Man what a trip down memory lane. I was heavy into What Culture at this time and remember how much they were pushing WCPW and the quality of stars they got was pretty insane. What Culture nowadays is a shell of what it once was; losing a lot of their most popular presenters to Cultaholic (their replacement) and not having a lot of likable folk to slide into those spots (aside Simon Miller who is awesome) hurt a lot!
Exactly ..those 2 clowns who are on most videos now are terrible. The ginger one and the one who looks like "Yellow bastard " from Sin City are super unlikeable
Simon Miller being the only last surviving still good content creator from this era wild to see but I’m glad he’s still doing good with his channel and whatnot since he deserves it
When Blampied came back years ago with Wrestletalk/PFK, I used to get his booking videos recommended for a long while and I would always try to avoid them. Eventually I ran out of review content on my lunch breaks in 2021 & conned myself into watching his output there. Fooled me again Adam! Thankfully this did lead me to discovering Wrestletalk, whom I do enjoy a lot even if they can be a bit much. So it wasn’t all bad.
The thing with Minoru Suzuki that's important to understand is anytime wrestling happens there's a non-zero percent chance that he'll just show up to kick someone's ass unprompted.
Same with Jushin Thunder Liger. The sound of ring ropes tensioning draws him in like a moth to a flame. It's important to close all the windows if you're leaving a ring up overnight, as you might find him in the room eating the canvas the next morning.
The rise of Drew Galloway as a force in pro wrestling was amazing to watch. He built himself back up and showed where WWE had failed him, not the other way around. His time as WCPW champ was amazing. And look at him now! Plus Joe Hendry showed what a genius he is.
Aye but mind he's fae Ayrshire. That automatically makes him a plum that's a guaranteed inbred. Don't get me wrong, ain't his fault, that Ayr has its whole thing going on
WCPW was where I discovered some of my favorite British wrestlers. From Joe Hendry to Gabe Kidd. Kidd in particular was my guy when the company was still active, and to see him rose up the ranks and became one of the hottest young talent in the industry makes me so proud of him
Seeing WhatCulture, Wrestletalk, Wrestling with Wregret and other wrestling UA-camrs in the early-to-mid 2010s was fun. Seeing those videos in college in between classes was feel-good times and made me more interested in wrestling and its history
@@badladyami used to really like wrestling with wregret back then, nowadays I can't stand him sometimes. It's annoying when he tries to bring modernism when reviewing the attitude era, or when he's at times biased and just has bad takes. For example, he says Sting was better than Undertaker and gives such a silly reason for it, or how at times he acts like CM Punk returning to WWE isn't as special as it really is
@@dwightyboy5324Yeah, I had to unsubscribe to him about two years ago. It's funny because the dude has a very specific idea of what wrestling is, which to me sounds like a combination of old-school stubbornness and "modern superiority." He also comes off as way too high on himself and if you disagree with anything he says, he'll tell you how wrong you are in the most condescending way possible. Making it worse is how he became chummy with other like-minded UA-cam personalities (including some of the more annoying ones from WhatCulture) and that really became overbearing.
@@officerperez I feel the exact same way, he comes across very high on himself and condescending. He almost seems to have an ego, when you disagree with him he treats you like an idiot, regardless of how you explain it. He's entitled to have an opinion, but he seems to really not take criticism very well. To me he's just come across as very biased in the last few years. I feel like he just doesn't want to see other people's POV's and even when people ask him questions he seems to brush them off and basically be as vague or dismissive as possible when it's something he doesn't agree with. It's hard for me to watch his videos now, especially since he was my favorite wrestling UA-camr for years.
@dwightyboy5324 I'm not Jim Cornette mark by any means. I know he can be every bit as jacked up as the people he has beef with, but when Brian addressed the issues he had with Cornette, he REALLY came across as someone who thought he was bigger and smarter than Cornette. It really made Brian come across as an ungrateful ass, especially when Cornette helped get his name out there.
Whopper vid man! It's so impressive what the Cultaholic lads did. TNA got real bad around 2013 and AEW started 2019, there was a vacuum for a wrestling company with so much unused talent. It's such a shame indies can only go one way (if they get bigger, WWE come in and buy out their best talent) but they should be extremely proud of disrupting the establishment and getting to live out every fan's dream. Cheers 🍻
I had the pleasure of refereeing on the first WCPW show and others and the first Defiant show. Great people with the best of intentions is how I found things. Fond memories with the exception of a few not so great things that happened along the way. I Hope everyone who was apart of this is doing well! RIP to Bad Bones, I have very fond memories of travelling with him and others in a car across England to various shows for a promotion I can't recall the name of.
So, I was a big fan before the Cultaholic exodus. But the fact is, WCPW/Defiant had a lot of tough luck happen, and there were things in the pipelines that would've killed them later. First, NXT UK systematically murdered the British indies. ICW, Progress, and others were never really the same after their rosters were basically looted. Second, AEW becoming a thing meant there were going to be a whole lot less available talents to sign and use. Cody Rhodes is a smart man, he didn't keep his eyes closed while he was working WCPW. Third, SpeakingOut disproportionately affected the British indy scene, and it felt like a good 60% of top indy talent were unpersoned to some degree because of it. And finally...the money just wasn't coming in to sustain a UA-cam based product. Ad revenue fluctuates a lot even now, and people aren't going to click on a match just because, you need name talent who are going to be expensive for that. WCPW was doomed because of that last one, but there were a lot of swords dangling above their heads.
The Ad-pocalypse for them was probably the biggest one. I think any decent promotion can build local talent, but when the premise of the show was that ad revenue would be able to support the show, having finances get hit in such a way is significant. It's really hard to say if they failed due to personal action, when so many things outside of their control happened.
After seeing the UWF video I was really hoping you'd cover this. The European-centric wrestling and UA-cam scene during the mid to late 2010s really was something to behold, and while Cultaholic and WrestleTalk still do a pretty good job (especially Cultaholic's documentary-style videos, the production work on those is wonderful), I don't think we'll ever see a UA-cam channel or group of people make a wrestling promotion again (Moist Wrestling League notwithstanding, talk to me when Charlie brings in House of Black lmao)
Challenge Accepted! 😏🫡 I know exactly where your coming from my G! Obviously, I'll "Never say Never" but I will say, It's def gonna be some time before I think any Wrestling/IWC YT Creators would even attempt to actually start a legitimate Promotion! Let alone run one & make it good enough to last! I think you could potentially get a good "Head Start" by just starting off running House Shows & "Bigger Events/Shows" with "Bigger" Event Set-Ups/Bigger Stars-Names/Etc. Obviously you'd need a lot of good fortune & there is many other things you'd need to be on top of... But if you could somehow get wrestlers to show up for you without having to pay them egregious amounts! That would go a long way especially early on for you! 🤙🏽🫡
It's so crazy that this video is basically about wrestling history, something that happened years ago. Like all the videos about 1980s, 1990s or early 00s promotions. But I remember everything you talk about literally like this was yesterday. So I'm getting old now. Now I know what felt guys who remember UWF, WWA or XPW like it was yesterday.
DPW never needed some Idiots from UA-cam not understanding that at some point you have to pay the people they're owed for making them look competent in order for deadlock pro wrestling to run.
Aww man WCPW was so fun to watch when they were around and it was this company that really helped introduce me to alot of the UK talent of that time period most of whom we now see in WWE, AEW, TNA, NJPW etc. But yeah they lived so fast and died so young but they definitely left their mark and are still fondly remembered.
That's where I saw El Ligro, the Coffey brothers, I can't remember his name but that short hairy guy that had the animal name, Banks, the bald guy that would wear the pink underwear tights
I was at the last WCPW show (refuse to lose 2017) and the last Defiant show. The energy was very different. Refuse to lose was packed, it felt massive. Hell, it had the Young Bucks vs War Machine when they were both big in ROH and NJPW. Built to destroy on the other hand was really empty, like almost half the seats empty. Hell, they had to give tickets away, I got mine for free. It did almost feel like the writing was on the wall at that show truthfully. I will always be thankful to the company for introducing me to wrestlers like Joe Hendry, Pete Dunne and Benji though and letting me see some of the wrestlers I loved as a kid like Matt Hardy and Bully Ray.
Thanks for sharing your experience! Even going back and watching those last couple episodes of Defiant and was like "this feels like it's on its last legs"
I said in another comment that it helps too that the deadlock boys have experience in wrestling besides UA-cam. Idk if Tony has done anything but James legitimately wrestles and Johnny worked for CZW on ring crew if I’m not mistaken in the past
Loved watching WCPW back in the day surprisingly didn't go despite living close to Newcastle great seeing what Gabe Kidd and Joe Hendry have gone on to do
My outstanding memory of this promotion was how obnoxious their fans were. If ANY wrestling promotion posted a video of a show, match or promo it was always met with posts of "NOT AS GOOD AS WCPW!" despite probably featuring many of the same wrestlers.
Right. But that was exactly what late 90s ECW fans were. Except they've been called a "rabid cult like fanbase" as opposed to obnoxious, which is what they were in hindsight
Really? Cause I had the exact opposite experience. I remember one of their upcoming shows at the time was going to have Kurt Angle on it. Who doesn't love Kurt Angle? Nobody, that's who. So I went to the pro-wrestling forum I frequented at the time, made a topic about it. People were receptive to it at first and interested. When it was revealed that it was WCPW though, I just got utterly lambasted for it. I just couldn't understand it. It was before AEW was around and WWE was in its horrible You gotta make Roman Look Strong phase, when they were actively muting the massive boos from the crowds. So I provide an alternative for people and got hated for it. Stopped going to the wrestling forum shortly afterwards. In fact, I've found that all wrestling forums online just suck the joy out of pro-wrestling. Every time something good happened, people were there to ruin it. Worse thing about pro-wrestling is sadly, the fans of it.
The other issue was, online it was forced to go to a paid subscription model. As ad revenue was being cut HEAVILY, for anything even resembling "violence" and so, they cut out a decent amount of their audience, those who were too young to buy things like that, and that's another major factor that lead to it's downfall
With me, I still remember when Big Damo first showed up on NXT, I was like, wait, I know that guy from WCPW. With me, I started watching it in the beginning, but at the time, I was still a huge TNA and WWE fan, like I would watch everything of they did, even Superstars and Main Event, so as time went on, found less time to give WCPW. Still enjoyed it, but didn't have time for it. And those guys leaving didn't help either, as I personally didn't mind their involvement. But anyways, this was a nice trip back down to remembering them. Thank you for this, did enjoy it.
WCPW had some unironically great storylines. The 'Pacitti Club' and feud with Kirby was silly but really exciting, Joseph Conners as the crazed and desperate champion was brilliant, and the World Cup was genuinely remarkable. they had a really solid run in their pre-defiant days
This reminds me of the trajectory of 3PW. Some people who weren’t experienced in promoting made massive signings and put on great matches and then money got tight and when things changed they couldn’t adapt to a scaled down environment and sadly went under.
The fact they pulled off so many cool things in such a short time is remarkable. Its sad how things went downhill fast after the core guys walked away.
I watched the videos from WC and Cultaholic around the time of Defiant’s demise. So many great memories. BX vs Pachitti Club. Watching Joe Hendry and Big Damo have matches that I, as a Canadian, would never have seen. They helped expose the great Indy British talents to audiences (including WWE and other promotions) that allowed them to shine. They tried so hard but there’s only so much they could do using UA-cam as their main platform. Thanks for this great run down memory lane. ❤
WCPW brought me back into wrestling after walking away in like 2002. Will Ospreay amazed me enough i looked into his njpw matches and it was on from there 🎉
Well this is quite the trip down memory lane, I fairness I discovered a bunch of wrestlers thanks to WCPA/Defiant. A fair few went on to do quite well in WWE and other places which makes me smile.
God I was absolutely enamored with WhatCulture Wrestling probably the reason I even tuned back into wrestling in 2016 to begin with. What a blast from the past this video was
Adam Blampied was my favorite wrestling UA-camr, nobody ever had me crying laughing like he did. It's so frustrating that he used his following to do such awful things TWICE. I doubt he'll ever get the chance again, and it really sucks that everybody is probably better off that way.
It's enfuriating. He did it once, went away, came back and everyone embraced him, it seems like he changed, but no. Not at all. And now he'll probably never be seen again on YT. He used to be my favourite, but he brought it on himself and
@@LightingEvolve-bt1cz it was more, sexually harrass and abuse several women to satiate his sex addiction, he was later caught doing the same shit the second time and therefore SHOULD NOT be allowed back onto youtube
God loved this one as WCPW/Defiant was my intro to most of the UK scene. Would love to see a retrospective on Memphis Wrestling. Keep up the great work!
Considering what ended up happening with Adam, that's pretty accurate. The secondary members are definitely very full of themselves, it makes their videos unbearable to watch or listen to.
Bro, remember how drunk he used to get? He was like a full-fledged alcoholic there towards the end. I’m friends with Vee Infuso and we actually used to talk about it back then. We literally predicted what was gonna happen when the news broke that they were all leaving What culture
Back then I didn't really notice it, nowadays and watching some videos back, they're insufferable. Granted they're not as bad as modern what culture, but Adam in particular comes across as a guy who isn't nearly as smart or cool as he likes to think he is. It's also funny how badly some of their opinions aged and how they basically got things wrong in the future. It's also kind of ironic how he used to rip on Del Rio and call him a bad person (maybe somewhat justified) ,and look where he is now.
Whatculture was a true peak of list videos and I still watch their stuff from 2016. Cultaholic and later Wrestletalk filled that void. However Adam Blampieds self destruction did do a lot of damage to both. Blampied is probably the biggest squandering of a narrative talent that you could see online. PartsFunKnown has not recovered since his sudden departure last year.
I think Dom, Laurie, and Sullivan have taken on the load quite well. Tom does great support on Blood on the Clocktower. But I can agree that my engagement with Boardgame Club has not recovered.
@@triomegazero For me, Board Game Club is better now that he is gone. It was just that he was such a big personality that he never gave e others a chance to shine.
There was a lot of great moments and matches, but my favourite has to be Ospreay Vs Galloway at Exit Wounds. 5 stars from me. Also that one Nixon Newell Vs Bea Priestley match where one almost decapitates the other by kicking their head while trapped in an upright chair.
What culture was one of the reasons I fell in love with pro wrestling and WCPW was a huge part of that and man I’m glad I got to experience that along with the likes of hendry,ospreay,kirby,joseph conners,drew and cody on their redemption tours,genuinely was a great time to be a wrestling fan
As an American fan, I was totally ignorant of the British wrestling scene. WCPW changed all that for me. I was a diehard consumer of the product, up until the Cultaholic guys departed. And as far as my favorite match, it would be the entirety of the World Cup. My favorite moment overall was Drew Galloway returning from his injury to confront Joseph Connors.
Drew Galloway’s return promo to Joseph Connors, is one of my all time favourites. Also shout out to the live crowds at the WCPW shows. I was lucky enough to be at many of the early PPV’s and the energy was fantastic.
WCPW was amazing! Their pro wrestling world cup actually prompted me to visit the UK for the first, and to date the only time ever in the summer of 2017. It was that good, and that exciting! One of my favorite memories from WCPW/Defiant was the rise of Gabriel Kidd from obscurity in episode #1 of Defiant to his feud with Prince Ameen to his stellar ironman match with Joe Hendry toward the end of Defiant (and emotional send-off by Prince Ameen).
Remembering Suzie Kennedy but not Kenny McIntosh is insane to me, Kenny did some interviews on the channel and made some cameos in WTF Moments, Suzie only ever did like 5 videos
Was so cool to be able to see &. Meet alot of stars in newcastle some memories that I'll never forget.. Was there the last defiant show and although it was good just wasn't the same as the beginning, big up the cultaholic lads
WCPW/Defiant was my Roman Empire (cringe ik). I loved it then, i love it now and i know i will never forget it. It was awesome and to me it's like a spiritual predecessor to AEW. I learned so many wrestlers through it and through this video i remembered some moments like fight back and that picture of the roster of NXTUK which triggered my ptsd so hard. Great video but even greater promotion
WCPW/Defiant was friggin awesome. They were my favorite promotion when they were active. I think NXT UK was created specifically to kill them off. Their shows were great, and they had a lot of really good stories and characters. Zach Gibson was a personal favorite. He was a great heel and talker. It's a shame WWE never just handed him a mic and do his thing. The crowds were great too. It was just a really cool show with a fun atmosphere that made me rediscover that sense of excitement that I had during the Attitude Era.
First of all, phenomenal video. Very well done. Have a sub. While I adored WCPW, it is part of an unfortunate cycle in the UK scene that continues to this day. I call it the Money Mark phenomenon. Ever since I got into the UK indy scene there has always been a company that will, inevitably, draw these massive stars from all over and then fade into obscurity because ANOTHER promotion sees what they are doing or the company paying top dollar goes under. This is because the guys running the promotions go after the dollar dollar instead of trying to be sustainable. 1PW (pick which time) PCW WCPW. Hell, even ICW fell into this pattern as well for a while. You'll notice that they haven't run a big massive show for a long time even before the pandemic. There's a reason why. The UK scene is filled with these stories. While things like NXT UK didn't help matters and the pandemic put the final nail in the coffin, I think WCPW was always going to end the same way as 1PW did. The only companies that seemed to avoid this fate are Progress and RevPro to which I'm eternally grateful.
You put Smart Mark Roommates in the beginning?! YOU are the realest one on here instant sub. Shoutout those 2 hope they're happier than all of us wherever they are
You know, it seems like WCPW is similar to DEADLOCK Pro Wrestling (one of the hottest indies out there that was started by three UA-camrs and has brought in people like the Grizzled Young Veterans and even Masato Tanaka) but the DEADLOCK boys aren't trying to get themselves over like the WhatCulture guys (although I do miss Tony, James and Jawnny on commentary).
It made for a good Internet show but the live event was a mess. We went to the Newcastle one featuring Brett and Kurt. Couln't get to our seats, so had to stand, meaning I occasionally got a glimpse of the top of a head. While the giant video screen just showed the WCPW logo. We lasted an hour and half before we left, giving an exasperated nod to Moustache Mountain, who were lounging at the back of the hall watching the Brett promo as their match had been cut. Got Beer, KFC and watched Red Dwarf on Dave, before driving another nine hours back home the next day.
This was a nice trip down memory lane. Being part of the British Pro Wrestling scene during this time, people were striving to get onto shows like this. It was great to see this again.
I remember seeing Joe Hendry do list videos for What Culture and I just thought: this guy is smart. He’s both getting exposure and lots of promo practice. Reminded me of how Jericho would do every single “WCW is coming to your town” video he could so he would get more comfortable in front of a mic.
I think it had more to do with older wrestling videos that affect wrestling as a whole. Cause let’s face it, some older stuff really doesn’t hold up nowadays and I’m guessing that may have triggered a domino effect that effected wrestling as a whole
Google's administration of UA-cam seems to have never gone three months without pulling a boneheaded move. Their chokehold on wrestling ad-revenue is just one example of a boatload.
I personally stopped caring much about WhatCulture once Blampied and others left, at the time I had only heard about WCPW and didn't really follow up on the news. I'm amazed to know that they brought in all that talent in a relatively short span of time. Ultimately once the main gang disbanded it was evident that WCPW wasn't going to last, but it's ironic how ultimately it was a UA-cam policy change that caused the collapse. Nowadays I still casually watch a couple of their videos every other week, I love the team they currently have, but it just felt so much better when Blampied was around. His "How I would have booked" series is what got me introduced to a multitude of wrestling channels on UA-cam. It's funny how I knew who Simon Miller was before I ever heard the name Dave Meltzer. I'm not at all saying they should get Blampied back, but WhatCulture never truly bounced back after he left. Their content severely deteriorated. Meanwhile, partsFUNknown and No Rolls Barred not only weathered the storm after Adam left, I can make the argument that they actually got better.
Discovering WhatCulture and then the formation of WCPW is what brought me back into watching wrestling. I was done with the WWE monopoly, and didn’t really enjoy TNA anymore either, and at the time had no way to watch ROH. WCPW saved my wrestling fandom and gave me a whole new crop of stars to follow, many of whom went on to either form or sign with AEW a few years later (which I still watch religiously even though TK is starting to drop the ball big time). I watched from beginning to end and was heartbroken the day Defiant announced their closing. The Pro Wrestling World Cup had me majorly invested and I haven’t felt the particular level of excitement since.
I haven't thought of that in a while. They had some really talented people in there, and Martin Kirby was always entertaining as hell. Loved that time Zach Gibson was brutally honest about what the fans had subscriptions for. I mean, he probably wasn't wrong.
Around this time, 5 Star Wrestling were doing their doomed wrestling show live on British TV. They used the name Dominant Wrestling, then WCPW adopted the Defiant name. 5 Star announced a big wrestling tournament, then WCPW did, featuring many of the same wrestlers that appeared on 5 Star.
Yeah, I'm also still disappointed at David Starr, too. The guy wanted to unionize wrestlers... but couldn't even keep a union for his zipper. Even though part of me wishes he would have a redemption arc, I also have my disappointment with El Ligero as well.
My favourite match from WCPW would probably be the one between Cody Rhodes, Joe Hendry and Gabriel Kidd for the internet title at No Regrets 2017. A great match in its own right and a great finish to Kidd’s story line with him finally breaking his losing streak by pinning Cody
I love the swerve at the beginning bro, I totally thought I was watching a worthless top 10 wrasslin’ video again… the horror days of wrestling UA-cam. Thank goodness for yourself and someone like A View From the Middle not to mention Dark Side of the Ring for making channels realize that what we want is truly detailed information not just useless lists that you pull from online elsewhere.
I'm so glad you fell for it 😂. It was watching all those lists videos that made me want to make the videos I make. They'd just gloss over something that sounded cool to me, and I was always like "wait no tell me more about that thing," so here I am lol
No diss to Kenny, but I vaguely remember when they introduced him. I think he had to cover for someone for a couple of videos and they all got massively disliked. There was even that running gag of "fuck kenny" eventually. Just a random thing I remembered. As much as I still enjoy cultaholic to some extent, I really do miss that "name redacted" era. If you have some time on your hands, or need some background noise, their "remembering wcpw" podcast was nice. It gave some insight on behind the scenes stuff, misc moments and their feelings overall.
This was a very good video. But, I will say that it is important to remember that the youtubers who were part of WCPW were hired by What Culture and told what to do on the shows. They were not in charge of booking and often found out day of what they would be doing for the show.
This is very important to the story. Including that some of them didn't even want to be featured. It's a shame this wasn't highlighted, as the narrative of "UA-cam wrestling fans failed to run a wrestling promotion" isn't really correct.
At the time i wasn't really watching much wrestling and if i was it was exclusively WWE but i followed the Whatculture wrestling channel and really liked the boys and their content. It's nice to see cultaholic still going strong, they do some of the best video essays i've ever listened to. and yeah NXT UK screwed over a lot of promotions. remember when they tried to reboot World of Sport wrestling from the 80s as WOS Wrestling on ITV? NXT UK basically killed it.
It's unfortunate. They seemed to take lessons from past mistakes to heart and tried hard to keep the company going, but moves by monolithic outside interests (Google and WWE) seemed to be the two big blows that WCPW / Defiant simply could not recover from.
Everyone who worked at What culture pro wrestling should be on a watch list. The amount of things they did that are similar to Drake and the kids is crazy
Man.. I remember being so hyped and worried about WCPW When it launched. First discovering the channel a year before and sticking just for Blampied alone. His humor and charisma to this day has been unmatched and i was so happy to see him again at Wrestletalk until everything went downhill again. Apart from the disappointment i got with Adam years later, WCPW Was the very first wrestling show i would watch weekly and introduced me to so many wrestlers like Ospreay, Joe hendry, Joseph connors (My favorite for a while) And Even Noam Darr having that match against Jay lethal had such a big time feel for me. Just like the Pro wrestling world cup. Something i thought at first was really ambitious and ended up being a great showcase for SOOO Many wrestlers out there. I ended up falling off after the main boys left, but i would still check every now and then. It was sad to see how it couldnt sustain itself. But i am grateful for making me a bigger wrestling fan and i am sure it inspired many promotions to this day
I remember Suzie leaving Whatculture because she received a lot of hate from people and she went and got another job. She then was replaced by Jennifer (the ICW backstage interviewer) and everyone loved her.
Great f'n work, man. Loved this. Adam B's self defense email never should have happened. They know how fans think about WWE booking. Everybody on the WC staff criticized how WWE booked and how WCPW could do it better. But they just couldn't help being marks for themselves and booking them into segments and feuds that 95% of the audience wanted nothing to do with. So they should have known this going into that initial 5 week taping. Also, the nonstop push to the moon of Joseph Conners. When WWE UK started, I thought for sure he was the guy pegged for the tourney win because of how much WCPW pushed the hell out of him. He was bland, lame, and exposed immediately as part of his quaterfinal exit. And the Martin Kirby push? There's a reason WWE didn't even make a play for him.
The Wrestling cup for me was a huge deal at that time of wrestling the caliber of the people even the way the matches played out for me was huge as much as tna & various japanese promotions had already done tournaments this was far more accessible especially for that times wrestling fan
Talk about a flame that burned big and bright way to fast. They're kind of up there with ECW in that they were an indie that could and did, made some memorable spots and faded out due to bad business, but boy were they fun when they were here.
WCPW to me came on a perfect moment, because it was a lafter I started to watch wrestling (and getting better at english, since I'm not a native speaker) and gravitated to channels as What Culture and Wrestling with Wregret. And I'm kinda happy that introduced me to some names of the UK scene. And basically the two major blows were the Wrestling Ad-pocalypse and NXT UK crippling the UK Indie scene, all other problems are minor compared to those two. Nice retrospective, btw.
I remember watching the early days and so on. Saw the champions crowned and when they rebranded I watched the early days of the rebranding. A lot of great talent went through the company and have became legends.
Interesting that you hearing Ben's voice on the promo after Cultaholic left was the hint to let you know the company was still with WhatCulture, since Ben also left with another couple of colleagues very soon after who are now running TripleJump, the gaming channel under the same company as Cultaholic.
Yeah I thought of that after the fact. I was like "wait when did he leave?" 🤣. I love Triple Jump, I hadn't noticed that they were under that Cultaholic umbrella though.
@@Wrestlespectivefwiw they had a mini transition period as Vidiots, but then found another home under Cultaholic. The best part is some of the cultaholic producers like Andrew applied first to work for TripleJump 😂
I had never seen Whatculture and had no idea who those people were when I started watching. I thought the show got better after they left, but I enjoyed all of them. The British scene at that time was red hot, and Defiant just handed them a mic and let them get their shit in. Guys would say crazy stuff, and the fans would chant crazy stuff back at them. It was fun, and they had some guys that really shined in that environment.
"If you wanna make a million dollars in wrestling, start with 2 million"
-jim corenett
That's one of my favorite Cornette quotes about wrestling. I've even used it in DCW. I think it was the UWF video? But I'll probably use it again 😂
@@Wrestlespective isnt that a Schwarzenegger joke?
Man what a trip down memory lane. I was heavy into What Culture at this time and remember how much they were pushing WCPW and the quality of stars they got was pretty insane.
What Culture nowadays is a shell of what it once was; losing a lot of their most popular presenters to Cultaholic (their replacement) and not having a lot of likable folk to slide into those spots (aside Simon Miller who is awesome) hurt a lot!
Exactly ..those 2 clowns who are on most videos now are terrible. The ginger one and the one who looks like "Yellow bastard " from Sin City are super unlikeable
Even Simon can't carry that channel. His own channel is probably doing better.
Simon Miller being the only last surviving still good content creator from this era wild to see but I’m glad he’s still doing good with his channel and whatnot since he deserves it
It was the only channel I had notficiation turned on for, back in the the days. I miss the banter and the former characters they use to have.
When Blampied came back years ago with Wrestletalk/PFK, I used to get his booking videos recommended for a long while and I would always try to avoid them. Eventually I ran out of review content on my lunch breaks in 2021 & conned myself into watching his output there. Fooled me again Adam!
Thankfully this did lead me to discovering Wrestletalk, whom I do enjoy a lot even if they can be a bit much. So it wasn’t all bad.
Had they not shut down in 2019, 2020 would’ve definitely gutted them due to the restrictions they had at that time
Yeah, the shape they were in by 2019 I doubt they would've made it out of the pandemic
Not to mention #SpeakingOut happened in 2020. That would've probably made like half their roster morally unemployable.
The thing with Minoru Suzuki that's important to understand is anytime wrestling happens there's a non-zero percent chance that he'll just show up to kick someone's ass unprompted.
Suzuki strikes me as the kind of nutcase who doesn't even take payment in money, getting to beat people up is good enough for him.
Same with Jushin Thunder Liger. The sound of ring ropes tensioning draws him in like a moth to a flame. It's important to close all the windows if you're leaving a ring up overnight, as you might find him in the room eating the canvas the next morning.
Minoru Suzuki is wrestling version of "Mysterious Stranger" from Fallout games.
Or make the business look like a joke by selling nothing
@@Dr170 This man just unironically suggested Minoru Suzuki is a bad wrestler. Incredibly, hilariously stupid take.
The rise of Drew Galloway as a force in pro wrestling was amazing to watch. He built himself back up and showed where WWE had failed him, not the other way around. His time as WCPW champ was amazing. And look at him now! Plus Joe Hendry showed what a genius he is.
Nope; he did fail. He has admitted to this on multiple occasions.
@@rodycaz8984He admitted his failings, yes. But watching him on the indies showed that WWE also didn’t use him to the best of his potential as well.
Aye but mind he's fae Ayrshire. That automatically makes him a plum that's a guaranteed inbred. Don't get me wrong, ain't his fault, that Ayr has its whole thing going on
Drew, Matin Kirby, Gabriel Kidd and the Prestige build that company's reputation and were the cornerstone of what was soo great about the WCPW era.
@@FantabulouslyCherry Bro literally said he got complacent and deserved to be fired.
I think I'll take his word on this one...
WCPW was where I discovered some of my favorite British wrestlers. From Joe Hendry to Gabe Kidd. Kidd in particular was my guy when the company was still active, and to see him rose up the ranks and became one of the hottest young talent in the industry makes me so proud of him
The first show swerve of Big Damo turning heel and the Damo v Hebert feud was next level
They got wade Barrett involved.😮
Yes that Wade barret.
Gunther was there?😮
I was pleasantly shocked to hear how well Game Kidd now seems to be doing over in Japan!
Gabe Kidd is positioned to potentially take over Bullet Club in the semi-near future.
Who remembers when they were called whatculture WWE?
I remembered vividly
That's what they still should be called...
@@NostalgiNordenwhy focus on just one promotion given how much talent there is in other promotions
@@nathanglennie is it fair to say wwe uk damaged the uk scene
When? They still are...
Seeing WhatCulture, Wrestletalk, Wrestling with Wregret and other wrestling UA-camrs in the early-to-mid 2010s was fun. Seeing those videos in college in between classes was feel-good times and made me more interested in wrestling and its history
Yeah, it was great until they all became unhinged Dubbalos.
@@badladyami used to really like wrestling with wregret back then, nowadays I can't stand him sometimes. It's annoying when he tries to bring modernism when reviewing the attitude era, or when he's at times biased and just has bad takes. For example, he says Sting was better than Undertaker and gives such a silly reason for it, or how at times he acts like CM Punk returning to WWE isn't as special as it really is
@@dwightyboy5324Yeah, I had to unsubscribe to him about two years ago. It's funny because the dude has a very specific idea of what wrestling is, which to me sounds like a combination of old-school stubbornness and "modern superiority." He also comes off as way too high on himself and if you disagree with anything he says, he'll tell you how wrong you are in the most condescending way possible. Making it worse is how he became chummy with other like-minded UA-cam personalities (including some of the more annoying ones from WhatCulture) and that really became overbearing.
@@officerperez I feel the exact same way, he comes across very high on himself and condescending. He almost seems to have an ego, when you disagree with him he treats you like an idiot, regardless of how you explain it. He's entitled to have an opinion, but he seems to really not take criticism very well. To me he's just come across as very biased in the last few years. I feel like he just doesn't want to see other people's POV's and even when people ask him questions he seems to brush them off and basically be as vague or dismissive as possible when it's something he doesn't agree with. It's hard for me to watch his videos now, especially since he was my favorite wrestling UA-camr for years.
@dwightyboy5324 I'm not Jim Cornette mark by any means. I know he can be every bit as jacked up as the people he has beef with, but when Brian addressed the issues he had with Cornette, he REALLY came across as someone who thought he was bigger and smarter than Cornette. It really made Brian come across as an ungrateful ass, especially when Cornette helped get his name out there.
Whopper vid man! It's so impressive what the Cultaholic lads did. TNA got real bad around 2013 and AEW started 2019, there was a vacuum for a wrestling company with so much unused talent. It's such a shame indies can only go one way (if they get bigger, WWE come in and buy out their best talent) but they should be extremely proud of disrupting the establishment and getting to live out every fan's dream. Cheers 🍻
O S dub!
O S dub!
O S dub!
Thanks Jay! As I say in the video I'm so glad we had them when we did because fans really did need a high-quality alternative to WWE at the time.
OSWCW ????
You foukin animal you!
And this is why OSW is goated. You guys are just a bunch of smelly marks like the rest of us. 🤙
I had the pleasure of refereeing on the first WCPW show and others and the first Defiant show. Great people with the best of intentions is how I found things. Fond memories with the exception of a few not so great things that happened along the way. I Hope everyone who was apart of this is doing well!
RIP to Bad Bones, I have very fond memories of travelling with him and others in a car across England to various shows for a promotion I can't recall the name of.
Oh wow, thanks for checking out the video! I got that vibe just as a fan, too. A good crew trying to give fans something to enjoy
While this company had its issues, the Pro Wrestling World Cup is one of my all time favorite things in wrestling to this day.
Absolutely it was amazing. Got to see a few of the shows in person . They were great . What a legacy just to have run the world Cup
So, I was a big fan before the Cultaholic exodus. But the fact is, WCPW/Defiant had a lot of tough luck happen, and there were things in the pipelines that would've killed them later.
First, NXT UK systematically murdered the British indies. ICW, Progress, and others were never really the same after their rosters were basically looted.
Second, AEW becoming a thing meant there were going to be a whole lot less available talents to sign and use. Cody Rhodes is a smart man, he didn't keep his eyes closed while he was working WCPW.
Third, SpeakingOut disproportionately affected the British indy scene, and it felt like a good 60% of top indy talent were unpersoned to some degree because of it.
And finally...the money just wasn't coming in to sustain a UA-cam based product. Ad revenue fluctuates a lot even now, and people aren't going to click on a match just because, you need name talent who are going to be expensive for that.
WCPW was doomed because of that last one, but there were a lot of swords dangling above their heads.
The Ad-pocalypse for them was probably the biggest one. I think any decent promotion can build local talent, but when the premise of the show was that ad revenue would be able to support the show, having finances get hit in such a way is significant.
It's really hard to say if they failed due to personal action, when so many things outside of their control happened.
@@nybxcrotona I think it was a hard model to sustain, and outside actions made it impossible to sustain.
I think COVID probably would've been the death knell, even if they had survived everything you just said.
@@RVDfanman1 Smaller indies have survived COVID, but it is fair to say it was the string of bad luck tanked them.
@@RVDfanman1yea no had they stayed longer they would’ve been done the min the pandemic started
After seeing the UWF video I was really hoping you'd cover this. The European-centric wrestling and UA-cam scene during the mid to late 2010s really was something to behold, and while Cultaholic and WrestleTalk still do a pretty good job (especially Cultaholic's documentary-style videos, the production work on those is wonderful), I don't think we'll ever see a UA-cam channel or group of people make a wrestling promotion again (Moist Wrestling League notwithstanding, talk to me when Charlie brings in House of Black lmao)
Deadlock pro wrestling was founded by three UA-camrs, John blood, pulse, and Tony pizza guy.
And deadlock pro wrestling is awesome!
Challenge Accepted! 😏🫡 I know exactly where your coming from my G! Obviously, I'll "Never say Never" but I will say, It's def gonna be some time before I think any Wrestling/IWC YT Creators would even attempt to actually start a legitimate Promotion! Let alone run one & make it good enough to last! I think you could potentially get a good "Head Start" by just starting off running House Shows & "Bigger Events/Shows" with "Bigger" Event Set-Ups/Bigger Stars-Names/Etc. Obviously you'd need a lot of good fortune & there is many other things you'd need to be on top of... But if you could somehow get wrestlers to show up for you without having to pay them egregious amounts! That would go a long way especially early on for you! 🤙🏽🫡
Well well well if it isn’t Mr. Next Up after this lovely channel and A View From the Middle
We got Deadlock Pro Wrestling! Which already had HUGE names on its roster! It's also made by 3 youtubers!
It's so crazy that this video is basically about wrestling history, something that happened years ago. Like all the videos about 1980s, 1990s or early 00s promotions. But I remember everything you talk about literally like this was yesterday. So I'm getting old now. Now I know what felt guys who remember UWF, WWA or XPW like it was yesterday.
WCPW walk so DPW can run
They managed to get familiar names.
Wade barret etc.
DPW never needed some Idiots from UA-cam not understanding that at some point you have to pay the people they're owed for making them look competent in order for deadlock pro wrestling to run.
I like that
What’s dpw
@@caliloco3117 deadlock pro wrestling
Aww man WCPW was so fun to watch when they were around and it was this company that really helped introduce me to alot of the UK talent of that time period most of whom we now see in WWE, AEW, TNA, NJPW etc. But yeah they lived so fast and died so young but they definitely left their mark and are still fondly remembered.
That's where I saw El Ligro, the Coffey brothers, I can't remember his name but that short hairy guy that had the animal name, Banks, the bald guy that would wear the pink underwear tights
@@Jamessmith-xk3fhPrimate and Martin Kirby
WHAT ARE THE CHARGES?! ENJOYING A TOP 10 LIST? A SUCCULENT TOP 10 LIST?!
Jokes aside, it’s insane these guys got Drew goddamn McIntyre, Kurt Angle, Cody Rhodes, and all those guys for an indie show.
Gentlemen, this is Democracy Manifest.
GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY PLUMPY!!!
I was at the last WCPW show (refuse to lose 2017) and the last Defiant show. The energy was very different. Refuse to lose was packed, it felt massive. Hell, it had the Young Bucks vs War Machine when they were both big in ROH and NJPW. Built to destroy on the other hand was really empty, like almost half the seats empty. Hell, they had to give tickets away, I got mine for free. It did almost feel like the writing was on the wall at that show truthfully. I will always be thankful to the company for introducing me to wrestlers like Joe Hendry, Pete Dunne and Benji though and letting me see some of the wrestlers I loved as a kid like Matt Hardy and Bully Ray.
Thanks for sharing your experience! Even going back and watching those last couple episodes of Defiant and was like "this feels like it's on its last legs"
Makes me happy to see DPW/Deadlock doing well, almost as a succession to the UA-camr-ran wrestling promotion crown
I said in another comment that it helps too that the deadlock boys have experience in wrestling besides UA-cam. Idk if Tony has done anything but James legitimately wrestles and Johnny worked for CZW on ring crew if I’m not mistaken in the past
@@CRob172 YES!
Loved watching WCPW back in the day surprisingly didn't go despite living close to Newcastle great seeing what Gabe Kidd and Joe Hendry have gone on to do
Crazy where Gabe Kidd has ended up, but awesome, well done to him.
My outstanding memory of this promotion was how obnoxious their fans were. If ANY wrestling promotion posted a video of a show, match or promo it was always met with posts of "NOT AS GOOD AS WCPW!" despite probably featuring many of the same wrestlers.
Right. But that was exactly what late 90s ECW fans were. Except they've been called a "rabid cult like fanbase" as opposed to obnoxious, which is what they were in hindsight
@@cerburrows9380 ECW had some of the biggest arsehole, gatekeeper fans in wrestling.
And we have a repeat in history with aew fans
Really? Cause I had the exact opposite experience. I remember one of their upcoming shows at the time was going to have Kurt Angle on it. Who doesn't love Kurt Angle? Nobody, that's who. So I went to the pro-wrestling forum I frequented at the time, made a topic about it. People were receptive to it at first and interested. When it was revealed that it was WCPW though, I just got utterly lambasted for it. I just couldn't understand it. It was before AEW was around and WWE was in its horrible You gotta make Roman Look Strong phase, when they were actively muting the massive boos from the crowds. So I provide an alternative for people and got hated for it.
Stopped going to the wrestling forum shortly afterwards. In fact, I've found that all wrestling forums online just suck the joy out of pro-wrestling. Every time something good happened, people were there to ruin it. Worse thing about pro-wrestling is sadly, the fans of it.
The other issue was, online it was forced to go to a paid subscription model. As ad revenue was being cut HEAVILY, for anything even resembling "violence" and so, they cut out a decent amount of their audience, those who were too young to buy things like that, and that's another major factor that lead to it's downfall
that Drew Galloway promo to Joseph Connor was a highlight for me
One of the hardest promos I've ever watched
Legitimately one of the best promos cut on any wrestling show ever
With me, I still remember when Big Damo first showed up on NXT, I was like, wait, I know that guy from WCPW. With me, I started watching it in the beginning, but at the time, I was still a huge TNA and WWE fan, like I would watch everything of they did, even Superstars and Main Event, so as time went on, found less time to give WCPW. Still enjoyed it, but didn't have time for it. And those guys leaving didn't help either, as I personally didn't mind their involvement. But anyways, this was a nice trip back down to remembering them. Thank you for this, did enjoy it.
WCPW had some unironically great storylines. The 'Pacitti Club' and feud with Kirby was silly but really exciting, Joseph Conners as the crazed and desperate champion was brilliant, and the World Cup was genuinely remarkable. they had a really solid run in their pre-defiant days
This reminds me of the trajectory of 3PW. Some people who weren’t experienced in promoting made massive signings and put on great matches and then money got tight and when things changed they couldn’t adapt to a scaled down environment and sadly went under.
Very accurate
The fact they pulled off so many cool things in such a short time is remarkable. Its sad how things went downhill fast after the core guys walked away.
I watched the videos from WC and Cultaholic around the time of Defiant’s demise. So many great memories.
BX vs Pachitti Club.
Watching Joe Hendry and Big Damo have matches that I, as a Canadian, would never have seen.
They helped expose the great Indy British talents to audiences (including WWE and other promotions) that allowed them to shine.
They tried so hard but there’s only so much they could do using UA-cam as their main platform.
Thanks for this great run down memory lane. ❤
WCPW brought me back into wrestling after walking away in like 2002. Will Ospreay amazed me enough i looked into his njpw matches and it was on from there 🎉
RIP Bad Bones always nice to speak with
Well this is quite the trip down memory lane, I fairness I discovered a bunch of wrestlers thanks to WCPA/Defiant. A fair few went on to do quite well in WWE and other places which makes me smile.
God I was absolutely enamored with WhatCulture Wrestling probably the reason I even tuned back into wrestling in 2016 to begin with. What a blast from the past this video was
Thanks for this retrospective! I had forgotten how many big names had passed through this promotion.
Adam Blampied was my favorite wrestling UA-camr, nobody ever had me crying laughing like he did. It's so frustrating that he used his following to do such awful things TWICE. I doubt he'll ever get the chance again, and it really sucks that everybody is probably better off that way.
It's enfuriating. He did it once, went away, came back and everyone embraced him, it seems like he changed, but no. Not at all. And now he'll probably never be seen again on YT. He used to be my favourite, but he brought it on himself and
What exactly did he do cheat on his girlfriend Jesus Christ men do that all the time it’s ridiculous for people to attack him over that
Wait he got in trouble again?
@@LightingEvolve-bt1cz it was more, sexually harrass and abuse several women to satiate his sex addiction, he was later caught doing the same shit the second time and therefore SHOULD NOT be allowed back onto youtube
@@southbeachtalentyup he got into some stuff with another youtuber girl and was instantly dropped by wrestletalk and pfk
0:12 thank you for using this song.
If feel the most important part of parody is accuracy so I had to use it! I'm just glad it wasn't something that would block the vid 😂
Simon & Jack are the only two guys I really like videos from on WhatCulture & Cultaholic.
WCPW is where I was introduced to gem that is Joe Hendry. So it'll always have a place in my heart for it
God loved this one as WCPW/Defiant was my intro to most of the UK scene. Would love to see a retrospective on Memphis Wrestling. Keep up the great work!
Thank you! I could probably do a whole season of DCW with JUST Memphis promotions lol
@@Wrestlespective I mean anyone not wanting a multiple episode coverage?👀👀
Thank you for taking the time to respond ✊🏽✊🏽
Some of the guys from WhatCulture just seemed full of themselves to me. Especially Blampied. Dude always seemed stuck on himself.
In showbusiness, sometimes it's the show, and sometimes it's the business.
Considering what ended up happening with Adam, that's pretty accurate. The secondary members are definitely very full of themselves, it makes their videos unbearable to watch or listen to.
Yes, he’s a mark who always wanted to be famous. He just ate up all that attention and it was embarrassing
Bro, remember how drunk he used to get? He was like a full-fledged alcoholic there towards the end. I’m friends with Vee Infuso and we actually used to talk about it back then.
We literally predicted what was gonna happen when the news broke that they were all leaving What culture
Back then I didn't really notice it, nowadays and watching some videos back, they're insufferable. Granted they're not as bad as modern what culture, but Adam in particular comes across as a guy who isn't nearly as smart or cool as he likes to think he is. It's also funny how badly some of their opinions aged and how they basically got things wrong in the future. It's also kind of ironic how he used to rip on Del Rio and call him a bad person (maybe somewhat justified) ,and look where he is now.
Whatculture was a true peak of list videos and I still watch their stuff from 2016. Cultaholic and later Wrestletalk filled that void. However Adam Blampieds self destruction did do a lot of damage to both.
Blampied is probably the biggest squandering of a narrative talent that you could see online. PartsFunKnown has not recovered since his sudden departure last year.
I think Dom, Laurie, and Sullivan have taken on the load quite well. Tom does great support on Blood on the Clocktower. But I can agree that my engagement with Boardgame Club has not recovered.
@@triomegazero For me, Board Game Club is better now that he is gone.
It was just that he was such a big personality that he never gave e others a chance to shine.
I know why Blampied left the first time. Why did he leave again last year?
@@jlillerbasically same reason, acting inappropriately with female guests on the show
@@robdurfee6861 Wow. "biggest squandering of a narrative talent" indeed.
There was a lot of great moments and matches, but my favourite has to be Ospreay Vs Galloway at Exit Wounds. 5 stars from me.
Also that one Nixon Newell Vs Bea Priestley match where one almost decapitates the other by kicking their head while trapped in an upright chair.
What culture was one of the reasons I fell in love with pro wrestling and WCPW was a huge part of that and man I’m glad I got to experience that along with the likes of hendry,ospreay,kirby,joseph conners,drew and cody on their redemption tours,genuinely was a great time to be a wrestling fan
Loved this era! What a great roster of talent that got over! I wish we had a DVD box set of this history! I’d buy it in a heartbeat!
As an American fan, I was totally ignorant of the British wrestling scene. WCPW changed all that for me. I was a diehard consumer of the product, up until the Cultaholic guys departed.
And as far as my favorite match, it would be the entirety of the World Cup.
My favorite moment overall was Drew Galloway returning from his injury to confront Joseph Connors.
Drew Galloway’s return promo to Joseph Connors, is one of my all time favourites.
Also shout out to the live crowds at the WCPW shows. I was lucky enough to be at many of the early PPV’s and the energy was fantastic.
That energy always came across on screen! It was so fun to watch!
WCPW was amazing! Their pro wrestling world cup actually prompted me to visit the UK for the first, and to date the only time ever in the summer of 2017. It was that good, and that exciting!
One of my favorite memories from WCPW/Defiant was the rise of Gabriel Kidd from obscurity in episode #1 of Defiant to his feud with Prince Ameen to his stellar ironman match with Joe Hendry toward the end of Defiant (and emotional send-off by Prince Ameen).
Remembering Suzie Kennedy but not Kenny McIntosh is insane to me, Kenny did some interviews on the channel and made some cameos in WTF Moments, Suzie only ever did like 5 videos
It's insane to ME! I think it's that Kenny has done such an amazing job with ITR that my brain just shut down anything before that 😂
Was so cool to be able to see &. Meet alot of stars in newcastle some memories that I'll never forget.. Was there the last defiant show and although it was good just wasn't the same as the beginning, big up the cultaholic lads
Oh i bet! Yeah, when they left that SOMETHING special the promotion had went with them.
WCPW/Defiant was my Roman Empire (cringe ik). I loved it then, i love it now and i know i will never forget it. It was awesome and to me it's like a spiritual predecessor to AEW. I learned so many wrestlers through it and through this video i remembered some moments like fight back and that picture of the roster of NXTUK which triggered my ptsd so hard. Great video but even greater promotion
WCPW/Defiant was friggin awesome. They were my favorite promotion when they were active. I think NXT UK was created specifically to kill them off. Their shows were great, and they had a lot of really good stories and characters. Zach Gibson was a personal favorite. He was a great heel and talker. It's a shame WWE never just handed him a mic and do his thing. The crowds were great too. It was just a really cool show with a fun atmosphere that made me rediscover that sense of excitement that I had during the Attitude Era.
First of all, phenomenal video. Very well done. Have a sub.
While I adored WCPW, it is part of an unfortunate cycle in the UK scene that continues to this day.
I call it the Money Mark phenomenon.
Ever since I got into the UK indy scene there has always been a company that will, inevitably, draw these massive stars from all over and then fade into obscurity because ANOTHER promotion sees what they are doing or the company paying top dollar goes under. This is because the guys running the promotions go after the dollar dollar instead of trying to be sustainable.
1PW (pick which time)
PCW
WCPW.
Hell, even ICW fell into this pattern as well for a while. You'll notice that they haven't run a big massive show for a long time even before the pandemic. There's a reason why.
The UK scene is filled with these stories.
While things like NXT UK didn't help matters and the pandemic put the final nail in the coffin, I think WCPW was always going to end the same way as 1PW did.
The only companies that seemed to avoid this fate are Progress and RevPro to which I'm eternally grateful.
You put Smart Mark Roommates in the beginning?! YOU are the realest one on here instant sub. Shoutout those 2 hope they're happier than all of us wherever they are
Thanks for the support! So glad you also remember them! I really hope they're well. I looked forward to every new sketch
Awesome job. I cannot wait for the video for ICW-NY/ICW-No Holds Barred and Blackcraft Wrestling
You know, it seems like WCPW is similar to DEADLOCK Pro Wrestling (one of the hottest indies out there that was started by three UA-camrs and has brought in people like the Grizzled Young Veterans and even Masato Tanaka) but the DEADLOCK boys aren't trying to get themselves over like the WhatCulture guys (although I do miss Tony, James and Jawnny on commentary).
It made for a good Internet show but the live event was a mess. We went to the Newcastle one featuring Brett and Kurt.
Couln't get to our seats, so had to stand, meaning I occasionally got a glimpse of the top of a head. While the giant video screen just showed the WCPW logo.
We lasted an hour and half before we left, giving an exasperated nod to Moustache Mountain, who were lounging at the back of the hall watching the Brett promo as their match had been cut.
Got Beer, KFC and watched Red Dwarf on Dave, before driving another nine hours back home the next day.
2017 and 2018 were just amazing times for the indies. It's a period I miss because the quality and options were just so vast.
This was a nice trip down memory lane. Being part of the British Pro Wrestling scene during this time, people were striving to get onto shows like this.
It was great to see this again.
I remember seeing Joe Hendry do list videos for What Culture and I just thought: this guy is smart. He’s both getting exposure and lots of promo practice. Reminded me of how Jericho would do every single “WCW is coming to your town” video he could so he would get more comfortable in front of a mic.
It was over when youtube changed monetization about wrestling. Which i still do not get. Extreme wrestling maybe.
I think it had more to do with older wrestling videos that affect wrestling as a whole. Cause let’s face it, some older stuff really doesn’t hold up nowadays and I’m guessing that may have triggered a domino effect that effected wrestling as a whole
Google's administration of UA-cam seems to have never gone three months without pulling a boneheaded move. Their chokehold on wrestling ad-revenue is just one example of a boatload.
You're really entertaining and you are clearly doing some good research. Glad you dropped into my recommendations! Keep up the good work!
Can't get over the Pacitti Table spot. I'm not convinced he's actually still alive. The guy on cultaholic is probably an imposter
They just fished out cardboard Pacitti 😂
WCPW is a warning about how the marks belong outside the guardrail and not inside
Great video brought back some good memories.
Thank you!
such a great trip down memory lane, great video!
I personally stopped caring much about WhatCulture once Blampied and others left, at the time I had only heard about WCPW and didn't really follow up on the news. I'm amazed to know that they brought in all that talent in a relatively short span of time. Ultimately once the main gang disbanded it was evident that WCPW wasn't going to last, but it's ironic how ultimately it was a UA-cam policy change that caused the collapse.
Nowadays I still casually watch a couple of their videos every other week, I love the team they currently have, but it just felt so much better when Blampied was around. His "How I would have booked" series is what got me introduced to a multitude of wrestling channels on UA-cam. It's funny how I knew who Simon Miller was before I ever heard the name Dave Meltzer. I'm not at all saying they should get Blampied back, but WhatCulture never truly bounced back after he left. Their content severely deteriorated. Meanwhile, partsFUNknown and No Rolls Barred not only weathered the storm after Adam left, I can make the argument that they actually got better.
@suppletruck I think what he's saying is, he enjoyed what cultures/wcpw content most when the "main gang" was around. Which is a valid thing to say.
@@GeorgeM2809 exactly.
When you build business that is dependent on the whims of another company you are guaranteed to have problems. One change from UA-cam doomed WCPW.
Discovering WhatCulture and then the formation of WCPW is what brought me back into watching wrestling. I was done with the WWE monopoly, and didn’t really enjoy TNA anymore either, and at the time had no way to watch ROH. WCPW saved my wrestling fandom and gave me a whole new crop of stars to follow, many of whom went on to either form or sign with AEW a few years later (which I still watch religiously even though TK is starting to drop the ball big time). I watched from beginning to end and was heartbroken the day Defiant announced their closing. The Pro Wrestling World Cup had me majorly invested and I haven’t felt the particular level of excitement since.
Great video....I'm gonna go watch some of it right now
Thank you! Enjoy it!
I like the little nod to what cultures UA-cam channel at the beginning with the music and whole top 10 bit
Thank you! I'm always happy when a bit that makes me chuckle is actually something other people liked 😂
This made me so nostalgic. I might hit up that playlist after Double or Nothing tonight. I haven't watched any WCPW since it originally aired.
I haven't thought of that in a while. They had some really talented people in there, and Martin Kirby was always entertaining as hell. Loved that time Zach Gibson was brutally honest about what the fans had subscriptions for. I mean, he probably wasn't wrong.
Around this time, 5 Star Wrestling were doing their doomed wrestling show live on British TV. They used the name Dominant Wrestling, then WCPW adopted the Defiant name. 5 Star announced a big wrestling tournament, then WCPW did, featuring many of the same wrestlers that appeared on 5 Star.
5 Star were so carny but WCPW didn't mind borrowing 😂
What a good hint using the same music that the first WC Wrestling videos used
Thank you! I believe that a good parody is an accurate one. Glad the music didn't get a copyright mute 😂
Yeah, I'm also still disappointed at David Starr, too. The guy wanted to unionize wrestlers... but couldn't even keep a union for his zipper. Even though part of me wishes he would have a redemption arc, I also have my disappointment with El Ligero as well.
I wonder if David Starr getting outed had a political reason behind it because of his stance on wrestling unions.
My favourite match from WCPW would probably be the one between Cody Rhodes, Joe Hendry and Gabriel Kidd for the internet title at No Regrets 2017. A great match in its own right and a great finish to Kidd’s story line with him finally breaking his losing streak by pinning Cody
WCPW got me into indie wrestling and back into wrestling overall, happy memories
Even just the intro music to this was a nostalgia trip
I love the swerve at the beginning bro, I totally thought I was watching a worthless top 10 wrasslin’ video again… the horror days of wrestling UA-cam. Thank goodness for yourself and someone like A View From the Middle not to mention Dark Side of the Ring for making channels realize that what we want is truly detailed information not just useless lists that you pull from online elsewhere.
I'm so glad you fell for it 😂. It was watching all those lists videos that made me want to make the videos I make. They'd just gloss over something that sounded cool to me, and I was always like "wait no tell me more about that thing," so here I am lol
No diss to Kenny, but I vaguely remember when they introduced him. I think he had to cover for someone for a couple of videos and they all got massively disliked. There was even that running gag of "fuck kenny" eventually. Just a random thing I remembered. As much as I still enjoy cultaholic to some extent, I really do miss that "name redacted" era. If you have some time on your hands, or need some background noise, their "remembering wcpw" podcast was nice. It gave some insight on behind the scenes stuff, misc moments and their feelings overall.
It's a shame that Adam Blampied is kind of a crappy person because he's entertaining.
A lot of entertaining people are also not very nice in real life. Some people just have better PR than others
Subbed! Well presented and interesting content
Great stuff
Thank you for doing this, great trip down memory lane, awful pity what happened to a lot of these in speaking out, cause thus was fire
This was a very good video. But, I will say that it is important to remember that the youtubers who were part of WCPW were hired by What Culture and told what to do on the shows. They were not in charge of booking and often found out day of what they would be doing for the show.
This is very important to the story. Including that some of them didn't even want to be featured.
It's a shame this wasn't highlighted, as the narrative of "UA-cam wrestling fans failed to run a wrestling promotion" isn't really correct.
At the time i wasn't really watching much wrestling and if i was it was exclusively WWE but i followed the Whatculture wrestling channel and really liked the boys and their content. It's nice to see cultaholic still going strong, they do some of the best video essays i've ever listened to.
and yeah NXT UK screwed over a lot of promotions. remember when they tried to reboot World of Sport wrestling from the 80s as WOS Wrestling on ITV? NXT UK basically killed it.
One of the nail in the coffin was Adam’s horrible promo about hate speech on UA-cam
I never missed an episode of Loaded. I thought Defiant was great.
It's unfortunate. They seemed to take lessons from past mistakes to heart and tried hard to keep the company going, but moves by monolithic outside interests (Google and WWE) seemed to be the two big blows that WCPW / Defiant simply could not recover from.
Everyone who worked at What culture pro wrestling should be on a watch list. The amount of things they did that are similar to Drake and the kids is crazy
Man.. I remember being so hyped and worried about WCPW When it launched. First discovering the channel a year before and sticking just for Blampied alone. His humor and charisma to this day has been unmatched and i was so happy to see him again at Wrestletalk until everything went downhill again.
Apart from the disappointment i got with Adam years later, WCPW Was the very first wrestling show i would watch weekly and introduced me to so many wrestlers like Ospreay, Joe hendry, Joseph connors (My favorite for a while) And Even Noam Darr having that match against Jay lethal had such a big time feel for me. Just like the Pro wrestling world cup. Something i thought at first was really ambitious and ended up being a great showcase for SOOO Many wrestlers out there.
I ended up falling off after the main boys left, but i would still check every now and then.
It was sad to see how it couldnt sustain itself. But i am grateful for making me a bigger wrestling fan and i am sure it inspired many promotions to this day
I remember Suzie leaving Whatculture because she received a lot of hate from people and she went and got another job.
She then was replaced by Jennifer (the ICW backstage interviewer) and everyone loved her.
imma need you to make that “top 10 matches to watch before a succulent chinese meal” video
🤣🤣🤣 I wish of made this one in like March because that would be a hilarious April Fools video
Love the oldschool whatculture style intro.
Great f'n work, man. Loved this.
Adam B's self defense email never should have happened. They know how fans think about WWE booking. Everybody on the WC staff criticized how WWE booked and how WCPW could do it better. But they just couldn't help being marks for themselves and booking them into segments and feuds that 95% of the audience wanted nothing to do with. So they should have known this going into that initial 5 week taping.
Also, the nonstop push to the moon of Joseph Conners. When WWE UK started, I thought for sure he was the guy pegged for the tourney win because of how much WCPW pushed the hell out of him. He was bland, lame, and exposed immediately as part of his quaterfinal exit. And the Martin Kirby push? There's a reason WWE didn't even make a play for him.
Oh Kenny was such a huge part of that channel I was shocked when he left
Great idea, I honestly wouldn't have thought of this.
I didn't know they had all these stars and figured it was mostly local guys.
The Wrestling cup for me was a huge deal at that time of wrestling the caliber of the people even the way the matches played out for me was huge as much as tna & various japanese promotions had already done tournaments this was far more accessible especially for that times wrestling fan
Talk about a flame that burned big and bright way to fast. They're kind of up there with ECW in that they were an indie that could and did, made some memorable spots and faded out due to bad business, but boy were they fun when they were here.
WCPW to me came on a perfect moment, because it was a lafter I started to watch wrestling (and getting better at english, since I'm not a native speaker) and gravitated to channels as What Culture and Wrestling with Wregret. And I'm kinda happy that introduced me to some names of the UK scene.
And basically the two major blows were the Wrestling Ad-pocalypse and NXT UK crippling the UK Indie scene, all other problems are minor compared to those two.
Nice retrospective, btw.
I remember watching the early days and so on. Saw the champions crowned and when they rebranded I watched the early days of the rebranding. A lot of great talent went through the company and have became legends.
Interesting that you hearing Ben's voice on the promo after Cultaholic left was the hint to let you know the company was still with WhatCulture, since Ben also left with another couple of colleagues very soon after who are now running TripleJump, the gaming channel under the same company as Cultaholic.
Yeah I thought of that after the fact. I was like "wait when did he leave?" 🤣. I love Triple Jump, I hadn't noticed that they were under that Cultaholic umbrella though.
@@Wrestlespectivefwiw they had a mini transition period as Vidiots, but then found another home under Cultaholic.
The best part is some of the cultaholic producers like Andrew applied first to work for TripleJump 😂
I had never seen Whatculture and had no idea who those people were when I started watching. I thought the show got better after they left, but I enjoyed all of them. The British scene at that time was red hot, and Defiant just handed them a mic and let them get their shit in. Guys would say crazy stuff, and the fans would chant crazy stuff back at them. It was fun, and they had some guys that really shined in that environment.