{"id":51561,"date":"2019-08-01T18:13:47","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T22:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=51561"},"modified":"2019-08-01T18:13:47","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T22:13:47","slug":"defiant-wrestling-closes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2019\/08\/01\/defiant-wrestling-closes\/","title":{"rendered":"Defiant Wrestling Closes Down: &#8220;The Journey Must Come To An End&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a shocking announcement from the UK scene, one of the scene&#8217;s biggest promotions, <strong>Defiant Wrestling<\/strong>, announced on Thursday it was closing up shop and that with &#8220;a heavy heart that we today announce that the journey must come to an end.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">It has been an absolutely incredible journey over the past three years, but it is with a heavy heart that we today announce that the journey must come to an end.\u2070\u2070<\/p>\n<p>To each and every one of you who worked on a show, attended a show, or watched a show\u2026 thank you. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ox6G9cNWAH\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/ox6G9cNWAH<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; DEFIANT Wrestling (@DEFIANTwres) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DEFIANTwres\/status\/1157038101207965696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 1, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Formed by several of the creative minds behind <strong>WhatCulture<\/strong>, the company began as <strong>WhatCulture Pro Wrestling (WCPW)<\/strong> in May of 2016. Lead by <strong>Adam Pacitti<\/strong> and <strong>Adam Blampied<\/strong>, WCPW became a fresh new face on the UK scene. Combining some of the top stars from other UK promotions like <strong>PROGRESS Wrestling, Revolution Pro (RevPro)<\/strong> and <strong>Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW)<\/strong>, they combined the best of the UK and Irish wrestling scene alongside notable international stars like <strong>Kurt Angle, Drew Galloway<\/strong> (Drew McIntyre), <strong>Cody Rhodes, The Young Bucks, Rey Mysterio Jr.<\/strong> and much more. They also were able to use Ring of Honor and NJPW stars on occasion as well, making it a truly international brand.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Kurt Angle vs Joe Hendry (FREE MATCH: Refuse To Lose 2016)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yrxjUgbObxo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>They launched their weekly program, <em><strong>WCPW Loaded<\/strong><\/em>, that June, with each episode airing for free <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCAl6NLC0tnubiCMzYXawG3g\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">on their YouTube channel<\/a>, and had their first special event, <em><strong>Built to Destroy<\/strong><\/em>, that July. In October, they had their first live PPV, with <em><strong>Refuse to Lose<\/strong><\/em>, headlined by Kurt Angle versus <strong>Joe Hendry<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Bullet Club vs. Will Ospreay &amp; SCC vs. The Prestige (WCPW Loaded: October 19th, 2017 - Part 4)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7F0rRZgBXtc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In the fall of 2017, Adam Pacitti, Adam Blampeid and several other WhatCulture personalities departed the company to form <strong>Cultaholic<\/strong>, and with that WCPW was rebranded as Defiant Wrestling, starting with their December PPV, #WeAreDefiant. Former WWE Superstar <strong>Wade Barrett<\/strong> (now under his real name Stu Bennett) became the new general manager, and <em>Defiant Loaded<\/em> relaunched several weeks later.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"FULL MATCH: Walter vs Will Ospreay, First-Time Ever! (Internet Championship, Stacked &#039;18)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xIuiyypK1d8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been just over three years since WCPW changed the game in the UK indie scene and while it had its detractors in the UK for being more &#8220;WWE&#8221; than most UK promotions, it brought an international audience to many of the UK stars &#8211; many of whom have gone on to great success in WWE, NXT\/NXT UK, NJPW and elsewhere around the world.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"FULL MATCH: PAC vs David Starr (Defiant Loaded #6)\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JohTJyZEZO4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned to the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world. You can re-watch past episodes of\u00a0<em>Loaded\u00a0<\/em>and select matches from PPVs and the WCPW World Cup <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCAl6NLC0tnubiCMzYXawG3g\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">on their YouTube channel.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a shocking announcement from the UK scene, one of the scene&#8217;s biggest promotions, Defiant Wrestling, announced on Thursday it was closing up shop and that with &#8220;a heavy heart that we today announce that the journey must come to an end.&#8221; It has been an absolutely incredible journey over the past three years, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":19110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,2,13],"tags":[1514],"class_list":["post-51561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-defiant","category-featured","category-international","tag-defiant-wrestling"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}