This past Sunday at ICW’s Fear and Loathing X in Glasgow, Scotland, Scottish indie wrestler “Ironman” Joe Coffey finished up with Scotland’s premier wrestling promotion, Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW). The 29-year old Coffey was defeated in the main event, a Champion vs Champion match, where he put his ICW World Heavyweight title on the line against ICW Zero-G Champion BT Gunn. Following the match, Coffey tweeted this out to his fans.
So Farewell. pic.twitter.com/6fOArhOeG4
— Joe Coffey (@Joe_Coffey) November 20, 2017
The next day, one of his fellow ICW veterans, Lionheart, tweeted out the following, confirming what many feared after seeing Coffey’s original post. He was leaving ICW after six years with the company. As well, Coffey “Liked” many tweets sent out by ICW and BritWres fans who were thanking him for his years of service to ICW or wished him well on his journey elsewhere.
https://twitter.com/LionheartUK/status/933037237725487104
Joe Coffey has been a part of ICW since 2011, although he started with the Scottish Wrestling Alliance (SWA) a few years earlier. Trained by NXT Superstar Killian Dain (formerly Big Damo), Coffey became a staple regular by 2014 and by 2016, he was one of the UK’s top indie wrestlers, adding stints with PROGRESS, WCPW, OTT, Discovery, and Fight Club: PRO along the way. He was even a part of the World of Sports special that aired on New Year’s Eve in 2016. He leaves ICW as a 2x ICW World Champion.
It will be interesting to see what Coffey’s future plans are in professional wrestling. He’s still booked with some indie dates upcoming, but fans are already speculating that he may be headed to major promotion, but WWE seems like the furthest chance. ICW has a working relationship with the WWE (Wolfgang from the WWE UK division wrestles for ICW and several WWE Superstars have appeared at ICW events the past year, like Finn Balor, Noam Dar and Kassius Ohno), so even if he was signed to NXT, he would still be able to work for ICW as well. At 5’11”, Coffey isn’t the biggest wrestler out there, but he’s a solid 250 lbs. – he’s a beast with a lot of power. He’d fit in well in the strong style rough and tumble of NJPW, or potentially in Impact Wrestling, but at this stage, there’s still too little news to predict with any reliability. In a related note, Joe’s brother Mark Coffey – who just became a 4x ICW Tag Team Champion with Jackie Polo on Saturday – had a WWE tryout just a few weeks ago when the WWE was in Manchester, England.
Where would you like to see Joe Coffey wind up, if he has indeed decided to go to a major promotion? Or do you think he’s moving on to a bigger role in PROGRESS? Or could it be something else, like retirement? Let us know in the comments below.
