PW Down Under Australian News Wrap-Up #4

Welcome to another edition of PW Downunder’s Australian News Wrap up, the fourth pillar of this now regular update of the newsworthy items across the country. The hope is to provide you with a nice summary of the week that was, so you don’t have to trawl through countless hours of social media posts to get your Australian wrestling news fix. This week’s edition is dedicated to Kyle Eade who tragically passed away, with a GoFundMe now setup by the family to raise money to give him the sendoff he deserves. You will find the link here and any donation big or small will help the family of this passionate and dedicated wrestling fan who loved and supported the local wrestling scene in this country so much.  Thank you.

Australian Wrestling Network searching for a new home.

Australian Wrestling Network shared on 31 July that they had received notice their streaming host Pivotshare would be ending operations at the end of August. In a snippet of an email to Australian Wrestling Network, Pivotshare announce “It’s with great sadness that we inform you that we will be ceasing the Pivotshare service in the next 30 days. This was a difficult decision for all of us here.” “Together we built the first video network of its kind in the industry and for that you should be very proud”.

Australian Wrestling Network are now working to find a new alternative platform over the next few weeks, hopefully to provide minimal disruption to their subscriber base. In responding to feedback on their Instagram post announcing the news, AWN agreed that whilst Pivotshare was a major platform for the wrestling scene, they “didn’t keep up with the times and changing customer demands”. They also stated in their view “service over the past year had deteriorated drastically”. Unfortunately, this influences multiple wrestling promotions, including Australian Wrestling Federation and International Wrestling Australia impacted locally and the likes of Progress, ICW, CZW, PCW, OTT and Pro Wrestling Eve internationally, with all now looking for new homes for their content libraries. Progress articulated in a statement to their fans that Pivotshare announced this out of the blue and “in light of incredibly poor customer support we have all had in recent months, it does not come as a surprise.”

Clearly, this is frustrating news for Wrestling promotions and subscribers alike, with the promotions now looking for new platforms at short notice, with some on the market such as IWTV not necessarily in budget, whilst the subscribers will potentially lose touch with the promotions until such time they can find a reasonable alternative. AWN advised they will provide more details on their new home when more details are available.

Jamie Apps talks Australian Wrestling Cards

The Arena Media’s Mick Robson recently hosted an interview with Jamie Apps, the person behind Australian Wrestling Cards to discuss their origins, success, and the future, with the idea for cards first being subconsciously put into his brain during an overseas trip and inspired by a major promotion taking that particular merchandise path, “So I went to BOLA (Battle of Los Angeles) in 2015 I think it was and got the set of fan made cards that they do every year, but it wasn’t until late last year when I think it was AEW was like heavily pushing their trading cards and I was watching the shows and saw the ads pop up, I was like hang on I’ve never seen anything like that here in Australia”. Individual wrestlers had previously released limited runs of cards but the printing costs for these runs can be expensive, so Apps saw an opportunity, “I went let’s see if we can do something for Australian wrestling as a whole and started messaging a few of the wrestlers and stuff that I’ve sort of seen over that last 10 years and everybody was super keen to get involved which has been great.”

Jamie explained that it is a mutually beneficial partnership between Australian Wrestling Cards, Wrestlers, and Photographers, “everyone gets a payment for being involved in the cards so all the wrestlers get a little something out of it and they get a set of cards like of their individual cards themselves that they can then use as merch sales and all of the photographers get a payment as well.” Apps has enjoyed building the sets in a way that mixes well known top talent with some that might be well known in their individual state but perhaps not country wide and giving them exposure.  “I could have easily just gone let’s pick all the top guys from every of them the five major companies PWA, MCW, Wrestle Rampage, EPW and things” “Let’s get some of these rising stars as well and sort of distribute the talent across it”. Jamie advised he had received messages from the people following the successful first waves that saw 50 sets sell out in just two and half months, that this strategy was a successful one as it had created that networking for a fan to see a new wrestler from the scene in on the cards and then start to follow their career.

The success of the first three waves meant Jamie needed to jump straight onto waves 4, 5 and 6 to capitalise on the momentum, whilst also creating an opportunity to partner with OPW and Impact on the recent Impact Downunder tour. With Impact roster members featuring on their own set of cards “who I’ve since found out absolutely adored the designs which was great. I’m so thankful for that opportunity and hopefully we can get some more collaborations like that coming in the next 12 months”. Jamie’s next focus though is filling out the roster for 2024, which judging by the buzz will not be an issue, as wrestlers will be lining up for the opportunity to partner with Australian Wrestling Cards on future waves. The full interview can be found below.

Tyson Gibbs speaks on AWS and Training School

Tyson Gibbs returned to Piers Austin’s Shooting The Sh*t Uncensored Podcast last night to speak about Sydney based promotion ‘Australian Wrestling Superstars’ and the affiliated training school among other topics. 

“I’m really enjoying the training and stuff with Australian Wrestling Superstars. We’ve got a nice little venue at Mortdale that we’re building very nicely – good repeat crowd” Gibbs said, but in actual fact has found more enjoyment from training students at the training school, “to apply the things that I’ve learned over the years and pass those on to these guys and to see them improve, to see their conditioning improve, to see their work improve and to see them enjoy that improvement is my favourite thing in all the business right now. Shows are fun, that’s all great but like the actual training.”

Tyson paid tribute to a couple of his students “I’ve been training a lot with Akell and Jack Legorr and both these guys are picking up a lot of stuff, their fitness is going through the roof real quick and if I can have a locker room of guys like that I am set.”

‘King’ also touched on the evolution of Australian Wrestling Superstars and how they have found success from keeping it simple. “we’ve shown with our shows at Mortdale RSl that crowd is growing and these are all people that are like going ah pro wrestling cool like they don’t regularly tune in and watch it”

“Stereotype is the word but like when people think of pro wrestling they think of like the gorilla press slam and they think of these big punches and elbow drops” Tyson explained. 

“I don’t think we’re reinventing the Wheel, if anything We’ve turned it back a little with these shows and they’re successful and they’re making money in a company that wasn’t making money a little while back and all it took was that slight change of gears.”

“Not just getting over, getting repeat business” Tyson Gibbs says. The chat can be found below. 

Quick Fly Around

• Newcastle Pro Wrestling Women’s Champion Lena Kross will compete against Middleweight Champion Unsocial Jordan in a Winner takes all unification match on Friday August 11 at Newcastle Pro Wrestling’s Rumble in the Jungle. The promotion looks to be heading down the path of sister promotion PWA with genderless titles which can create for greater scope in storytelling.
• Jessica Troy will finally get an opportunity at Ricky South and the PWA Heavyweight Championship during Colosseum weekend after winning the Key to the Card Ladder match at PWA’s ‘It’s coming home’. The event also saw Cherry Stephens announced as the first competitor in the 2023 Colosseum tournament, Ricky South defending his crown against a dangerous Jack J Bonza and ‘The Joker and The Thief’ dethroning PWA Tag team champions the Velocities in an instant classic.
• On Saturday September 9 Big Business will defend the MCW tag team championships in a ladder match against the Parea at MCW Ascension as announced by General Manager Rocky Menero
• DMDU, Australian Outlaw Wrestling and Dude Where’s My ring have announced a joint show on September 1 at the Tote in Collingwood which will feature no ring deathmatches and coincide with DMDU’s Death Rules Everything Around Me deathmatch tournament on September 2nd – Violence personified!
• Tasmanian Championship Wrestling will be running a show on October 7 in Devonport titled ‘Coastal Carnage’, with Elliot Greyson, Liam Lacey and Aaron O’Malley announced. TCW had to comment post Winter Warfare after offensive statements were made towards Elliott Greyson “there is no place for anything of a homophobic, sexist, racial or generally derogatory nature. It’s 2023 and we know what is acceptable.”
• Gippsland Pro Wrestling have finalised their card for battle at the Griss on August 5 with Tommy Hellfire taking on Cousin Ali, Krackerjak vs Darcy Moss, Aysha and Natasha Valentine battling, Liam Lush in a match with Murdoch, Lochy Hendricks matched up with Owen Steadman, Andy Rhodes vs Broderick Valentine and Big Rig Fox challenging GPW Champion Mitch Waterman in a very strong lineup.
• EPW announced The Untouchables Marcius Pitt and Damian Slater have officially relinquished the SHWA Tag Team Championships which will be given a full restoration before going on display at the EPW School of Pro Wrestling. It is certainly the end of an era in West Australian Pro Wrestling.
• 8 Wrestlers One dream – Wrestle Rampage’s Conquest is on this weekend August 5th with a one night tournament for the Australian National Championship with Tommy Knight defending the strap in a single elimination tournament – Now that’s a champion trying to cement his legacy!

And we are at the end of another busy week of wrestling news and as you can see there is plenty going on right around the country. Please get out and support our fantastic Pro Wrestling scene at a venue near you.