In today’s Southern California News & Notes we have the latest on Maverick Pro’s future, NJPW, Bar Wrestling, CWFH, FIST Combat, and a look at pro-wrestling on Christmas Day in Southern California. Click for today’s news update.
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Maverick Pro issued a press release today stating that Killer Kross and Paul London are joining the promotion’s leadership group and they are changing their name to simply Maverick. London is going to be the booker and head of talent development and Kross will serve as a brand ambassador.
They are calling the name change a brand refresh. I asked Brandon Ficara, Maverick’s owner, why they are doing a brand refresh rather than just starting over with a different name for a clean slate. He replied that, “The thought of (a) new brand name had some appeal, but ultimately the word ‘Maverick’ was very much in line with the vision of the brand, our fans, and the personalities of the leadership group.”
The promotion also announced that they a partnership with Spry Society Academy of Fitness in Culver City to hold nine events at the venue, with the first in March 2019. They also stated they plan to add new titles in the future, including a tag-team championship.
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New Japan Pro Wrestling’s January 30, 2019 New Beginnings in USA show at the Globe Theater in Los Angeles sold out in a little less than 20 minutes.
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Bar Wrestling has announced that SCU (Scorpio Sky, Frankie Kazarian, and Christopher Daniels) will be appearing at their January 16 event. It will mark only the second time the three members have wrestled together in Southern California since the group formed. Their only other appearance in the area as a group came at New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Strong Style Evolved on March 25, 2018 at the Long Beach Pyramid. Bar Wrestling’s event is even named in their honor, titled The Best City I’ve Ever Been To.
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Championship Wrestling from Hollywood will have their first tapings for 2019 on January 6 in Port Hueneme. The main event will be RockNES Monsters (Yuma and Kevin Martenson) versus Double Platinum (Chris Bey and Suede Thompson) for the vacant United Wrestling Network Tag-Team titles.
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FIST Combat will be holding the first Southern California wrestling event of 2019 on January 3 in La Mesa. The main event will be a ladder match for the Get FIST’d Title between the champion Rocketboy D’Marco Wilson and Matt Vandagriff. Danny Limelight will be defending his FIST Combat Championship against Jordan Cruz as well.
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With Bar Wrestling running an event on New Year’s Eve, and it only being the second pro-wrestling event on that date in the last 50 years, someone asked about Christmas Day shows. While some areas had a tradition of big Christmas shows, that never caught on in Southern California. Still, Christmas shows have come up from time to time.
Christmas Day shows are a big thing in Mexico, so it isn’t surprising that over the last two decades Mexican Wrestling Federation has been the only ones to run on the date, most recently in 2016. In the territory era there would be Christmas shows every few years. In 1957 a show at the Olympic headlined by a tag match with Hans Hermann and Hans Schmidt versus Sammy Berg and Seymour Koenig drew 7,248. While that event drew more than the average show at the Olympic for that period, it wasn’t followed up on.
The only real attempt to have a somewhat major show on Christmas in the area came in 1974 at the San Diego Coliseum. That show featured a NWA World Jr. Title match and an Americas Title match. At the time the Americas Title was the top singles championship in the Los Angeles territory and had never changed hands outside of Los Angeles (aside from two fictitious title changes). So it was a big deal when Edouard Carpentier defeated John Tolos in San Diego on Christmas to win the title. The problem was that despite the stacked lineup the show drew over a thousand less than the week before or the week after at the same venue.
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This week’s Southern California pro-wrestling and MMA events:
12/29:
UFC 232: Jones vs. Gustafsson 2 in Inglewood, CA
12/30:
Lucha Wrestling Puroresu in Huntington Park, CA
Suburban Fight presents Last Warning in Los Angeles, CA
12/31:
Bar Wrestling presents The Midnight Hour in Baldwin Park, CA
