Today’s news that 1PW has been placed into liquidation has come as a shock to not just its fans but to many of its wrestlers, as well. As recently as last week, 1PW had assured several wrestlers who were scheduled to appear on the show that next week’s No Turning Back show would be going ahead as planned. Company officials denied the existence of any financial problems such as those that had been reported here at WrestleMag.com. Most notable was the story we broke regarding Kikutaro making the drastic decision to pay around $9,000US to cover airfare for himself, Keiji Mutoh and others who were set to fly in from Japan for the show.
Although flights had not been booked and travel arrangements not been confirmed for at least four wrestlers based in the United States who were on the advertised card, 1PW had told those awaiting their flight tickets around Christmas time that flights would be confirmed and tickets issued early in the New Year. Obviously with today’s news, that hasn’t happened, and those in the United States have woken up this morning to the news that 1PW has folded, just eight days before they were scheduled to appear at The Dome in Doncaster.
As well as wrestlers being kept in the dark about the company folding, some employees of the company were seemingly unaware of the news until it broke earlier today. 1PW’s head booker Dean Ayass commented publicly today that his first knowledge of the official closure came via the message currently displayed at 1pwonline.com. Plans for a new 1PW website that was to be used to stream full matches and shows on a PPV basis were going ahead as normal until those working on it learnt of the news first thing this morning.
Despite the problems that the promotion has faced in recent months, it would be very hard to deny that 1PW gave its fanbase some great shows and some great moments. There will be a lot more news and reaction to today’s news coming out over the next few days.
WrestleMag.com has documented several of the more public problems that the promotion has encountered over the last few months, while cataloguing a great number of lesser known issues. Next week, with input from several sources formerly employed by or who have had dealings with 1PW, we’ll be authoring what we hope will be a definitive telling of the 1PW story from start to finish, right here on the News & Results section of the site.
source: wrestlemag.com