(From SoCalUncensored.com)

Part 1:
For those who don't know, XPW has canceled all of it's upcoming shows, lost it's TV in LA (and according to one source Pittsburgh, but that isn't independently verified) and their parent company Extreme Associates was raided by federal authorities, for what is believed to be shipping what would be considered obscene materials into Pittsburgh, PA, but could turn out to be more than that.

While Xtreme Pro Wrestling might not yet be officially dead, the plug is almost ready to be pulled on it's life support.

XPW has had a very rocky time, almost from the start, mostly due to bad business decisions and a total lack of regard for it's fan base. Over the next three columns we'll take a look at XPW's history and where things went wrong. Part one will focus on the beginning of XPW up through their shows at Patriot Hall. Part two will cover the debut at the Grand Olympic through Shane Douglas' return and the announcement XPW would be running in Philadelphia. And part three will be the ECW Arena debut to the present.

XPW was pretty much created after a failed attempt by Rob Black (Robert Zicari) to invest in, and become a west coast promoter for ECW. Despite being an almost carbon copy of ECW straight from the start, early XPW was actually met with decent press (except for by members of UIWA and their fans, who felt that XPW was created by raiding and screwing over that promotion, but more on that later), and while a good portion of their crowds were papered (something that would not only continue throughout their history, but grow to ridiculous levels), the attendance was pretty steady and one of the larger crowds in indy wrestling. Then they started running shows at the Los Angeles Sports Arena.

While the first Los Angeles Sports Arena show for XPW saw the debut of Sabu, who would actually bring XPW to highest levels, it was also the beginning of the running joke that XPW papers most of it's crowd. Unable to draw a crowd that didn't look embarrassing in a building that holds over 10,000 people, free tickets to the shows became increasingly easier to find. While some people might think that giving away free tickets to a show is a good way to attract a new audience to your promotion, unless your show is truly blow away, you will have a hard time convincing people to pay for what they were getting for free. So the cycle began of XPW having to comp to get any real crowd.

XPW was also running what it called house shows in Ventura and Bakersfield at the time, but stopped shortly after they began running at the Sports Arena. While one might think the house shows were stopped purely because of the money lost running at the Sports Arena, the truth is the theater in Ventura they ran at wanted to raise the rates to an incredible level, and Bakersfield wasn't drawing well enough to justify the shows.

Also about the same time XPW's bad reputation with fans was really just beginning A lot of people cite the ECW Heatwave incident as the start of the bad Internet publicity, and while it definitely was the worst thing to happen to XPW in it's history, something it could never shake and was still haunting them three years later, the true beginnings were in June of 2000.

Lonnie Hill, who co-founded SoCal UNCENSORED, was a very vocal critic of XPW's product on their official message board. Lonnie was an XPW fan, and was even called Mr. XPW on the board, but he was also outspoken as to what he thought was wrong with the product, and was angering some people within XPW with his views. Lonnie was also co-creator of the first XPW fansite "Blood, Beer, & Tities", so he was well known by XPW staff.

At June 17th, 2000's XPW show called "Vengeance", a member of XPW's street team came from ringside, and attacked Lonnie Hill from behind. XPW claimed the street team member would be fired for the incident, but he was still seen around the offices and at the next show after that. People who went to school with him claimed he was saying at school that he was told to do it by XPW management, though that can't be verified at this point in time. The incident started to get XPW a lot of backlash on the local level, and set the seeds for what was to follow.

Then of course the Heatwave incident occurred. This really has been talked about to death, and there is no real point in going into it in much detail again, but for those who are new to wrestling here is a basic synopsis. ECW was holding it's Heatwave pay-per-view at the Grand Olympic in Los Angeles, and several XPW wrestlers, Messiah, Supreme, and Krysti Myst were sitting front row. Security made everyone who was wearing XPW shirts turn them inside out and wear them that way. During the main event the XPW wrestlers tried to turn their shirts right side out so the XPW logo was showing, and Krysti Myst removed her shirt. Francine took issue with it, Dreamer came over, and the XPW wrestlers were escorted out of the building and they, along with other people associated with XPW were attacked outside by members of the ECW locker room. Nothing was really noticeable on camera, and aside from people in the building who saw some commotion going on, no one would have known if it didn't blow up on the Internet. Unfortunately for XPW it did.

ECW's fanbase was extraordinarily loyal, and they were the fans XPW needed to draw in order for the product they were presenting to have any chance of working. When every major wrestling website mentioned that XPW tried to "ruin" ECW's pay-per-view, which was a huge over exaggeration, fans turned on XPW, and fans who never knew XPW now knew they hated them. XPW tried to play it off with the old "any publicity is good publicity" routine, but time has proved that one wrong for XPW as years later fans still used that as an excuse for refusing to check out XPW's product, despite much improvement.

XPW's next show "Go Funk Yourself" would however go down as the largest attendance in XPW history, however that was mainly due to the introduction of "free admission with this flyer" flyers that were given out at the ECW pay-per-view and the Metallica concert the next week. Even if there was to be any momentum due to the recent publicity, and a crowd of almost 2,000 at "Go Funk Yourself", XPW would kill it by not running again for nearly five months.

During the five month hiatus, the rumors of XPW's demise began, and also the ill fated exploding ring death match between Onita and Sabu was announced, that would never happen. People who were inside XPW at the time said the match never occurred because Rob Black basically blew Onita off, and Onita eventually said "fuck you" to XPW. In an effort to save face, Josh Lazie and Sabu sent Onita a letter blaming the cancellation of the match on a lawsuit that was filed against Sabu by Paul Heyman.

XPW finally ran again, sort of, in November 2000 at the San Bernardino Metal Fest concert. While the show was pretty much panned by most people who went, at least it was a sign of life for XPW.

In January 2001 XPW began running in Patriot Hall in the San Fernando Valley, which while it was only for four shows in three months, it is still considered by some a golden age for XPW. The shows in Patriot Hall had logical booking for the most part, and built well to the next. Plus the building was the perfect size for the crowd and there was a real energy in the building. It seemed XPW was beginning to turn things around.

In the last XPW show at Patriot Hall, which is on the campus of Birmingham High School, the main event featured a double flaming tables spot, that not only got XPW kicked out of the venue, but got pro-wrestling banned from all Los Angeles Unified School District schools, a ban that is still in place, forcing XPW to get a new venue once again.

Part 2:
In Steve's View #106 I ran the first part of what will be a three part history of XPW and where they went wrong covering the beginning of XPW through early 2001 when they stopped running at Patriot Hall. Today I'm doing part two which will cover their debut at the Grand Olympic up to when they announced they would be running at the ECW Arena in Philadelphia, PA.

On April 21st, 2001 XPW made it's debut at the Grand Olympic Auditorium, easily the most historic building in SoCal history, and the venue ECW the Heatwave pay-per-view where the confrontation with XPW took place. So XPW aptly named their show "Scene of the Crime".

XPW had booked Konnan and Shane Douglas for the show, but neither could appear due to their guaranteed contracts with Time Warner that they were given while in WCW. XPW did however announce that neither wrestler would be there several weeks before the show, but they still continued to over hype the show.

When all was said and done, the show was by most accounts a failure. While the show featured a hot opener, and a respectable main event, the rest of the card was quite awful and the total lack of surprises kept the show from coming anywhere near to approaching the hype. The show ended with loud "refund" chants in the crowd.

XPW came back in May 2001 with "Redemption" which also saw the debut of the Insane Clown Posse and Vampiro in XPW. While the show was widely thought of as being better than "Scene of the Crime", it still wasn't up to the shows XPW was running just two months before at Patriot Hall. This show also saw the Messiah, who was easily the most popular wrestler in XPW at the time, next to Sabu, capture the XPW Heavyweight title. Messiah was already the XPW King of the Deathmatch champion and was receiving a monster push in the promotion.

In July XPW ran a show titled "Rapture", which will be remembered most for Supreme being badly burned due to XPW's negligence, totally overshadowing what is probably one of the best deathmatches in Southern California history. During a deathmatch between Supreme and Kaos, the Enterprise (GQ Money, Steve Rizzano, and Veronica Caine) came out and attacked Supreme and attempted to setup a flaming table spot. Veronica Caine who was lighting the table, was having a terrible time trying to get the fire started, mainly because charcoal fluid, which is harder to burn, and extinguish, was being used instead of lighter fluid. In an attempt to get it started Caine kept putting more and more fluid on the table. Finally the table was lit, and Supreme was put through the table. Due to the pools of fluid on the table Supreme's clothes quickly caught on fire. XPW did have someone stationed at ringside with a fire extinguisher, but they chose to put out the fire on the table before putting out the fire on Supreme who was running around screaming. The total time Supreme was on fire was probably about 20 seconds, which is enough time to become badly burned. Supreme was taken from the building by ambulance and didn't wrestle again until October (though he did take part in the next XPW show in August 2001).

"Rapture" also brought XPW some heat from ICP and their fans when Pogo the Clown gave Violent J a really sloppy clothesline, legit injuring him, and causing ICP to walk out of the show. ICP then later trashed XPW on their website.

In August of 2001, while it was a big story at the time, no one knew it that it was just the start of what would arguably be the biggest story in recent SoCal history, and one of the biggest stories in wrestling for 2002.

XPW ran it's show "Damage Inc.", which was supposed to feature Rob Black and the Messiah versus Josh Lazie and Sabu, which would result in Sabu leaving XPW if their team lost. At the start of the show a video aired, supposedly of the Messiah, though it was obvious to everyone in the building at the time that it wasn't him, telling Rob Black that he had to go back to Heaven and would be unable to compete any longer. Rob Black ended up going the match alone, and with help from Webb was able to win and banish Sabu from XPW. Also on the same show Konnan debuted and Kaos won the XPW TV title in a tournament.

After the show Internet speculation started to go wild about why the Messiah was out of XPW. Then Kfir Hezroni at xpw1.com posted that Messiah was fired from XPW for sleeping with Lizzy Borden. While XPW and the Messiah officialy denied the rumors, unofficial everyone involved in XPW was backing them up. Reportedly Black first caught on by comparing Lizzy and Messiah's cell phone bills, which he paid for both, and when Lizzy was confronted she admitted the affair. Still, Messiah denied the rumors in an interview with Cal Manska and Lonnie Hill here on SCU shortly after he was fired from XPW, but he never gave any other real reason his departure, and later Messiah freely admitted to sleeping with Lizzy, but more on that later.

XPW next ran in Pico Rivera, at the Pico Rivera Sports Arena and ran what they billed as the first exploding ring match in the United States (though matches with explosives in the US, or even SoCal were nothing new, as Freddy Valentine's ACW had been doing various types of explosion matches throughout their history). The show itself was met with decent reviews, as some matches were real sleeper hits like GQ Money and Angel. The exploding ring presented a nice visual, but the match itself was really bad to the point where Supreme no sold the ring exploding.

"Retribution" in November 2001 is most notable for it's small crowd, which could largely be attributed to running on Thanksgiving weekend.

In what was a major turning point in XPW's relationship with their fans, XPW ran "New Year's Revolution 2" in January of 2002, and hyped a surprise that would change wrestling history. There is a lot of speculation that the surprise was Scott Hall, but shortly before the show he signed with the WWF. Whatever the planned surprised was, it didn't happen, and rather than admitting it before the show, XPW tried to run it as an angle. They had their main heel faction, The Enterprise bring out two bums and say that was the surprise to start the show. Of course no one bought it and waited all show for the surprise. And none ever came. After the show, rather than calming their fans down with an explanation, XPW went on the defensive attacking their fans. It was the beginning of some of their most hardcore fans in SoCal turning on them.

February 2002 saw XPW run a what is considered the highest scaffold match in U.S. wrestling history, where Vic Grimes took one of the most dangerous bumps ever in wrestling. The show also saw XPW run a "buck naked match" where the loser would be stripped nude. While Veronica Caine was really stripped nude, the lights were out and very few fans were able to see, resulting in loud boos and the "refund" chants once again. While no one should have really expected to see any real nudity, it seemed to have left a bad taste in peoples mouths for the remainder of what was already considered a lackluster show, until Vic Grimes fell from the scaffold.

Over the next four months XPW ran two shows, one at the Grand Olympic, and their return to Pico Rivera, where the exploding ring match was held in October 2001, which while attendance was down, is largely considered XPW's best SoCal show of 2002.

However, at the same time a new problem was arising that would further the rift between XPW and some of it's most hardcore fans. That problem was EPIC pro wrestling.

EPIC was started by Gary Yap, who was a huge XPW fan, and even tried to become a part of XPW in a creative capacity. When that fell through he began to look at other options into the wrestling industry. He tried to invest in Revolution Pro, but when that fell through, he teamed up with a few other people involved in the Southern California wrestling scene, having no real experience in wrestling himself, and created EPIC.

Two of the people Yap teamed up with were Paul T. and Josh Lazie. Paul T. being NOSAWA's manager (in gimmick), who was an active wrestler in XPW at the time, and Josh Lazie who was one of the top guys in XPW from the start but had parted with them in August 2001.

One of the first matches EPIC announced involved four current (at the time) XPW wrestlers; NOSAWA, Psicosis, Damien 666 and Halloween. Obviously XPW wasn't happy.

As soon as the match was announced Paul T. was contacted by XPW and he was informed that if NOSAWA worked for EPIC he could no longer work with XPW. Paul relayed the message to NOSAWA, and while NOSAWA wanted to remain in XPW he wanted to honor his contract (EPIC had signed contracts) with EPIC.

Damien 666, Psicosis, and Halloween were also given the same choice and all chose XPW.

Then at EPIC's debut show New Jack, who at the time had been wrestling for XPW showed up, and cut a promo trashing Rob Black and XPW and holding a copy of a bounced check that he received from XPW. The check was actually for a future show, that XPW pulled the funds from the account because of New Jack's going to EPIC, though the audience didn't know and it's doubtful they would have cared. Large "fuck Rob Black" chants broke out as New Jack continued his tirade. Also during his promo New Jack mentioned that Messiah gave Lizzy Borden the "ding dong", which lead to Messiah later saying "she loved it" to chants of "you fucked Lizzy".

Around the same time as all of this was going on, XPW started to want to control what was being said on fansites devoted to XPW, as a lot had jumped on the EPIC bandwagon and were printing negative XPW news. In an e-mail that XPW vice president Kevin Kleinrock sent to xpwlive.com (at the time the largest XPW fan site, and one of the biggest supporters of EPIC) he stated the following: "Fan sites are one thing, but some often go beyond the call... a site that has the name XPW in it and uses the company's trademarked name is really being granted permission by XPW... and there is a line we have drawn. Sites that are supportive of XPW and only feature XPW news and info will be allowed to use the XPW name. Sites that feature outside news, trash talking, and more importanty unauthorized images (from adult movies) and sell tapes that are illegal... what I'm getting at is that if XPWlive would like to continue to flourish, then those in charge need to make a decision on whether to continue on the path they're on... or keep XPWlive, keep supporting the cause, and get on board with the program."

While a lot of people thought it at the time, and everyone knows it now, EPIC was doomed from the start, and if XPW would have sat back and not reacted, they might have been done even sooner rather than having publicity generated for their debut show and drove even more supporters of the product away from XPW. The growing dissent among XPW fans, and among wrestling fans in SoCal overall was about to become apparent.

Part 3:
In part 3 of my history of XPW we will be taking a look at XPW from roughly August 1st, 2002 until the present.

Former XPW champion, Messiah (William Welch), who left XPW on bad terms when he was fired from the promotion, reportedly for having an affair with Rob Black's significant other, Lizzy Borden, was in his apartment in Canyon County on Thursday, August 1st, 2002 playing video games. His roommate had just left to walk her dog when two men entered the apartment.

Messiah thinking the two men, described as African-Americans, both in their mid-20s, about 6 feet tall and weighing 230 to 250 pounds, were friends of his roommate greeted them when they entered. They then began to attack him and cut off his thumb with garden shears. They then tried duct taped his hands together and tried to cut off his other thumb.

Fighting back, and making a fist so that the attackers could not get to his thumb, the Messiah was then hit over the head with a fish tank. Dazed from the fish tank the attackers reportedly attempted to pull Messiah's pants down, possibly to cut off his penis. Unable to get the pants off they began trying to stab Messiah in the area around the groin, stabbing his leg in the process. Messiah was fighting back too much for them to be successful so they continued to hit him with furniture to knock him out. Being unsuccessful in that and most likely due to the amount of commotion being made, the attackers then left the scene, taking the thumb with them. It is believed Messiah broke one of the attacker's arms in the process.

Nothing else was taken from the home, and authorities believed that the attackers were specifically there to assault him. From day one the police have said that they believed the attack was possibly related to pro-wrestling, and of course that lead everyone in one direction. Towards XPW and Rob Black.

While it was clear who Messiah thought was behind the attack, the idea that Rob Black was somehow connected was cemented in a lot of people's minds when the Fox TV show "America's Most Wanted" aired a segment on the attack on September 21st, 2002, and the idea that Rob Black and XPW were involved was one of the focal points of the show. A camera crew from "America's Most Wanted" even showed up at Extreme Associates' (XPW's parent company) offices, only to find the doors locked and no one answering.

It should be noted however that to this date Rob Black, or anyone else involved with XPW have never been questioned or officially named as a suspect in the case.

Aside from those problems XPW had other problems going on. The announcement that XPW was going to be running in Philadelphia was a very unpopular move among the established promotions in Philadelphia, namely CZW (Combat Zone Wrestling), 3PW (Pro Pain Pro-Wrestling), and later ROH (Ring of Honor).

When XPW first announced they'd be running at Viking Hall in Philadelphia, PA, one of the first problems they ran up against was getting a license.

Up until this point XPW had run all of their shows in Southern California where pro-wrestling events are for the most part deregulated and no special license is required to run an event. However in the state of Pennsylvania pro-wrestling is governed by the state athletic commission and license and surety bond is required to run a show. In the days after the announcement that XPW would be running in Philadelphia, upon checking with the Pennsylvania state athletic commission, XPW did not have a license to run nor had they posted the necessary $10,000.00 surety bond. Once word was out that XPW had yet to get a license to run their events, the Pennsylvania state athletic commission started receiving countless letters and phone calls complaining about XPW, and asking them not to license XPW.

Around this same time Shane Douglas went on a radio show, and when asked about CZW and their bashing of XPW, and the belief by some that CZW is helping to organize the protests against XPW, Douglas responded by saying "You can't lay claim to Philadelphia by only drawing 200 people", a comment that in retrospect came back to haunt him.

XPW staff, including Kevin Kleinrock made several trips out to Philadelphia in early August, hoping to get the license issue taken care of, and to also arrange for XPW to be shown on television in Philadelphia, as well as several other deals to help promote XPW's first show.

It is believed that at that time they struck a deal with Rob Feinstein and his Ring of Honor promotion to use their license to run August 31st's XPW show. In a way to throw it back in the critic's faces, who had been reporting on XPW's troubles getting a license (most notably Bob Magee from pwbts.com) XPW posted a copy of their bond on their website. The address on the bond was to one of Rob Feinstein's offices. Once word got out that Feinstein was going to let XPW use their license and bond, they quickly denied there was ever an agreement and stated XPW used that address without their permission, though that wouldn't explain how XPW got a copy of the bond if it went to that address. To this day Ring of Honor and The Hartford (the insurer of record) deny any such agreement was ever made, and The Hartford stated that XPW had falsified Ring of Honor's address on the bond, though people involved with XPW and involved in the Philadelphia wrestling scene say a deal was in place and ROH pulled out because of the heat that was on them.

While XPW was having problems getting their license, their debut show's lineup was shaping up to easily be the best lineup in company history adding Super Crazy, Brian XL, Chris Chetti, Little Guido, and Julio Dinero to their roster. XPW also thought they had booked the SAT, who were contacted by Chris Hamrick and they had agreed to work the show, but ended up taking another booking that night instead, creating a rift between Hamrick and the SATs, who were friends.

Eventually another Pennsylvania based promotion, HWA, agreed to let XPW use their license to run the show and XPW's license troubles were over. XPW was then even granted their own license.

In another blow to XPW's show, though not one as major as everyone predicted, CZW, whose fans for the most part the fans XPW tries to cater to, decided to run a deathmatch tournament the same day as XPW's show just a few hours away in Delaware. They even had a bus going to the show that would be picking people up at Viking Hall, XPW's venue.

The day of the show came and XPW had drawn over 700 people (XPW's official number was 940, but people familiar with the building place that number closer to 700), which was far more than most critics thought they would draw. The show was said to be very good by people who were their live, and the atmosphere was said to be very positive overall. The show itself was not without controversy though, when during a deathmatch between Angel and Supreme, Angel went into the women's bathroom and reportedly bled on a girl, who happened to be the daughter of a judge who was in attendance who is a friend of Pennsylvania State Athletic Commissioner Ron Greeley. This, along with what the commission considers excessive violence at CZW shows, mainly involving glass, would a few months later cause the commission to go with a stricter enforcement of the rules and regulations governing wrestling in Pennsylvania.

There was no denying it, XPW's debut show in Philadelphia, "Hostile Takeover" had to be considered a success. Despite all the factors going against them, they managed to draw much better than anticipated, and reviews of the show were largely positive. XPW did however change their game plan in Philadelphia a little bit, as they now began to go after wrestlers that were working for other local promotions and trying to make them exclusive to XPW in the area, which is a tactic that may have hurt XPW more than it helped them. Rather than give XPW a fair chance, fans began to see XPW as a promotion that was out to kill their favorite local promotion, an idea that seemed to be reinforced by some of the promotions.

XPW began contacting many wrestlers who worked for 3PW, CZW, and ROH attempting to get them to jump promotions, with Steve Corino, the Backseat Boyz (Trent Acid & Johnny Kashmere), and Dusty Rhodes some of the names they most wanted. However, none agreed to jump, though Boogalou, who had been working for ROH did.

The idea of independent wrestlers being able to jump from one promotion to another is somewhat silly, as for the most part no wrestlers are under contract and are free to go where they please. There was a lot of fan outrage at this (not XPW fans of course), but I think people fail to realize that if it wasn't wrestling, you don't really get mad when someone gets a job offer for more money if they take it.

When XPW was first being formed in 1999 they had several meetings with UIWA, which was another Southern California independent promotion. At one point they got a good portion of UIWA's roster (most famously Supreme and Kaos) to agree to only work for XPW, which directly impacted a show that the UIWA already had booked. This created a feud in Southern California between the two promotions, though mostly one sided as XPW ignored UIWA, and even during the ECW "Heatwave" pay-per-view, Doc Marlee who worked for UIWA (may have even owned it at this point) went around pointing out XPW people to Atlas security. It was no real surprise that XPW would attempt to get wrestlers from other rosters in Philadelphia, and while there is nothing wrong with making someone a better offer, in several cases they went about it in a bad way.

On October 5th, 2002 XPW ran it's second show in Philadelphia, "Fallout". Attendance was down to about 450 this show, though that could be attributed to ROH running head to head with XPW in Philadelphia, and the newness of the product wearing off. With all the changes to XPW around this time it more and more resembled ECW, which only added to the label XPW had as an ECW rip-off. In a radio interview Shane Douglas even stated that he wanted XPW to "be a continuation of ECW". What Douglas failed to realize, that in most cases in entertainment a sequel is never as popular as the original, and it's something fresh and new that catches the public's eye, and thusly makes money.

Also during "Fallout" in one of the previously mentioned going after wrestlers in the wrong way, Douglas called up Steve Corino during the show and asked him to come over to XPW and do a run-in in an attempt to generate buzz. Corino happened to be working the ROH show at the time.

XPW's next show, that took place on November 16th, 2002 was called "Exit Sandman" and was being hyped to be Sandman's retirement show (even though he was advertised on other shows after this point). Attendance stayed roughly the same as the last show, one of the reasons most likely being no one believed the Sandman was retiring. XPW was known for lying to it's fans in Southern California, and that was definitely something they did not want to begin in Philadelphia with the PR trouble they were already having at this point. So of course, Sandman announced at the show he wasn't retiring.

Former ECW announcer Joey Styles also made his debut in XPW at "Exit Sandman", but would be gone by the next show for what he said were "personal reasons".

Then it was announced XPW had an exclusive lease on Viking Hall for the next three years. When it was first reported on SoCalUncensored.com in September that XPW had been negotiating to either buy, or sign an exclusive lease on Viking Hall, various people in the Philadelphia wrestling scene talked to the owners of Viking Hall who told them no deal had been made, but then XPW made the official announcement (they did make it sooner but no one took it seriously until Viking Hall confirmed it). It was reported that XPW was paying in the neighborhood of $10,000.00 per month to get the arena exclusively starting in January. This would end up as one of the biggest mistakes in XPW history, as attendance at the shows did not justify the costs, and it guaranteed that XPW would never run shows again without competition from one of the other local promotions.

XPW was hyping a debut that would shock Philadelphia for their "Merry F'N X-Mas" show on December 21st, and that debut ended up being a tag-team from CZW, M-Dogg and Josh Prohibition. It is believed they were offered $300.00 each per show (though XPW was paying on a sliding scale where pay would go down each show on a tour), plus travel and room expenses to leave CZW and join XPW without notice. XPW had been actively trying to get the Backseat Boyz to come to XPW still, but once they realized it wasn't going to happen M-Dogg and Josh was their backup plan. Still, with the hype attendance for this show dropped a little more. People in XPW tried using the excuse that the show was close to Christmas as a reason for the drop-off, and while that may be true ultimately it is still XPW who made the mistake of scheduling a show so near Christmas. One positive coming out of the show however was the strength of the undercard, which was said to be very good.

And now the era of XPW's three year exclusive lease on Viking Hall, that would last all of three shows, was about to begin.

Part four will cover the beginning of XPW's exclusive lease on Viking Hall in January up to the present and will take a look at XPW's future.

Part 4:
This will be my fourth, and final part (for now at least) of my history of XPW and where they went wrong. In this edition I'll be covering January of this year to the present, then I'll take a look at XPW's future.

XPW started out the year, after gaining an exclusive lease on Viking Hall in Philadelphia, running the first set of their planned monthly back to back shows, but it would turn out to be the only time they ran back to back in Viking Hall.

The week before XPW was scheduled to run, CZW announced on their website that former CZW champion Justice Pain had left CZW to join XPW. According to people in XPW, Justice Pain had actually been trying to get into XPW for a few months prior, but XPW showed little interest. The feeling by most fans, and some people associated with XPW, was that Pain was finally picked up solely to take a shot at CZW.

The Friday night show on January 17th, "New Year's Revolution 3", was said to be good, but attendance had fallen even more from previous shows, drawing about 250 people. During a match on the show between the team Vic Grimes and Lucy (Daffney from WCW) against Shane Douglas and Lizzy Borden, Lizzy attempted a top rope huracanrana on Vic Grimes and he power bombed her through a table on the outside of the ring The floors had recently been painted due to XPW's remodeling of the arena, and because of their slickness the table moved and Lizzy barely touched the table and took most of the impact on the concrete below. People ringside at the show stated that she was spitting up blood. She was rushed to the hospital where she was kept over night, though she out by the next day's show.

XPW ran it's second night's show, "New Year's Revolution 3: Aftermath" on Saturday and drew about 400, which is about what they drew at their December show, but both nights combined attendance was less than XPW drew in one night at "Hostile Takeover", their Philadelphia debut a little over four months earlier. To make matters worse, CZW also ran on January 18th just a few miles away.

While the exclusive lease on Viking Hall would save XPW money on transportation when doing back to back shows, the numbers XPW was drawing for those shows, and paying around an estimated $10,000.00 per month for the lease, made XPW's lease a very expensive gamble. And as they learned on this first weekend, without the lease the chances of XPW running head to head with one of Philadelphia's other three big promotions was lessened. However, with the lease and CZW and 3PW having to find new venues, XPW pretty much guaranteed they would never run unopposed again.

In their first (and only) head to head meeting in Philadelphia, CZW, who was easily XPW's biggest rival in the promotional war in Philadelphia, outdrew XPW by about 100 to 150, further adding to XPW's embarrassment about their low attendance. Little did they know it was about to get worse.

In the weeks before XPW was set to run their next set of shows on February 14th and 15th, Eric Walker on PWBTS.com reported what been suspected for a few weeks, that XPW would not be running shows in Philadelphia in March or April while they remodel Viking Hall, yet they were still going to let HWA run there in that time. XPW vice president Kevin Kleinrock confirmed the story to PWBTS.com a couple days later.

Then the day of XPW's first of two scheduled shows on February 14th, Bob Magee reported the following on PWBTS.com

"Three different sources, including two within the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission, are stating that at least the Saturday XPW show in Philadelphia is being canceled.

I was first given the information this morning, in an e-mail that stated the reason given to talent for the cancellation of Saturday's show was "due to the potential snow storm". This seemed peculiar given that 3PW's debut show at The Electric Factory is still on, and that the amount of snow forecast for Saturday ranges between only 2-6 inches (depending on which local station one listens to), and that the snow is scheduled to be over by noon.

Later in the morning, both of the sources within the State Athletic Commission confirmed the story, stating that the real reason was "lack of funds". Executive Director Greg Sirb had indicated to one of the sources that he had heard from XPW on Thursday that money was an issue, as well as 'the stacked 3PW show scheduled for Saturday evening."

Bob Magee immediately came under attack by people involved with XPW, most notably their Event & A&R Coordinator Slash and someone claiming to be a friend of his, saying that he was reporting false information and the shows would go on and making threats of lawsuits.

That night XPW drew about 125, one of the worst attendances in Viking Hall history, and just before the main event, XPW's announcer Kriss Kloss announced that the next nights show was canceled due to snowstorms. 3PW went on as scheduled and drew an estimated 550.

Refunds for the canceled show were offered, in the form of merchandise or tickets to the next Philadelphia show and the first New York show, both of which have never happened.

The show itself was called "lackluster" and "flat" by people who were at the show, and any heat the crowd did have was killed at the announcement of the cancellation.

The next week Philadelphia TV station WGTV canceled XPW's TV show due to the promotion not paying it's bills for the time slot. XPW's TV in New Orleans was canceled about the same time.

The whole idea of running TV in multiple markets, especially markets where you never run like New Orleans, is a flawed concept to begin with. Paying for TV time all over the country is a costly move, and one of the many things that lead to the demise of ECW. It's been proven time and time again that TV doesn't make indy promotions money, and XPW was being outdrawn in the Philadelphia market by two promotions that did not even have TV currently running is further proof of that. If anything TV takes away from the live gate, as some people may be inclined just to stay at home and watch the matches a few weeks later. In XPW's case the only purpose TV served was in Los Angeles where it was able to keep it's established fanbase there up to date with what was going on in Philadelphia, and XPW would have been best served waiting till they planned on running in multiple cities before starting their TV in Philadelphia, but by this point their fanbase had diminished so much it was pointless to keep the Philadelphia experiment alive anyway.

On February 28th CZW was notified that XPW had been evicted from Viking Hall for bouncing checks to Viking Hall owners, as well as for violations of the agreement signed to lease the building. The initial deposit check XPW gave to Viking Hall had bounced, as well as several others, and Viking Hall management refused to take any more personal checks from XPW, so XPW was forced to pay expenses with a combination of money orders, cashier's checks, and personal checks from individuals.

Also, XPW had run concerts prior to their January shows, which was in violation of their lease agreement, though since they waited a month and half to evict XPW after the concerts, it is believed the bounced checks and eventual total lack of payment was the real catalyst for the eviction.

On top of Viking Hall getting bounced checks, XPW wrestlers also began to privately complain about bounced checks, though to XPW's credit they did make good on all of the bad checks from Philadelphia to the wrestlers.

The same day XPW was evicted from Viking Hall, they made their return to Los Angeles, with two of their most highly acclaimed shows to date. On XPW's February 28th return to Los Angeles they drew about 450, which is half of what they were normally doing in Los Angeles, but had far less comps than normal. On the show Sean Waltman made his XPW debut, defeating Kaos for the XPW TV title he had held since August 2001.

The next night XPW held what is considered by a lot of people the best show in XPW's history, wrestling wise. At the show XPW announced return dates in SoCal on April 4th and 5th. XPW was finally generating some much needed positive buzz.

The next week on March 8th, XPW made it's debut in Pittsburgh, in front of their largest crowd since July of 2002, approximately 1,200 people, thanks mostly to all the mainstream publicity Shane Douglas was able to generate for the promotion in his home city, even getting a feature article in the local paper just a couple days before the show. However all was not well as there were several notable no-shows such as Sean Waltman, who was given a bounced check in Los Angeles, and Mexico's Most Wanted, who reportedly had transportation problems. Also on the show the top rope broke and eventually the bottom rope had to be moved to the tope leaving XPW with only two ropes, and undoubtedly making XPW look bush league in a few of the people who came to check out the show's eyes.

XPW was unable to capitalize on their recent successes with two highly acclaimed shows, and their biggest draw in months, as quietly any mention of the April shows in Southern California were removed from XPW's website, the planned New York show and return to Philadelphia stopped being mentioned, and April 19th's show in Pittsburgh was scheduled to be the next show.

XPW's money problems continued, as Shane Douglas was complaining to other wrestlers backstage at Insane Clown Posse's "Gathering of the Juggalos" show about XPW's money problems, and how slow they are to pay him. Then Justin Credible came out on an interview with chicagowrestling.com and admitted that XPW had bounced him a check.

It should be noted that XPW had also announced that they would be running a pay per view at February 28th's Los Angeles show. The pay per view is set to be a "best of" taped pay per view. As I've stated in previous columns, running a taped pay per view isn't very risky, as you don't have the expensive satellite time, but you also won't make any money off it, especially with XEG, their distributor taking most of the money. The counter argument to that would be the exposure XPW would get from the pay per view, but the number of buys will more than likely be nominal, as NWA TNA has been established for nearly a year and uses bigger stars than XPW gets less than 15,000 buys for their shows, and also gets more advertising exposure than a taped pay per view that is nothing more than filler programming will get.

Then it was announced Kaos, GQ Money, and Valentina had parted ways with XPW. Kaos, who had been with XPW since the beginning was one of the companies most popular wrestlers. No reason for the departures were given by the promotion, but they did quit the promotion and were not fired. GQ Money had been unhappy with the direction of the company for some time, and it's believed he and Kaos were both owed money by XPW.

Advertising for April 19th's Pittsburgh show was almost nonexistent at first, and when tickets finally did go on sale, they were very slow. After a week of being on sale XPW hadn't even managed to sell out one third of the front row tickets, which are normally the first tickets to go. There had been talk privately that XPW would just cancel the show, as the companies funds were running low.

Then on April 8th about 25 FBI agents and postal inspectors from Pittsburgh, PA in conjunction with the Los Angeles Police Department, arrived at the offices of XPW's parent company Extreme Associates with a 10-page sealed warrant, according to AVN.com.

No arrests were made, though the law enforcement officials seized three copies each of Extreme Teen 24, Cocktails 2, Ass Clowns 3, 1101 Ways to Eat My Jizz, and Forced Entry.

After the raid, XPW announced that they were canceling the Pittsburgh show due to the raid, because the warrant states that Rob Black and Kevin Kleinrock are not allowed to leave the state for 10 days. However, the warrant was a search warrant and there is no such thing as a search warrant that prohibits anyone from leaving the state, and even if one was invented specifically for XPW, that would not prevent them from letting Douglas run the show. Never the less, the show was canceled and there are no shows currently on the horizon.

Extreme has hired high priced attorney Lou Sirkin, who has represented others in similar types of cases, to defend them. Since the warrant was sealed there is still no idea what the government was looking for, but since they took files and books with them, it's not unbelievable they could be looking to go after Extreme on a number of things including RICO violations and tax evasion. Whatever happens it's clear Extreme's money, which was running low before the raid, is going to be tied up for awhile.

Even Shane Douglas, who is the promotions head booker and has been the "face" of XPW recently, stated on a recent radio interview that the company is on "thin ice" and he hasn't been in contact with Kevin Kleinrock or Rob Black since the March Pittsburgh show, but that's a little hard to believe with him being the booker one would thing there would be talks about the planned April Pittsburgh show at least.

That brings us to the present, with no XPW shows on the visible horizon, and the promotion itself being almost completely silent. A lot of people are ready to proclaim XPW dead, while XPW's die hard fans are fast to point to the five month hiatus XPW took in 2000. However there is a huge difference between this hiatus and the one in 2000.

In 2000 when XPW wasn't running for five months there was still activity going on. XPW had a planned show in Glendale that was canceled because of the city not allowing pro-wrestling events, and of course the Sabu and Onita press conference. XPW was active at the time, currently it's silent. Plus XPW wasn't having the money problems it is currently having with workers complaining about bounced checks and canceling three of their last four announced shows.

So what about the future of XPW?

The longer XPW goes between shows and updates, at least to let fans know what's going on, the more they run the risk of driving more of their fanbase away as they become disillusioned and realize XPW will not become the next big thing in pro-wrestling. Over time people move away from wrestling and get into other things, it's just a fact of the wrestling business, and the entertainment business in general. Without running shows or doing anything, XPW isn't attracting new fans. If and when XPW returns they will return to less fans than they had before the hiatus. Once again XPW will find itself trying to rebuild the fanbase it seemingly breaks apart from time to time. That is a very destructive model for any business to run on.

If XPW does decide to run again, the first thing they will have to do is revamp their business model. The promotion has been losing money for four years now, instead of changing their game plan, they went deeper into the plan they were running and losing more money than before. Copying failed business models has never been a successful approach to any business. A quick review of pro-wrestling history should teach XPW management that everything they've tried has failed time and time again. It's time for a new plan.

Will XPW run again though? In essence that all comes down to Rob Black. The fact that XPW's website is still going is proof enough that they haven't given up yet. Even if they start running again, if the government wins whatever case they might throw at Extreme, the promotion will more than likely be dead. If it at least goes to trial, I wouldn't expect Extreme to have the money to keep XPW going during that time. It will all come down to priorities, and XPW wont be at the top of their list.

It's hard to say what will happen with XPW, as so much seems out of their control at this time. If they do run again, one can only hope they've learned from their past mistakes, but they have yet to show that ability on a continuos basis.