as of late, but he’s about as homegrown as it gets. Raymond has had his share of XICW matches, as well, but his resume is a little more diverse, having previously wrestled in Ring of Honor and MTV’s Wrestling Society X, among other companies. Despite Coxxx and Raymond both being XICW “lightweight legends,” Coxxx was definitely the favorite in this match, so the crowd was pleased when Coxxx pinned Raymond after delivering a pedigree.
What followed was the first title match of the night, for the XICW United States Championship. The challenger in this match was former NXT/WWE talent Simon Gotch, and the champion was “The Black Diamond” Jack Price. I was confident, going in, that this would be a solid match, having seen Price at other XICW events, and having seen Gotch wrestle for years in NXT and WWE, as well as Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport, and my assumption was correct. Gotch versus Price was an excellent, technical wrestling match. I think a lot of people in attendance thought that Price was going to lose the title to Gotch, especially after Gotch hit Price with a piledriver then sunk in a choke, but Price “Hulked up,” so to say, and regained consciousness midchoke, and managed to retain his XICW United States Championship.
After a fifteen minute intermission, which allowed the audience to eat, drink, smoke, and buy merch, the action continued with another XICW legends match between LJ Lawrence and Andy Muscat. Lawrence works a “Cobra Kai” gimmick, when he’s not donning a mask as “Great Tiger” (as seen earlier in the scramble match). I’ve seen him work as both numerous times, and he always gets a great crowd response, no matter the gimmick. I’m less familiar with the “Maltese Falcon” Andy Muscat, who doesn’t have as obvious of a character, but he was wearing one of the greatest wrestling singlets I’ve ever seen, with what appeared to be a large, green Cthulhu on his torso. As the obvious crowd favorite, I was fully expecting Lawrence to win this one, but alas, Muscat pulled out the victory. Thanks, Cthulhu?
The next match is what I anticipated would be the match of the night. It was time for a tag team match between The Pillars, Tommy Vendetta and Malcolm Monroe III, aka MM3, and Jake Crist and Trey Miguel. Little did I know that Crist and Miguel used to tag as “Wendy and Lisa” (a Prince reference for those not in the know), so that was a fun bit of trivia I learned. While I expected this match to be high-flying, acrobatic, and athletic, I didn’t expect it to get as hardcore as it did, with Oliver and MM3 using their hardcore/deathmatch skills to take the match out of the ring. Oliver and Crist wailed on each other around the venue while MM3 and Miguel took their fight into the crowd. At another point in the match, all four competitors, including the referee, took a hit from somebody’s vape, then proceeded to wrestle in slow motion in a more convincing fashion than I think I’ve seen done anywhere else. It was very silly, of course, but the crowd ate it up. After one hell of a battle between the two teams, the Pillars scored the pinfall. MM3 then took the mic and pulled the screen back for a minute, saying that everyone in the ring at that moment were family, and he and Miguel had been fighting each other in the ring since they were each fourteen years old. Miguel then took the mic and confessed that XICW saved his life when he was at his lowest point and was ready to quit wrestling. MM3, Oliver, Miguel, and Crist then shared a hug in the ring, in their own heart warming, “curtain call”-esque moment.
There were no hugs in the next match though, because it was time for the co-main event, an “Xtreme Street Fight” between Mr. Insanity, Toby Klein, and The DBA, Malcolm Monroe II. While XICW isn’t typically a hardcore or deathmatch wrestling show, many of the XICW shows I’ve been to have featured numerous hardcore matches, but this was the one hardcore match advertised for the night, so the crowd was ready for some violence, and Klein and DBA immediately brought the violence. They hit each other with garbage cans, stabbed with a fork, and used dueling staple guns on each other’s flesh. At one point in the match, out of range of view of many in attendance, Klein and DBA fought their way over to the concessions area, and while I couldn’t see who was being hit, I could hear and see the many shards of whatever was being shattered over each other’s head. In my favorite moment of the match, though, Klein took out a VCR, of all things, which ended up getting turned on him. In the final moments of the match, Klein’s manager turned on him, throwing a fireball in his face, and the DBA nailed Klein with his patented flaming elbow drop. The DBA claimed victory, once again, on the night of XICW’s 25th anniversary, making it a clean sweep, three wins and zero losses, for the Monroe Family Dynasty.
But wait, there’s more! The final match of the evening is the match that almost immediately sold out the first several rows of seats. It was time for “The Killer Smokeshow,” Scarlett and Killer Kross, with their teammate Jimmy Jacobs, to face Adam Wick, Thee Maxximillian, and Heather Blue in a 6-Person tag team main event. Credit to Wick, Maximilian, and Blue, the XICW audience legitimately hates them, which made them perfect foils for Scarlett, Kross, and Jacobs.
Jacobs was announced first, and he got a great reaction, the returning Scarlett received an even bigger reaction than Jacobs, and when Johnny Delicious introduced Killer Kross, the roof absolutely blew off the joint. Both teams faced off in the ring, and they paired up surprisingly well. Scarlett and Blue looked like a good match for each other, Wick and Jacobs were about the same size as each other, the only significant difference was Kross looked like an absolute monster next to everybody in the ring. They did a good job keeping Kross out of the ring too much, using Jacobs to build heat and getting cheap shots on Scarlett and Kross, so when Kross finally did get tagged in, he came in like a house on fire, and easily overpowered everyone. In the final moments of the main event, after Scarlett and Jacobs were taken out, the tiny Heather Blue went face to face with Kross, and Kross literally tossed Blue up through the drop ceiling, knocking out a couple of tiles, then Jacobs speared Adam Wick, and referee Brian Gorie counted one-two-three. After the match, Jacobs, Scarlett, and Kross passed the mic to each other, and thanked XICW and the crowd in attendance. Jacobs said he was actually on the very first XCIW show in 2000, as a 16 year-old referee, and Scarlett said that when she and Kross left WWE in August, she knew that she wanted her first official in-ring match after WWE to be in XICW, and she said this wouldn’t be her last.
XICW’s 25th Anniversary was a great success, and Jacobs had the honor of announcing that XICW’s next show would be back at the Premier Events Center, in three weeks, on Saturday, November 8. Congratulations to XICW on twenty-five years of professional wrestling, and here’s to twenty-five more.
RELATED LINKS
