Frontier Wrestling Alliance

XWA

Company type	Public
Industry	Professional wrestling, sports entertainment
Founded	1993 (as Fratton Wrestling Association) 1999 (Frontier Wrestling Alliance) 2007 (as XWA)
Headquarters	Portsmouth, Hampshire
Key people	Mark Sloan (Founder) Mark Kay (Majority Owner) Greg Lambert (Majority Owner)
Website	Official Site

XWA is a British sports entertainment company dealing primarily in the professional wrestling industry. It used to be a high profile company under the name Frontier Wrestling Alliance (FWA). Established in 1993 as the Fratton Wrestling Association it soon became the Frontier Wrestling Alliance six years later. After the FWA lost the inter-promotional feud with International Pro Wrestling: United Kingdom and was forced to close in 2007, the promotion reopened under the guise XWA. The company's headquarters are located in Portsmouth, Hampshire. XWA's business focus is on professional wrestling, a simulated sport which combines wrestling with acting and theatre.

History

Frontier Wrestling Alliance logo

The FWA initially started out as the Fratton Wrestling Association in Portsmouth. The Fratton Wrestling Alliance existed in some form since 1993, when Mark Sloan and some friends began wrestling. After a few year the promotion settled on the name Frontier Wrestling Alliance

This promotion follows the same rules as seen in most of professional wrestling but has adopted the Yellow/Red Card system from Football (soccer), with the yellow card serving as a warning, and any red card offence resulting in disqualification. Piledrivers are banned under FWA rules and can result in a fine as well as disqualification.

FWA would generate a working relationship with US independent promotion Ring of Honor, which led to talent trading and a cross-promotional show, Frontiers of Honor in the United Kingdom on May 17, 2003.

On March 4, 2004, FWA announced that they had signed a contract with The Wrestling Channel, at the time making them the sole and exclusive UK based promotion to feature on the station. Along with a weekly Frontier Wrestling Alliance television show (FWA TV), viewers saw FWA Unsigned, a fly-on-the-wall documentary series, and sit-down interviews, and FWA Academy show depicting the promotions developmental talent.

However after a year as the main UK promotion on the channel, FWA became listed as "On Hiatus" on the TWC's website. TWC would soon fill the void with a variety of shows from various UK promotions.

In November 2004 FWA faced off against All Star Wrestling for the British Inter-Federation Cup. Alex Shane's Team FWA lost the Cup to All-Star in its first defence at Croydon's Fairfield Halls in November, when the deciding match ended in a DQ victory for Joe Legend's All-Star team.

During the last few months of 2005 attendance at Broxbourne Civic Hall was low compared to previous years, The FWA management team even had to cancel one of the promotions top shows Gold Rush, that was scheduled for Broxbourne Civic Hall on Saturday November 26 due to "very disappointing" ticket sales. The FWA decided that it would not be economically viable to hold an event of the quality that FWA fans have come to expect.

The low attendance was due to a combination of factors - but most notably the arrival of new UK wrestling companies who promote towards Internet fans, saturating the market; and also ineffective local promotion. The FWA stated that they would review ticket prices for Broxbourne events in 2006, and address the local promotion problem.

FWA logo used during the Official sites redesign in 2006

With the arrival of 2006 came a new image under the new management team of Alex Shane, Greg Lambert, Mark Kay and Dann Read, the FWA developed a new logo and completely redesigned their website. The FWA Academy would also begin presenting their own supercard shows, which were referred to as FWA:A events. Often feuding with rival FWA development territory FWA Manchester, FWA:M also goes by the name Futureshock. However, these training shows only continued for a year with the final show, entitled FWA:A Graduation Day, taking place on January 27, 2007 at Buckland Centre, Portsmouth.

Following the FWA's controversial loss of the Inter-Federation Cup, the British Inter-Federation Cup Committee brought FWA officials and All-Star owner Brian Dixon together to set up a rematch at the earliest available opportunity. As the initial FWA/All-Star confrontation happened on All-Star turf, the rematch would take place on FWA soil - with the Morecambe Dome hosting the event on May 13, 2006. FWA was able to win the confrontation to take Inter-Federation Cup away from All-Star. It was later reported that the FWA British Heavyweight Title belt was stolen from ringside at around 10.30pm immediately following the event. The FWA offered a reward of £100 for information leading to the safe return of the championship belt.

FWA would further their working relationship with ROH with one of FWA's top stars, Alex Shane, becoming ROH's Head of European marketing and promotion. This new position gave Shane the chance to improve on the talent trading and produce a second Frontiers of Honor which also involved another British promotion International Pro Wrestling: United Kingdom.

This working relationship with IPW:UK would seem to take a turn for the worst when there were several instances in which IPW:UK used FWA talent when the same talent were scheduled to appear in FWA events, and promoting FWA title defences without asking for permission from the FWA management team. However, these seemingly legit incidents were worked into an inter-promotional feud that would see several FWA talent, including FWA All England Champion Leroy Kincade, side with IPW:UK, and compete in several interpromotional matches, while then-IPW:UK Champion Martin Stone be stripped of his FWA Tag Team Title, siding with IPW:UK in preparation to face semi-retired FWA Star Alex Shane in a Promotion v Promotion – Winner Takes All Match at Orpington on March 25, 2007.

However, it was announced on the FWA's official website that due to a "serious neck problem", Alex Shane was unable to contest the match against Stone. On March 25, 2007, FWA lost the FWA vs IPW:UK feud when Martin Stone pinned Flash Barker (Shane's stand-in). According to the (kayfabe) stipulations, FWA was forced to go out of business.

XWA

After the FWA went out of business, Greg 'The Truth' Lambert formed a new promotion from its ashes, the XWA, and continues to run quarterly events in Morecambe, using FWA titles, some former FWA talent and a lot of new, local, talent. It also re-uses some FWA concepts, like calling its multi-wrestler rumbles Goldrush.

The FWA Academy also continued on but as a very specialist training school only teaching 8 in the Portsmouth school. Several months later, XWA relaunched its website and closed down the frontierwrestling.com and other related FWA websites, which had previously redirected users to XWAwrestling.com.

Championships

• Current champions

FWA titles now under the XWA banner

• British Heavyweight Championship - Sam Slam
• British Tag Team Championship - Vacant
• British Flyweight Championship - Spud
• Gold Rush Fifteen Man #1 Contender Battle Royal

new XWA titles

• Best of the North West Championship - Joey Hayes

FWA titles now under the IPW:UK banner

• All England Championship - Terry Frazier

• Defunct

• XPW European Championship
• FWA European Union Championship
• FWA King of England
• FWA Round Robin Tournament

FWA:A

• FWA Academy Championship (last champion LT Summers)
• FWA Academy Tag Team Championship (last champion LT Summers & Joey Redman)

External links

• XWA Official website
• British Wrestling