FAILED Wrestling Companies That Went Bankrupt 

Fun Fact: Did you know, that the first three seasons of Lucha Underground were filmed in the same warehouse that was used for the Breaking The Magicians' Code: Magic's Greatest Secrets Finally Revealed

Control Your Narrative was essentially EC3 skimming the Wikipedia article on "Postmodernism" and deciding to make a wrestling promotion based on it.

“What his spirit animal? That’s right; a jaguar!” - Konan, Lucha Underground Episode 1, while introducing Prince Puma

0:26 WrestleCircus 3:03 Chikara 6:01 Control Your Narrative 10:24 WhatCulture Pro Wrestling/Defiant 14:01 Hulkamania Let the Battle Begin Tour 17:18 Lucha Underground 20:54 Wrestling Society X 22:39 World of Sport Wrestling 25:08 Five Star Wrestling 32:55 Wrestling Entertainment Series

Lucha Underground was special. I really miss that one.

Wonder what would’ve happened to whatculture if the RU-vid ad revenue crap didn’t happen.

Wrestling Society X is a dumpster fire in the best ways possible. So fast paced that you didn't know why opponents had beef, if there even was any animosity. "I'm mad at you!" "Well, I'm mad at you too (for reasons)" And then they fight. But it was fun. WCPW and Lucha Underground were badass in their days.

WCPW and Lucha Underground are the only two companies that I really watched. Both companies had a great roster and amazing matches

WCPW didn't go bankrupt, Defiant went bankrupt. There was a big difference in product, especially when the WhatCulture stars left to form Cultaholic.

I wonder is it awkward between Nia Jax and AOP now since they all have comeback to WWE now on the same show lol

WCPW was really great, when it swapped to Defiant and left youtube I did not care anymore. Same with NWA

I was really getting into lucha underground when watching clips and matches from it's RU-vid channel because I didn't have El rey network back then but when i did it was already dead

You nailed the difference between WCPW and Defiant. Well done.

I miss Chikara so much. So many special memories at their shows. Trios was my favorite PPV for years. Long live The Colony 🫡

I miss Wrestlecircus. Got to see a few of their shows and it was always a good time.

What really hurt WCPW was when the two Adam's and crew left What culture.

This video actually made me gain a lot of respect for Tony khan. Any schmuck with money can promote a wrestling show and more often then not they’re dead before they even take off. Tony khan has started a company, created a working relationship with the biggest non American company in the world, and purchased another company. All while trying to promote Aew as his main brand. I’ll give him credit where it’s due. That’s not an easy task to accomplish, good for him.

Thank you so much for this video alot of research has gone into this i can tell

Lucha Underground was the true evolution of wrestling.

I watched all the WOS Wrestling at the time, and have recently rewatched then all with great joy, I was so disappointed that more wasn't made, it was great having some awesome wrestling on free TV here in the UK.

5* Wrestling did have a unique feature in that if you cheated to much you lost by DQ, and you can turn that off.

To be fair on Hogan's shenanigans, many of those guys were in TNA at some point.

MLW 2003 on The Sunshine Network was the shit! You had Punk vs Raven Feud and the promo’s were amazing and the Extreme Horseman along with Fuego Guerrero aka Amazing Red. Joey Styles on Commentary.

(feels like deja vu?) anyway, I was at the 5 Star Wrestling event in Edinburgh, not a bad show overall with some decent talent. Things were a little disorganised though, with members/associates of a (now probably defunct?) local wrestling company (Reckless Intent) stepping in to help organise queues and stuff for the meet and greet. The promotor of 5 Star had a really bad attitude though. I believe he lived in/near Dundee and was contacted by friends of mine (who also went to a local promotion at the time) interested in seeing if he wanted help promoting the likes of the Dundee show- posters, flyers etc handed out etc but the responses were just hateful, rude and aggressive. I think as said, a lot of people saw that the company was quickly falling apart when it ended.

Regarding the FIVE STAR WRESTLING game, I am reminded a bit of the old arcade game THE MAIN EVENT, where all the wrestlers were knock-off parodies of mostly WWF stars (and El Canek/Mil Mascaras)...

5 Star Wrestling was released to critical acclaim! Sorry, I miswrote there: it was released to the same critical reaction as Acclaim.

God I miss CHIKARA so much. The formation of the BDK and the subsequent 2 years was the best wrestling storyline I've ever seen.

I was at that show in Liverpool and they had literally segments like big segments of the echo arena curtained off if I had to hazard a guess I would say 200 people were there

2 of those 4 Hogan tour shows were actually given favorable reviews. Also the reason the company went bankrupt is Hogan's divorce was finalized.

I can't stand ec3. He's way to confident in his shit abilities

so the WCPW thing also hit a mad snafu within the first 3 months cause YT began to block ads for ANY wrestling show

13:51 Whatculture Wrestling has also said that the formation of NXT UK in 2018 also made a big difference as a TON of British talent that basically WWE were interested in but the wrestlers didn't want to move to the USA such as Tegan Knox Walter (now Gunther) Bea Priestley etc hurt them as they lost almost all of the British indie talent with name power.

Herb Abrams UWF.

Running a wrestling promotion must be super tough. You need name talent to get an audience.... and you have to HOPE that said talent doesn't phone it in. Non-contracted wrestlers are often past their prime, or really green........ so it just makes it really darn tough.

EC3 just watched fight club then it became his personality

"Hogan was a wrestling promoter for a bit of time". Of course he was, we've all seen WCW.

Jake Hager/Jack Swagger/Jack Strong being the last champion of a soon-to-be closing company says a lot about the guy's aura, like a walking nail to the coffin.

Those first 2 episodes of wcpw were unbelievably good

I quite liked Chikara. It was something very different. Wasn't the easiest to watch where I am, but I used to be able to get hold of some shows. Was rather into Ultramantis Black.

Chikara is PG wrestling done right. Hilarious, but great wrestling. King of Trios is something AEW should do instead of trios titles. I’ll always love Chikara. So many great gimmicks and stories.

Wow... Joe Coffey (now In NXT) score an unbelievable win during 5 Star Wrestling... Defeated Nick Aldis... Defeated Will Osprey... And Defeated Zack Sabre Jr. That's insane!

As a Chicagoan, when I saw "WCPW" I thought you were gonna talk about the real WCPW: Windy City Pro Wrestling, but then again, they still exist

Of all of these companies, oh how i wish Lucha Underground would come back.

The AEW Anarchy in the Arena matches remind me of Wrestling Society X

Lucha Underground is truly unique. It was the most fun I've ever had in 30+ years of watching wrasslin.

Loved Lucha underground, that killshot vs Dante fox three stages of war match or whatever it was called was amazing and pentagon vs that Asian girl , Jesus she could take some stiff shots

the most overrated wrestling channels are always from british dudes, except top10wrestling he is one of the few that are not annoying

I'd like to see the option to condense all the different personas of a wrestler into one character if you don't want multiples showing up on Universe mode (no matter your settings, they do sometimes show up in the Royal Rumble). You could also toggle on persona changes as storyline angles if you want it while still avoiding duplicates. I like to have mine a little bit more of a Sim, so that would add to the realism a bit.

Can't say I'm broken up over these companies dying.

5 Star Wrestling had some many gameplay features that wwe still don't have. Damage played a big part, If I played with the Rock, and my opponent damaged my legs, it would make it harder for me to perform the rock bottom, as my leg may give out mid move, or my opponent has a bigger reversal window. You could also reverse a finisher into a finisher, i.e Randy Orton could reverse the F5 into the RKO. that's about all the game had to offer

Grado was the first world of sport reboot champ. New year's episode Grado won it in a multi man ladder match 🤷

0:48 "Biggest stars..." Shows Wes Brisco

The 2017 RU-vid adpocalypse killed WCPWs RU-vid revenue as at that time they couldn’t dial stream shows on twitch and RU-vid killing a majority of their online money

I remember NWE, the only one who came to my city

chicara storylines pls 👇

I don't know if it was the reason they changed their name to Defiant, but they were sued for using WCPW which had been trademarked by another wrestling promotion that had been around since the 1990's.

After watching this, I think I’ll break out the WSX 4 disc set and watch again

I feel bad for only learning about WCPW and Lucha Underground after the fact. :(

MLW is still trying to get it over.

I feel that messed up the EC3 concept was the roster and that he was forcing it too much. But the idea of their shows had a difference in the world of wrestle that if done right they would have killed it.

World of Sport is nothing without Shirley Crabtree. Maybe a bit of Mick McManus lol

quick fix: Wrestling Society X did not begin in 2003

15:27 YOUMANGA!

Out of all of these promotions, I miss Lucha Underground the most. I was hoping MLW would revive it & I still am making it their own separate brand.

before i saw wack culture pro wrestling logo, i thought it was Kurt Angle on thumbnail

Here we are 2 months on and WOS is back

It would seem wrestlers will go to the bigger companies for more money and fame. The independent wrestling companies will have a hard time with more known wrestling companies unless they have a loyal fan base, successful media content, sponsors, etc. I think that wrestling has two segments: the business side and creative side. Some people are fans and not cut for owning a wrestling company. TNA making bad business decisions, AEW having issues with separation of talent and management, MLW not having enough revenue or ability to sign talent, among other issues. It seem the only company worth going is WWE for fame and money. However there are enough wrestling fans, sponsors, media rights, wrestlers, investors, to create a competitive market on both mainstream and independent wrestling.

It's inspiring in that each promotion is like off Broadway show. You do notice lack of exclusively women promotions, though some are on internet and maybe dont fail...Probably these promotions fail because theyre infiltrated/undermined behind scenes, and or theyre tax write offs from start...Failure is still stories though, and stories are the commodity/value...Like any small business, the live audience is vulnerability in model due to overhead/liability...so work arounds that're innovative for live feel are very so impressive. Would have been nice if you sectioned off each company on the video timeline for chapter reference.

The problem with alot of the small English wrestling companies if you weren't from were the company was , you'd never heard of it. So when u saw a flyer /poster for the shows, with the big stars on it you'd laugh and say whatever they won't turn up , so must people never went.

Wrestling society x that was when Jack Evans and mdogg 20/son of havok were in their prime

I'm still sad about Chickara that was the most fun I've ever had at an Indy show

Hager's nickname should be the "Kiss of Death" and he should come to the ring with the 5* and Lucha Underground world titles

WCPW didn't even go bankrupt they were actually doing really really well and had tons of massive names. Their downfall was much like that of most companies WWE bought them and killed the company.

Wonder if there will be a Fight Club Pro video as that was a very interesting company

I was a referee for World Gran Prix Wrestling ever hear of it? no not surprised

I'm pretty sure Killshot was in season one. Check out MLW if you want a Lucha Undeground fix. Cueto has returned.

Moral of the story is never give Swagger a title

Wcpw got me back into wrestling. First time I saw Ospreay was there. That was a good show that could’ve been great.

unpopular opinion but i never liked whatculture and cultaholic, they are really overrated

"[WOS Wrestling] had very good production" No it fucking didn't. The constant camera cuts were annoying, as were the commentary team. I know WWE does a lot of camera cuts, but to me, they always feel like they are still on the action. But with WOS, it's like changing the angle completely, going from one side angle to a diagonal angle makes it hard to watch.

Wrestling society x brought nostalgia to my life back in the days

Nah, the wcpw/defiant review was poor. RU-vid was the big issue with the company, and you didn't even mention that.

I remember watching a random episode of WOS Wrestling it was gd

Hulk was a tour only

It didn't help that CYN was mostly a bunch of dudes who were fired for being knobs and/or racist.

"Why did WCPW fail? Here's why"

WCPW was doomed when the boys left it. Still a shame they had such a big fallout...

Well no one can say these people didn't at least give it a try, even if they were horribly misguided.

How did 5 star not do any better? Like even aew doesn’t bungle ticket sales that badly…

Huh I did not even know CHIKARA was gone.

One thing to learn from this video is when companies is going down, jack swagger would somehow always be crowned world champion

Lucha Underground still hurts to this day. Wrestling Society X also hurts. And quit hating on Jack Swagger. He's a solid wrestler

Tbf wcpw was so predatorty in British indie scene it pretty much killed it NXT UK wasn't even close to whatculture when it came to stealing talent

Martin Kirby was brilliant in WCPW

i took a shot everytime you said event and now im blasted.

Awesome video yay

Wrestling Society X I watched on MTV around 07 wasn’t bad at all, I miss it truly, XPac & Vampiro and Teddy Hart was the shittt.

The only wrestling game with knockoff characters worth something is the stuff MDickie makes.

WOS was very strange. It looked like a british 1-on-1 copy of WWE, but in very small. Not sure what the intention of this copycat was. :)

I'm wondering the backstage interactions of AOP with Nia now in WWE