XPW

[kingdirrtysouth1]

First of all I gotta ask, was any one here ever a fan of XPW? Secondly, I read lots of stories about how bad they were & saw a few awful vignettes on the net as well. I had no idea about how bad the match calling was. The "play callin" in this one is really bad at the 0:49 mark:
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[jmt225]

XPW was pure garbage in every sense of the definition. It tried so hard to be the "ECW of the West", but failed miserably because it was poorly run, poorly booked, and no one from the fans to the workers gave a damn about the product because of the two facts mentioned before. They had some talent, but you can have Hulk Hogan and Steve Austin main eventing a show, and if it's as badly booked and the company is as badly presented at XPW was... hardly anyone's going to want to see it. That's how bad XPW was.

[Echelon]

Yeah XPW was bad, I've seen more quality matches in CZW. In my opinion the only thing that XPW will be remembered for is their rivalry with ECW... which many times they found themselves on the losing end and their ridiculously dangerous scaffold matches. Seriously, who hasn't watched the Vic Grimes/ New Jack incident at least once. Other than that, the matches were mostly garbage.

[The Zen Hustla]

XPW was pretty horrendous, as was said earlier they tried to be the west coast version of ECW, only they had no idea how to run angles and book properly like ECW did. Not only this but XPW was basically your standard garbage hardcore wrestling. ECW on the other hand was intelligent about it's hardcore stuff, and it also included other styles like Lucha Libre and technical wrestling.

XPW was the ECW if Heyman had left the company but still kept to it's hardcore roots. That's not a complement either to XPW, in fact it was pretty pathetic that they kept trying to be ECW, by showing up at ECW shows, using ECW talent when ECW folded, attemping an XPW East Coast version, taking place of course in the ECW arena, and the list goes on.

[Nerotheory]

The best part of XPW was White Trash Johnny Webbs character, Messiah and Kaos. Who had some pretty good matches with Danny Doring and Chris Hamrick. Outside of that it was pretty bad. Not to say they didn't have some good matches cause they did, just not enough to fill up a DVD. Does anyone remember the XPW web casts they would do?

[AdamBenjamin]

I have nothing but the most terrible memories of this promotion. I first came across it at a point in my life where I was young, but no longer just a child watching. I was a sponge, trying to soak up and learn all I could (not that I don't, even today.) But XPW? Even at a still young, green and naive age I completely rejected that promotion. I just couldn't get into all of that garbage no matter how hard I tried, or how hard a few people tried to talk me into it. The booking was made no sense, and was over the top, while the talent itself was much lower than the bottom of the card in any other promotion, if you ask me. They definitely had a share of crazy, unbelievably ridiculous moments (like above mentioned Vic Grims/New Jack,) but guys like that will never earn my respect as a fan, performer, or anything else. I for one, am glad the initial XPW folded sooner, rather than later. I'm surprised people paid to see it as long as they did.

[T2KFreeker]

The thing with XPW was that it started out as a decent promotion. Back before they had their big television deal and tried selling the L.A. Sports Arena shows, and especially when they moved to the ECW Arena. I used to go watch the shows at the bunker and got to see some really well done matches. Around the time that Sabu was running around with Josh Lazy, the promotion was actually some fun, but when Lazy left and "Robert Black" took over, the company became garbage. Sadly, even though there were some really good matches that were entertaining, the commentary and many of the other matches were just bad. Even though it was a Hardcore promotion, most of the matches with Supreme in them are interesting to watch as that guy can actually wrestle, especially for his size. The current resurrection of XPW has been interesting. I can say that the 10 year anniversary show was a fun show with some really well booked matches and some really good matches and the "Cold Day In Hell" show was a step in the right direction for the company as there were matches on both shows that were not just ultrviolent crap. There were some well put together matches and I believe that since Big Vision is running things now, they want to actually sell some DVD's so we may see some more good matches out of the promotion. As long as they don't do what they were originally doing and actually get some structure into the promotion, it could be good. Then again, who really knows anymore. On a side note though, it is funny that they had a Tag Team Championship tournament started but yet have no belts. Sad in a way. Hopefully they continue to grow because there is barely enough room in the wrestling community for one CZW style promotion, little lone two.

[NightShiftLegend]

XPW was beyond garbage. The company had so many problems that there was nothing really going right with them. They would get decent talents for a few months (Terry Funk, Shane Douglas, Chris Candido), but this was only because they needed to work somewhere before the big guys called, or because they refused to work for the big guys. I've seen maybe 2 quality matches from there, and they both included Juventud Guerrera and Jerry Lynn.

Seriously, who hasn't watched the Vic Grimes/ New Jack incident at least once. Other than that, the matches were mostly garbage.

You can't really blame XPW for that. New Jack had a legitimate gripe with Grimes, and wanted to kill him. I'm sure XPW knew that shit was going to happen, but I don't think they realized New Jack was going to try and throw him into the ring post.

[Agonizer]

XPW was the equivalent of b-horror movies. Which is to say, that it caters to that kind of audience. I've always liked XPW because of how bad it was. Bad production, terrible announcers (not always in English), purposefully brutal spots to liven things up, it was very ECW like. However, it was even beyond that level of violence, with a much worse production. It dipped into territory held down firmly by Japanese promotions like FMW and Big Japan. XPW closed due to owner Rob Black (and his wife Lizzy Borden) being jailed on obscenity charges for extreme pornographic materials his company Extreme Associates released.

However, it appears as though XPW is being relaunched. We need an adversarial wrestling promotion that takes aim and slings some mud at the WWE. That's been a long time coming. Hopefully it can set up shop using the old ideas that it outright stole from the old ECW and run with them successfully. Especially because the ECW(WE) is absolutely the worst crap farce that Vince McMahon has ever put together (and that itself is a very long list). A little polish, and it could be a more proper ECW relaunch than WWE could ever, or would ever be able to do.

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[T2KFreeker]

I'm not so sure I would call this resurgence of XPW a reboot of the company. I know that they set it up that way at the last show, but there hasn't been anything else said about it since then. It would be cool if they could do something with it as I was somewhat of an XPW fan, especially since I am from California and probably look at it the same way the ECW dans did when they were in Philadelphia, so there you have it. The sad thing is that XPW has had a revolving door of some really good talent, but the management really didn't so much to keep things together. Sadder still is knowing that Wrestling Society X was supposed to be the evolution of XPW and MTV helped to screw that one up.:banghead:

[Creed_Fallen]

The "Cold Day In Hell" reunion show WAS decent....In Fact, I have heard rumors of possibly doing a "reunion" type show annually for the promotion....Not sure it will do better than a "one time" deal, but crazier things have happened.