Mid 20th Century
21-620: Frontier Wrestling Alliance ( FWA ) was a professional wrestling promotion in Britain. Established in 1993 as the Fratton Wrestling Association it soon became the Frontier Wrestling Alliance six years later and until 2007 when it lost a scripted inter-promotional feud with International Pro Wrestling: United Kingdom . As a result of losing the promotion was forced to close and the company XWA
42-622: A lucrative contract as a result. At the European Uprising show in Birmingham on 20 November 2010, Alex Shane turned heel and revealed it was he who was the real leader of the Agenda. After April 2012, the company quietly went inactive again running no further events, and their website going down. The promotion followed the same rules as seen in most of professional wrestling but adopted the penalty card system from football , with
63-656: A new FWA World Champion and FWA Flyweight Champion. On 13 February 2010 at the British Uproar event in Broxbourne, Martin Stone defeated Andy Simmonz in the tournament finals to become the first FWA World Heavyweight Champion. He subsequently turned heel and formed a faction called "The Agenda", whose aims are to decimate the UK's top talent in order to showcase their skills to the large American wrestling companies and earn
84-545: A role which entails management, advertising and logistics of running a wrestling event. Within the convention of the show , the company is a sports governing body which sanctions wrestling matches and gives authority to the championships and is responsible for maintaining the divisions and their rankings. In truth, the company serves as a touring theatre troupe , as well as event promotion body for its own events. Most promotions are self-contained, organized around one or more championships and do not acknowledge or recognize
105-481: A scripted feud with International Pro Wrestling: United Kingdom (IPW:UK) when FWA wrestlers invaded IPW:UK's annual Brawl at the Hall event and took some of the locker room hostage. In the elimination tag team contest, Team FWA beat Team IPW:UK and proclaimed war on the company. As the rivalry intensified over the next few months, wrestlers from both rosters had matches in both promotions and neutral ground with FWA gaining
126-423: A training academy to create its own talent. The emphasis on new wrestlers organically led to an early storyline of new, internationally influenced wrestling clashing with traditional British wrestling with some veterans brought in to help promote FWA's own performers. The company created a British championship later that year and in 2000 also crowned tag team champions as it continued to expand, performing across
147-618: The XPW European Championship ) and were further aided in advertisement when Alex Shane became a regular presenter on national talk radio station Talksport , aiding the company's expansion into the north of England. The ties with Talksport became important when FWA promoted a show entitled "Revival" from the Crystal Palace Indoor Arena that was broadcast live on radio and later on national television, through Bravo . In late 2006, FWA entered into
168-477: The yellow card serving as a warning, and any red card offence resulting in disqualification. Piledrivers were banned under FWA rules and could result in a fine as well as disqualification. Professional wrestling promotion 1970s and 1980s 1990s 2000s 2010s and 2020s A professional wrestling promotion is a company or business that regularly performs shows involving professional wrestling . "Promotion" also describes
189-657: The 1950s, the National Wrestling Alliance oversaw many wrestling territories such as Mid-Atlantic Wrestling and NWA San Francisco , in a business model known as the "territory system". This is a list of the most notable past and present professional wrestling promotions. Active Defunct Active Defunct Active Defunct Active Defunct Active Defunct Active Defunct (Modern-era) Defunct (Territory-era) Active Defunct FWA Tag Team Championship The Frontier Wrestling Alliance (FWA) Tag Team Championship
210-620: The Tag Team Championship but presently the belts remain inactive. As well as being the first champions, The New Breed were also the first team to win the belt twice while member Ashe would later join The Family, a large faction that defended the title under the Freebird Rule which allowed any two members to defend the belts. The Family won the titles more than any other team with three wins, giving Ashe, who also won
231-582: The company folded in March 2007. The championship has been known as: After the promotion's national expansion in 1999, there was some interest in tag team matches including large-teamed elimination tag team matches as well as traditional two-on-two contests. At March 2000's Urban Legends a two-round tournament was held to inaugurate the FWA Tag Team Championship with The New Breed (Ashe and Curve) defeating Jorge Castano and Scottie Rock in
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#1732790784690252-412: The early advantage. After months of clashes three events were held under joint banners with the final show, IPW:UK vs. FWA: Final Frontiers, booked for a match between IPW's Martin Stone and an unnamed FWA wrestler to with both companies' future on the line. The show featured much in-fighting, including the two commentators breaking out into a brawl and ended with the mystery FWA wrestler being revealed as
273-476: The finals. The final champions, Stixx & Stone (Stixx and Martin Stone ), defended their titles less regularly than previous champions resulting in them being stripped of their titles. Before new champions could be crowned, the FWA lost in an interpromotional rivalry with International Pro Wrestling: United Kingdom (IPW:UK) and had to close as a result. FWA's spiritual successor, XWA, originally promised to revive
294-649: The former company, XWA inherited the physical British Heavyweight and Flyweight Championship belts from FWA and continued to use them, promising to also resurrect the FWA Tag Team Championship , though they never would. However, in April 2009 at XWA's War on the Shore V, Lambert finally announced the creation of XWA's own British Heavyweight Championship belts and gave the FWA belt to Alex Shane, making his only appearance at an XWA event, while Shane presented
315-572: The legitimacy of other promotions' titles unless they share a working agreement. Governing bodies, such as the CyberFight , United Wrestling Network , WWNLive , Allied Independent Wrestling Federations , Union of European Wrestling Alliances, Pro Wrestling International and, previously, the National Wrestling Alliance , act as an umbrella organization which governs titles that are shared among multiple promotions. During
336-570: The new physical title to the winner of the evening's championship match, Sam Slam. Despite being on the losing end of the battle with International Pro Wrestling: United Kingdom and the XWA promotion purportedly taking its lineage, in May 2009, over two years after its original demise, Tony Simpson and Alex Shane announced their intention to revive the national promotion. They held their comeback show, New Frontiers, in early August with matches designed to crown
357-681: The promotion to the Fratton Wrestling Alliance 1999, it experienced a renovation that geared it towards national expansion and promoted its first show in February of that year, changing to Frontier Wrestling Alliance by the second show in June. The promotion (now being co-run by Mark Sloan and film and TV producer Elisar Cabrera) soon produced a regional television programme ("Frontier Wrestling") in Portsmouth as well as founding
378-472: The retired former FWA British Heavyweight Champion Flash Barker who lost the match, resulting in FWA folding in March 2007. After the FWA went out of business, Greg Lambert and Mark Kay held a press conference and formed a new promotion named XWA alluding to their former company but insisting the two had a different ethos, with the new company gearing its product towards family entertainment rather than being adult orientated. Despite only basing their promotion on
399-623: The south of the country. By August FWA began promoting shows with foreign talent, initially Sabu and Dan Severn , which it would continue to do so during its first run by cross promoting with other promotions. This eventually led to the British Heavyweight Championship being won by American wrestler Christopher Daniels , the belt being defended on international soil and a joint-promoted event with American independent promotion Ring of Honor in 2003. The company used international stars to gain notoriety (including hosting
420-536: Was a professional wrestling championship contested for in the British Frontier Wrestling Alliance promotion . The title was only contestable by male tag teams and in tag team matches . Being a professional wrestling championship, it was not won legitimately; it was instead won via a scripted ending to a match or awarded to a wrestler because of a storyline . The title was active between March 2000 and December 2006, just before
441-455: Was founded, largely based on the old FWA with some old staff and wrestlers as well as some championships. However, in 2009 the FWA brand was relaunched again as a separate promotion to the XWA, running for three more years before folding again in 2012. The FWA initially started out as the Fratton Wrestling Association in 1993 by Mark Sloan in an attempt to create a forum for serious wrestling training and performance based in Portsmouth. Renaming
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