NXT UK Star Pulled from Frontline Wrestling’s J-1 League Tournament

UK promotion Frontline Wrestling has confirmed some big changes to their J-1 League tournament. The Will Ospreay owned company released a statement on the ongoing tournament and one of the NXT UK affiliated stars that needed to be pulled.

The company stated that Martin Kirby, Travis Banks & Kyle Fletcher would be removed from the tournament. Frontline wrote that “Kirby unfortunately would only be able to make 1 out of the 6 shows in 2019 due to a scheduling conflict with another promotion.”

Frontline also confirmed that NXT UK Superstar Travis Banks would be removed as he “is signed with NXT UK and will not be able to participate with any Frontline Wrestling events.” Kyle Fletcher has taken out of the Junior Division tournament as he “competed for the PROGRESS Atlas Championship which now puts him at 205lbs (93KG). The weight limit to be a Jr Heavyweight is 85KG.”

The company confirmed that they are “now searching for 3 of the top Jr Heavyweights to take their place all starting from 0 points. Thank you for understanding. Two of the situations are out of our hands, but we are extremely serious about weight categories in Frontline and do not wish to stray.”

Frontline revealed their new On Demand streaming service via the Pivotshare platform earlier this year. The service is available at a $4.99 per month cost and features the first two shows from the company. ‘Build Me An Empire’ and ‘S.P.I.R.I.T’ took place earlier this year and feature a stellar line up of talent.

Bulld Me An Empire is certainly worth the cost alone. The main event featured an outrageous bout between Chris Ridgeway and Japan’s KENOH. Ridgeway is an accomplished ‘strong style’ combatant in his own right but this match at the top of the card will be the bout that catapults him into the upper echelons of both the UK scene and, hopefully, Japan (much like how Ospreay’s bout against Okada for Rev Pro got him on a plane going East). We spoke to Ospreay earlier this year and he discussed his want to bring ‘puroresu‘ to the United Kingdom, this big time main event and the reaction from the crowd in attendance seems to solidify that strong style/puroresu has truly arrived in Britain.