With so many promotions working together to bring dream battles around the world, such as NJPW and Ring of Honor, Impact Wrestling and Lucha Underground, and others, it’s never been a better time to be a wrestling fan. North of the border in Canada, it’s been a tradition with Toronto’s Smash Wrestling for a few years now. They announced recently that they’re pairing up with CZW for SMASH x CZW for a three tour of Southern Ontario, with shows on July 13 in Sarnia, July 14 in London and July 15 in Toronto. Back in January of 2016, CZW was the first international indie to work with Smash Wrestling, followed by SMASH x CHIKARA in July 2016, SMASH x PROGRESS in September of 2016 (a two night affair and PROGRESS’ first tour of North America), Lucha Underground’s Vampiro in May of 2017, as well as UK’s Defiant Wrestling (then WCPW) for the Canadian qualifiers of the WCPW Pro Wrestling World Cup last spring.
The first name announced was Germany’s indie superstar WALTER, who’s exploded in the past year as one of the biggest names on the international wrestling circuit, from his home wXw in Germany, to PROGRESS in the UK, and PWG and EVOLVE in the US. He makes his Smash debut at this show. WALTER is the current reigning PWG World Heavyweight Champion, 2x PROGRESS Atlas Champion, 3x wXw Unified World Wrestling Champion, and 3x wXw World Tag Team Champion.
Today, the first CZW talent were announced, and not surprisingly, it’s the company’s two top champions. First is CZW World Heavyweight Champion MJF (Maxwell Jacob Friedman), as well as the reigning CZW World Tag Team Champions The REP (Dave McCall & Nate Carter). MJF will be appearing at the London and Toronto shows, while The REP will be at all three. So far, WALTER is only scheduled to be at the Toronto show.
The MJF has become one of indie wrestling’s most despicable heels, but his arrogance has lead him to multiple titles around the world – not only is he the current CZW World Champion, he’s a former 2x CZW Wired Champion, MCW Rage Champion, and Outer Limits Champion with nearby Hamilton’s Alpha-1. He beat Rickey Shane Page for the World title earlier this month at CZW Best of the Best 17. The REP have been CZW Tag Team Champions over 150 days, defeating the team of Scarlet & Graves (Dezmond Xavier & Zachary Wentz) at Cage of Death 19 this past December.
