A Good-Bye to Defiant Wrestling/WCPW
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| Source: @DefiantWrestling on Twitter |
On August 1st, 2019 it was announced, that Defiant Wrestling, also known as WhatCulture Pro Wrestling (WCPW). would close its doors forever.
Three years ago the YouTube channel, WhatCulture, took a chance. With the british indy-scene beeing on a rise like never before and an incredible interesting in wrestling YouTube, their took the risk and launched the first ever YouTube-Orientated wrestling promotion.
With their free weekly series 'Loaded' on YouTube, going on the road and iPPVs the promotion drew home big numbers right from the get-go. With the WhatCulture YouTube-Channel and the popular faces of Adam Pacitti, Adam Blampied, Ross Tweddel, Jack G. King and others pushing the brand, aswell was several big wrestling stars like Joe Hendry, Martin Kirby, Drew Galloway, Alberto El Patron, Cody Rhodes, Kurt Angle, PAC, Will Ospreay, Big Damo, Rampage Brown and so many others on the show each and every week, the WCPW became extremely popular in a short amount of time.
However, after the first business year, the promotion slowly began to fall from the sky. First YouTube announced that pro-wrestling will be effected, but what would later be called 'armageddon', causing WCPW losing in ad-revenue, damaging their core product.
However, WCPW fought back with extremely strong episodes of Loaded and iPPVs. Then the next set-back happened: Adam Pacitti, Adam Blampied, Ross Tweddel, Jack G. King and Sam Driver broke away from WhatCulture and formed their own YouTube-Channel, called 'Cultaholic'.
WCPW saw themselves faced with fan-critism, that they were focusing on the YouTube stars too much anyway. This eventually resulted in the promotion rebranding itself to 'Defiant Wrestling' in December 2017, in an attempt to stand alone, without visable connection to WhatCulture on YouTube.
The bad news did not stop there, because the WWE arrived in the United Kingdom and their plans to form NXT UK resulted in them signing a lot of talent. Also WWE did not allow their stars to compete on Defiant Wrestling.
Later also AEW arrived on the world wrestling scene and also signed up a lot of talent.
This all together resulted in Defiant losing fans on mass and eventually it was not enough to keep the promotion alive.
I personally followed WCPW until the break-away Adam Pacitti & Co.
However, in early 2019 I was told, that Defiant Wrestling since has improved and the wrestling is nothing but fantastic, so I gave it another chance.
While Joe Hendry, Martin Kirby and Rampage Brown were still kicking around, a lot newer talent like Rory Coyle, Lucky Kid, David Starr, Simon Miller, Visage, Lizzy Styles, No Fun Dunne and Benji were absolutley killing it.
With Prince Ameen as the General Manager, the Loaded Episodes were a perfect gamble between fun and serious business. Just what a promotion should be. The in-ring quality was fantastic and the storylines intriguing. In one segment El Phantasmo was searching for his glasses, in the other Rory Coyle and Rampage Brown were fighting for their lives. So I stayed on and also was able to watch their Lights Out '19 and Built to Destroy iPPVs, with the latter becoming the final show the promotion put out.
I had a lot of fun watching all of this. Defiant had found its footing, when it was too late, I guess.
I am upset for the wrestlers and everyone that worked hard backstage to make this happen.I am also sad, that unique platform that they all could present themselves on, is no longer a thing.
I wish everyone involved with Defiant all the best and hope this end is the beginning of is the beginning of something new for everyone there.
Thank you to everyone!
Watch Defiant saying good-bye to their fans:
Watch their entire last PPV, Built to Destroy, for free, here:
