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Who would’ve thought that on October 15, 2006, Insane Championship Wrestling (ICW) would become one of the world’s hottest independent wrestling promotions?

Surely this wee upstart promotion running their first show in Maryhill Community Centre couldn’t go on to revive the British wrestling scene. It must have seemed impossible to Mark Dallas.

At this time British wrestling was in a state of flux, still associated with the old World Of Sport glory days (which had been off the air since 1985) many British stars grew dissatisfied with this and began to try their luck abroad.

But over the past 10 years the wrestling landscape has changed, indy wrestling is everywhere, the WWE have abandoned their old, unofficial policy of ‘Whatever you did before WWE didn’t happen.” Now, wrestlers who made their name in independent promotions can keep their previous name and the company will acknowledge previous accolades.

It may seem petty that the WWE did this but Seth Rollins, one of WWE’s current top stars, made his name in Ring Of Honour as Tyler Black - racking up a 200+ day reign with the ROH World Title which was never mentioned. When he arrived in WWE he was repackaged as Seth Rollins and was told to start again.

Now with the influx of independent talent (the four new Japan signees in January come to mind) and increased focus on smaller performers, the typical indy guys, not only has the WWE policy changed but the style has also changed. The new style has made the company more appealing to many big indy names and many performers who signed recently (Austin Aries, Samoa Joe, Roderick Strong, Eric Young and Bobby Roode to name a few) were able to keep their names and past successes still existing in the company’s eyes almost. A huge example would be the fact that WWE have acknowledged Shinsuke Nakamura’s record 5 reigns with the IWGP (International Wrestling Grand Prix) Intercontinental Championship and his time in New Japan Pro Wrestling, it may seem like nothing but this is a huge step forward.

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What does this have to do with ICW? Well, ICW have quickly grown into one of Britain’s top wrestling companies, making huge stars out of wrestlers such as Joe Coffey, Joe Hendry, Jack Jester, Kay Lee Ray and of course, Grado. Only last November they sold out the SECC for their biggest show ever, Fear & Loathing VIII, headlined by Drew Galloway vs Grado for the ICW World Heavyweight Championship and commissioned by WWE Hall Of Famer, Mick Foley. This show was so successful that they are running Fear & Loathing IX, which will be their biggest ever show, out of the Hydro on November 20.

Fear & Loathing IX is set to be the biggest crowd in over 34 years for British Wrestling. It will be the biggest Scottish wrestling show ever, selling more tickets than TNA (Total Nonstop Action) or NXT (WWE’s developmental brand) did at the Hydro as well as both WWE tapings on the 7th (Raw) and 8th (SmackDown Live) of November. It has also sold more tickets than any Ring Of Honour show ever, it has outsold TNA’s biggest American show and is also fast approaching the legendary ECW (Extreme Championship Wrestling’s) biggest draw.

This show really captures how far ICW has come, with huge names such as Kurt Angle, Team 3D (Dudley Boyz in WWE/ECW) and the king of the style the internet have branded as “Flippy S**t,” Ricochet all wrestling on the card as well as WWE Superstar, Finn Bálor, as the guest enforcer for commissioner, the now WWE Raw General Manager, Mick Foley, we can all agree this is a considerable step up from community centres and bingo halls.

Foley and Bálor’s involvement with ICW whilst under full time WWE contracts goes to show how far indy wrestling has come, five years ago there is no way WWE would even consider a cross promotional deal with an indy promotion (or almost any promotion), especially one that may harm their PG image like ICW. But now not only have they considered it, they have allowed it.

What makes ICW so appealing then? For me, it’s their style, their unapologetic style is a breath of fresh air to many fans. In a world where a lot of wrestling is geared towards kids and families (WWE has been PG since 2008) ICW is an adult promotion (it said on the tickets for Fear & Loathing VIII last year “over 18s only.”) Performers can swear on the mic, their wrestling style is extreme, every match is no disqualification and you can and will see everything at an ICW show. Along with their style, the characters ICW have are incredible, one amazing example of what the company is really about would be the now disbanded tag team, The Bucky Boys, who would walk to the ring with bottles of Buckfast.

Ever since ECW went under in 2001 many rabid fans who adored their extreme style had nothing like that to watch until ICW came along. WWE have since distanced themselves from blood and try as hard as possible, they do whatever they can, to stop performers bleeding on screen. To an ECW fan in the 90s this was the norm, this is what they loved and suddenly, in 2008, that was gone from wrestling’s biggest stage. ICW, to many people, is ECW 2.0 and because of this they have a large worldwide audience, couple this with the drawing power of Drew Galloway and Grado in TNA across the pond, encouraging many fans to look into indy work of theirs, the wrestling world truly is sitting on a juggernaut in ICW.

Yes, there are other companies who offer up extreme wrestling, such as Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW) but they don’t have the charm ICW does. ICW is so full of character and the fact there is not another company remotely like it on earth and no upstart promotion could recreate the magic that is ICW, this appeals to so many people. Their shows have all the violence in the world but also with some of the funniest comedy characters ever, such as Grado, Ravie Davie and Polo Productions. There is an undeniable charm to the promotion and the fact they can go from having one match with someone covered in blood going through a table and then the next have Grado walking out to Madonna (and everyone in the arena singing Like A Prayer as he walks to the ring) is something that Mark Dallas could never have dreamed of 10 years ago after his first show in Maryhill but it is what he has achieved.

Without ICW, WWE wouldn’t be taping Raw and SmackDown Live in Glasgow and the UK scene wouldn’t be flourishing like it is.

Funny to think that this all started at Maryhill Community Centre.