The Story Of Pacific Pro Wrestling: Part 1
By Chris Dalgleish.
In this article we’ll be taking a look back at the history of Queensland-based promotion Pacific Pro Wrestling. We’ll be taking a look at how it came to be, what it was and how it ended. Before we get into that though, we need to set the scene.
The two men running the show were myself – Chris Dalgleish, and my father Mark. Mark had been a fan since the Australian glory days of World Championship Wrestling and Festival Hall. I became a fan when I wanted stay up one night and it just so happened that WCW Nitro was on the TV. Together we attended our first local event in 2005. That promotion is now known as Impact Pro Wrestling, formerly Major Impact Wrestling and at the time, yet another World Championship Wrestling. From that point we started going pretty regularly and then pivoted to Mason Childs’ spinoff promotion – Pro Wrestling Alliance Queensland. I feel that those first few years of PWAQ were the pinnacle of wrestling in Queensland and I know many that were around then will agree. Once I was old enough I started training under Mason and then began refereeing. I then decided to put a hold on wrestling for a while.
A few years later I started going back to local shows, PWAQ was still running though once Mason retired the promotion quickly became a shell of it’s former self. Another local group had started up called Prowl Wrestling and I came to know the couple that ran it, Greg and Aleshia Prowse. It’s often said that when you leave the business you can count the number of real friends you have on one hand. Over a decade later, Greg and Aleshia are among my closest friends. In early 2012 I got the chance to try my hand at promoting, as Greg gave me the reigns to promote a Prowl show in Ipswich, a region west of Brisbane that had seen success for PWAQ in the past but remained relatively untapped. Utilising local talent as well as fly-ins Warship and Robbie Eagles – we managed to put on what I thought was a pretty good show.
A few months later, Prowl had closed as had PWAQ and most of the other promotions around Brisbane had also stopped running any shows. There was a new promotion around, Global Wrestling Entertainment who had some grand ideas but didn’t really get off the ground. When they decided to stop, Mark and myself saw an opportunity. We purchased some of the equipment from GWE and after seeing what we could do with that Ipswich Prowl show, decided to start promoting our own shows.
We needed a name for our promotion. I thought using a regional descriptor like Ipswich, Brisbane or even Queensland made us sound too small. (Though Melbourne City Wrestling has gone alright with a regional name!) Using something like World or Global didn’t seem right either. Not realistic. Australia was on the table but not really unique. Pacific Ocean? Yeah, that works! This way we were covered if we ever had to promote a show in the US or Japan (more on that later).
Being quite familiar with the shows that were being put on around south-east Queensland over much of the previous seven years we were quite familiar with a range of presentation styles. Different promoters emphasised different things. One of the things that we really wanted to emphasise was “the professional in professional wrestling” as we would say.
One of the ways we tried to do this was with our branding and presentation. In the modern world of social media, influencers and entrepreneurship this is a better understood concept than it was back then. We wanted people who came across our advertising to see us and believe we were a professional operation. This was something that was done quite well in the prime of PWAQ and something done quite poorly in the years following. We did this through a strictly professional social media presence, high quality posters, photography and video presentation. Our website was also a focus.
Pacific Pro would not have been what it was without the support we received. (A wrestling show would also be pretty uneventful without wrestlers, I’ll get there). We were very lucky to have access to good people who were also talented and willing to help. I believe you need all three of those traits. The aforementioned Greg and Aleshia were also instrumental in supporting us in so many ways. There are many people on the professional side to acknowledge, but a special mention must go to those on the personal side.
Although I had been around the local business for a few years at this point, there were others with quite a lot more experience not just in Queensland but nationally. There were a lack of proven ring announcers around at the time and with our intention to film everything with commentary (a comedy of technical errors when looked back at from this distance) we saw an opportunity. After seeing his work in the early days of PWAQ we got in contact with the legendary Ed Lock who had been in and around wrestling not only in New South Wales but nationally for decades in a number of roles. A roadtrip to Sydney and quite a few beers later we had Ed Lock and Grayson Summers handling voice duties and providing valuable mentorship and a perspective from a different base as well. A case where the friendship has lasted past our time in the business.
Another of the ways we aimed for professionalism was in our approach to the wrestlers. At the time in Queensland I believe fair payments were an exception rather than the rule. One of our core values was making sure people were paid and to not screw with people’s money. Unfortunately that wasn’t a universal value among others and we learned a few lessons the hard way. In addition to this we wanted to get the best talent that we could to put on the best shows that we could. In part two of this article, I will run through our first few shows to explain.
Part 2 next weekend.
