Defiant Wrestling (Defiant)

[5.0] "In hindsight WCPW was an absolute fever dream of a promotion. That world cup thing they ran was mental. I had never heard of the youtube lads who ran it prior to this opening but plenty of people had because they had a built in audience straight away. They picked some strange talent to be front of centre like Joe Henry (he is crap, stop lying to yourself) but the stuff with Kirby was fairly interesting. It was very much an import heavy promotion and the booking could inspire some mediocre youtubers to discuss it and break it down one day. The change to Defiant was basically the beginning of the end and it just became a mid level britwres company in a scene whose boom had passed even if it took Covid and Speaking Out for people to realise it."

[8.0] "WCPW Was my first glimpse into the british indies and introduce me to a Lot of my future favorites such as, Joe Hendry, Noam Dar, Will Ospreay, Walter and helped me realize Drew Mcintyre is actually cool, Obviously after the honeymoon period ended and a lot of their talent got picked up by wwe WCPW started to flutter as Whatculture became less popular and a lot of their most popular personalities left and WCPW became Defiant. WCPW was still a beloved promotion where we got a lot of big time matches and a lot of new stars were introduced to a wider audience, and a lot of former wwe wrestler were able to do big things there such as, Matt Hardy, Cody, Alberto El Patron. WCPW will always have a soft spot in my heart even though it was far from perfect,"

[7.0] "I dont need to repeat all the lore surrounding WhatCulture and wasting huge money on big names that was unsustainable (f*ck you Blampied) I do want to give some credit to the promotion at using the platform that they got to put over some of the britwres talents even if in hindsight COVID+Speakout was going to screw them up real fast. Will Ospreay step to the one of the best wrestlers in the world started here (kinda), Joe Hendry road to superstardom started here (with a legendary feud with Kirby), Gabe Kidd's journey to top Strong Style gaijin started here (kiss my boots is such good schtick). Of course most of the talents were all over the place but it is nice to see the efforts to give them exposure."

[6.0] "Back when it simply WCPW, it was great, there tons of different talent from all over the world, then it became Defiant, which while alright, missed the point of WCPW entirely."

[6.0] "Had great talent and sometimes the matches were great but lacked some consistency. Enjoyed their World Cup. The name change to Defiant really seemed to kill the company"

[10.0] "In both eras (WCPW/Defiant) they were brilliant at combining the best British talent with the world's biggest stars of the independent scene. A weekly show available completely on YouTube and the Internet Championship were brilliant. Even more brilliant was the idea of carrying out a Pro Wrestling World Cup with qualifiers for different countries sometimes held in situ like Germany and Canada. All matches of Will Ospreay, ZSJ and Mike Bailey here were magical and the rivalry Martin Kirby vs. Joe Hendry was always a joy to watch. It's a shame the British scene has regressed so much. I really hope Defiant comes back."

[8.0] "A promotion with promise. WCPW was the product created of hard work, just a small YouTube company taking a risk on something that might not even workout in the end. It took off and became the fastest growing Indy company in the world with so e of the best talent appearing, but suddenly the people who founded it left, leaving it in the hands of the incompetent who ruined it."

[4.0] "It's interesting how WhatCulture endlessly complained about shitty booking in other companies, but almost immediately shit the bed when they set up their own promotion. Never forget how utterly wank their first few events were beyond the wrestlers trying to make the best of it. Sure, they'd pick up after a while (namely because they'd throw out the big money for top stars like Galloway, Angle, Lethal, Moose, Rampage, Ospreay, etc etc) and had some fairly strong matches, through it became obvious after a while that they were basically just shoving any major star they could get into the main event, overshadowing all of the native talent in the process, which I don't really blame them because they weren't very good for the most part. Lame booking and a tendency to over rely on "comedy" bouts to pad out their card didn't help matters. They basically died a death after they changed their name and became another bland, boring BritWres without any of the top notch wrestlers that defined that niche. Some positive notes: they helped the likes of Joe Hendry and Martin Kirby reach bigger heights, in particular giving Kirby a ton of space to work his magic as a dick heel and eventual face of the company, and the Wrestling World Cup was a fun idea, abet extremely difficult to pull off. All in all, a money pit that was really only used as a stepping stone by wrestlers to get wider exposure, which I have no issue with."

[5.0] "I have given a 5. This is because I would've give WCPW a 9, but Defiant a 1. WCPW utilised big names (Angle, Bucks etc.. ) away from the title scenes, but used bigish name British and European talent (Scurll, Dain, Rampage, Hendry, Ospreay etc.. ) in the title scenes. Defiant went under the radar due to the absence of any big names, and I think in large part due to the departure of the Cultaholic 4 and Blampied."

[7.0] "Was a pretty good indie promotion, started with alot of star power in 2016 when it was called WCPW i say WCPW was better then Defiant and after there name change they began too book rookies or wrestlers that where not a big name."

[7.0] "A young promotion that has come on in leaps and bounds since it began as an offshoot of What Culture. It's YouTube business model has helped it look more professional than a lot of other indy promotions and that will only help it to grow. It's a company that's still to have a stand out match or moment but at least it's consistently solid. EDIT: YouTube killed Defiant"

[8.0] "Not gonna say this promotion was perfect, however they did a really good job for what they did. Thank you WhatCulture"

[8.0] "Entertaining promotion. Its weekly shows are easy to watch and thoroughly enjoyable. The PPVs I've seen so far have been very solid. Since its closure, I have had time to reflect on the short time I've been watching and I bumped up the rating by one point. Going to one of their events live changed my perspective. The energy they had live was simply not reflected on TV."

[6.0] "Defiant had a... unique history to say the least. while they had a rocky start mostly due to the whatculture guys making the show about themselves ft. wrestlers, they eventually began to produce an enjoyable weekly show and were also able to introduce casual wrestling fans to the thriving UK scene. events such as the world cup were excellently produced and showed a glimpse of what they could do as well as booking very well known stars for special attraction main events. But as years progressed, lazy storylines, the departure of various talents, the lack of special attractions and just an uninteresting product in general began to really affect them, and even with a name change and rebranding in 2017, it eventually led to them shutting down this year. they certainly weren't an awful promotion by any means, but they definitely weren't as good as the many other options on the scene."

[8.0] "Suprisingly entertaining with intriguing characters and a reasonable run time. Episode accessibility should be another noted factor as the promotion offers full episodes and/or matches for free online."

[7.0] "This promotion started off on fire but has since suffered from poor booking decisions. Also the lack of a working relationship with WWE has hurt the product in the short term as some of their high profile talent can no longer be used. Hopefully they will be able to cultivate new stars of their own in the future."

[10.0] "I have been watching since the beginning when they were WCPW and I was unsure if changing their name was and good idea at first some people left becuase of the name change but I think it's just made the company better be separate from whatculture and this company is what got me into following the Indies"

[10.0] "Great promotion. A lot of fun mixed with some great in ring work. A lot of variety with technical guys like Mike Bailey, hardcore such as Jimmy Havoc, high fliers such as SCC, big men like Jurn Simmons and Rampage and then throw in superstar names such as Austin Aries, Mark Haskins, Marty Scurll and appearing at their next ppv, Christopher Daniels. Throw all of that together with rising stars like Millie Mckenzie, Kyle Fletcher, Liam Slater and Gabriel Kidd and you have the recipe for an outstanding promotion"

[5.0] "Defiant Wrestling rebraded after a number of their behind the scene guys left the company to form Cultoholic. They are alright, booked some big names. Can't see them ever competing with the bigger British promotions."

[8.0] "Early issues of production quality, commentary, and over-reliance of non-wrestling talent have been overcome and what is left is the very good promotion it always had the potential to be. It is now home to consistently good matches, from some of the hottest indie talent there is. The booking/storylines are mostly solid and at the least: logical. Some talent could be used more effectively. Joe Coffey has recently been underutilised, having to take a backseat to fellow stablemate Joe Hendry. Impressive performers have not returned (until very recently) like South Coast Connection. That said, for such a young promotion they are doing plenty right and the result is some great wrestling."

[6.0] "Only fair to revise my rating after a year. WCPW has improved its booking (despite its current reliance on The Prestige), and the commentary has got better with Dave Bradshaw and James R. Kennedy together. There's still the odd production flub, but the in-ring has improved tremendously, and they've had a successful Pro Wrestling World Cup that they can make a fixture of over the coming years. They just need to carry on the trajectory they're on, and I'm sure my rating will improve further."

[8.0] "WCPW haven't been running long - Just over a year; but have already leapfrogged a lot of companies to be known as a top well known UK indy promotion. It started as what felt like a 'We can do this too'; with a lot of jokes at WWE and TNA thrown in, but has since put on some incredible matches and talents. The big worry for me; is the sheer amount of top names that is being used; and with high production values (From the WhatCulture show on YouTube no doubt), but they don't have an individuality, or a personality of their own yet. a lot of this is simply because of the lack of homegrown talent, and those that are homegrown will work everywhere else in the UK anywhere. If they can get one homegrown babyface; and push him to the moon; they could get some big reactions and crowds (Think Grado in ICW). They've been doing excellently for a fledgling company; but some of their own personality and branding is needed to push them to the top of the tree (In England and elsewhere)."

[10.0] "This promotion has a lot of eyes on it due to it being based of the highly-popular YouTube channel WhatCulture Wrestling. But in my opinion it has taken that hype and shot it through the stratosphere! With huge stars like Drew Galloway, Cody Rhodes and Will Ospreay holding titles in the promotion, it is swiftly showing the world that this is the promotion to go to and show your skills against the very best of this generation! The storylines have all lead to something and not just been thrown onto tv for fun; every single rivalry means something. For example, the losing streak of Gabriel Kidd: going 26 losses in a row to start in the promotion, to now holding the Internet Championship. Another example, the hard fought battles of Joe Hendry to win the WCPW Championship: he was a fun loving guy to start out, but resorted to using heel tactics in order to stay at the top of the mountains. Last example, El Ligero and Martin Kirby facing each other on the very first night, just recently continued their rivalry a year later at Built to Destroy. This company is going places, and its best you jump on the bandwagon now because it's only going up from here!"

[10.0] "the favourite promotion the booking of it is solid the champions are awesome and it has really grown over the past year cant wait until the next round of the pro wrestling world cup"

[5.0] "WCPW is an average wrestling company who have put on some good events. There has been far too much emphasis on one off performers to the detriment of the regular talent. The regular talent that they do have is often painfully undervalued. Travis Banks and Pete Dunne being perfect examples of this. Initially the plan seemed to be to use international stars to bring eyes onto the product and promote their own wrestlers, but if anything there is more and more emphasis on the guest appearances and less on the regulars, who have been pushed more and more into the mid card. Although Drew Galloway has been great as champion as was Joseph Connors before him. Credit to What Culture for getting eyes on British indie wrestling, but when you look at what else is available this WCPW just can't stand up. Progress, RPW and ICW are all much better big promotions. What Culture Extra (the on demand service) is also appalling value compared to what those three promotions offer (a much bigger library with more regular events at a similar price). Also credit to them for continuing to put shows on YouTube, although I am sure that this will happen less and less it is good to see some decent indie wrestling available for free. The atmosphere at WCPW shows are often pretty poor. I have attended two WCPW shows in Nottingham and Manchester. The astmosphere in Manchester was decent, but the show in Nottingham was dead, and totally killed any excitement I had for the show. I think having such an irregular roster and moving around the country means that it's harder for fans to get invested. The big names also mean that people often go just to see them and don't care as much about the regular wrestlers."

[9.0] "At first it was pretty bad. Like a 4. But now I don't understand any of the hate. Every week they give us a reason to watch Loaded, with blockbuster main events, given away for FREE! Their iPPV's are always stacked as hell and feel special because they only happen every 2-3 months. Even if a show is bad, it still has a special feel to it. Refuse to Lose was pretty bad, yet it still felt super important to the whole company. Every PPV since than has been awesome including True Destiny which was incredible and so far(haven't watched Wrestle Kingdom 11) my favorite PPV of the Year. I think they have the potential to be a huge promotion in the world, and are growing very fastly, especially with the Pro Wrestling World Cup which is going to be INSANE!"

[3.0] "I have been going to WCPW since the first show in Newcastle and I have to say the progression of this company is very underwhelming. During the first few months the company used a few imports and was pushing their own characters from the UK like Gabriel Kidd, Prospect, Primate, Rampage Brown and Big Damo as their big stars but slowly but surely they have begun to rely on imports and former WWE talent to sell their shows. This is fine but it does lead to a point where people come in win a match lose a match then leave stalling a lot of local guys momentum. As an example Joe Coffey has one of the best win-loss records in the company but has only been afforded one world title match and has spent a lot of his time in mid card feuds and then losing two matches in a row to Minoru Suzuki. I don't think there's anything wrong with bringing guys in to make your stars look bigger but I feel the influx of talent for a few dates a year is stalling a lot of good momentum this company had. As for their world title I'm of the belief that no matter what on a big show your main event should be your world title match as in the end that should be the end goal of every wrestler who works for you but time and time again the World Title has been put below special attraction matches (Kurt Angle vs Joe Hendry, Kurt Angle vs Cody Rhodes and the upcoming Kurt Angle vs Alberto El Patron match). Part of the reason for the low rating is from frustration as to what this company could become."

[8.0] "A really solid indy promotion. Honestly, I don't get the hate, WCPW has improved tremendously since it debuted."

[5.0] "The absurd 10/10 ratings are likely down to a large WhatCulture viewers being pretty new to British Independent Wrestling. WCPW is nowhere near a perfect promotion and when compared to Progress, Revolution Pro Wrestling it's certainly not the strongest of the UK promotions. Progress, RPW, ICW, PCW, Chaos, Attack! , SWE, etc, all have strengths and weaknesses but WCPW is among the most flawed. I give them credit for turning their established brand into a ready-made platform for great independent wrestlers (who WCPW fans seem to think were plucked out of the ether by WCPW) like Will Ospreay, Joseph Conners, Rampage Brown, Noam Dar, Damo, Marty Scurll, Martin Kirby, Moustache Mountain, The Coffeys and more. Plus, I'm inclined to watch any promotion that pushes Drew Galloway as their top champion. But WCPW has a lot of improvements to make, Alex Shane needs to go, King Ross needs to stay gone, the booking needs refined, less sexism, less juvenile nonsense, more wrestling and emotion (as Hendry, Galloway and Conners have been showing in the title hunt lately). I don't think WCPW have a great mind for the business but they had a pre-existing audience and a huge budget which has allowed them to skip the queue... they need to acknowledge that and work harder / smarter. I'd level the same charge against ICW who coast on hype and a cult audience but they did at least build themselves up over a period of years when there was no real current precedents for UK promotions to succeed."

[10.0] "This Company has done nothing but gone up ever since Built to Destroy, Each Show has been better then the last, The WhatCulture Personalities are great and aren't overexposed, This is a very good promotion, very Happy Martin Kirby got over. and now They've shocked me with brilliant wrestling and actually better production, the booking is actually being done super well, I'm proud to be a WCPW Fan, Adam Blampied needs to come back too."

[10.0] "the company is in its infancy, but even less than a year in they have a dedicated fan base and a bunch of character and story development going on. I have high hopes for WCPW and I hope they can keep up the brilliant work."

[9.0] "Review as of True Legacy: WCPW has slowly been improving, stepping up their game and True Legacy is a testament of that. Though the Loaded shows before the special were lackluster, True Legacy showed us the potential WCPW has and how much growth is still possible for this fledgling promotion. I hope they can sustain this momentum and keep growing while continue to feature great wrestling and good stories."

"This promotion has improved exponentially since episode one. I'm excited to see where it goes in the future. I could see it being perhaps as big as ICW, though that's unlikely."

[5.0] "I love the product, but I don't really find myself wanting to watch every episode, I think the main reason for my lack of interest and others lack of interest is about the whatculture staff inserting themselves into the storylines, it makes them seem like self absorbed jackasses, It would get a lot better if the show was more about the talent rather than the whatculture people."

[9.0] "WCPW definitely has the potential to be the most entertaining wrestling promotion in the world. The gang from What culture carry the show because they are such dynamic and engaging personalities. Adam Blampied himself as both a commentator and a non-wrestling talent, makes the episodes far more interesting than any show save Lucha Underground. The series had one of the best commentary teams in Adam and King which is great because to often the commentary team is not a focus when reviewing a promotion, but for the televised audience, the commentary team is the most consistent voice for the promotion and it is not only the most constant element, it is the most dominating factor. The wrestling talent is rotating, but has demonstrated that it can perform, and we've seen great performers like Jay Lethal as well as lesser known up and comers like Big Daimo."

[10.0] "I love this promotion, it's well booked by blampied team, there's a lot of guest it shows us that they want to be better and they want to grow so i put a 10 because i don't understand how the f... you can put a 0. I just dislike the bx/pacciti things they should stop it"

[4.0] "There are promotions in the UK that are humble about their upcoming and keep themselves otherwise in the background so that the wrestlers become the focus such as PROGRESS and RevPro. As nice as the WhatCulture personalities are, they've over-saturated themselves all throughout the show and often shill themselves to the point where you just want them to shut up and get to the wrestling. I'd be wrong to say the wrestling isn't good, because it is, but god is the booking forced and pushing talent who isn't ready yet to be something special. Joseph Connors as their main champion matches why i dislike Wrestle-1, being so disconnected from your audience to think he's a worthy champion of the WCPW brand. I would happily select matches to watch from this promotion, but i can not watch a full show and enjoy it."

[7.0] "The company keeps getting better. But mainly in the card. That would ensist that they have more money if you can book Jay Lethal and Moose in your first 10 shows. That's why I don't understand why the quality isn't getting better. You can buy a couple of screens. good cameras and hire professionals from the money you make on shows like that. That's what's missing to complete the picture. The firgures are kinda complete but don't have much depth. Make them get a real story line to improve instead of doing some weird green screens stuff."

[10.0] "This promotion doesn't deserve a 10 just because of it's great content, but because they give a lot of exposure to wrestlers not recognize by mainstream media due to their extremely popular youtube channel."

[8.0] "after a slow start the whatculture crew has found a solid footing with alot of great talents and personalities. of cause there are some flaws but they are still in some knd of beta"

[2.0] "These guys think they can "book" wrestlers better than the WWE and then have a shitty promotion like WCPW. The idea in itself is decent, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Much better independents out there."

[8.0] "It's a good promotion. The thing is, it's almost as if you would've had to have been a fan before WCPW to understand the characters and like the characters. Also, their is great wrestling but most of their shows just DRAG on towards the end."

[7.0] "So, WhatCulture made their shows. Watched the first season and while it had appealing and effort, execution was subpar. They are guys that like wrestlingm you feel it, they want to give their vision of not too over the top characters. After the second season, looks like they united with ICW for more things than wrestler, they have their how-to with the aditions of the WhatCulture people. WC gives the general idea of what they want and ICW polishes it. And i like it because they make refferences to themselves, a good balance os fine wrestlingm a dose os kinda realism and smark awareness. Deffinitely not a perfect promotion, but a promotion for smarks that don't want to be treated like idiots"

[10.0] "I'm an extremely casual fan and this is the first promotion I've religiously followed. So happy that I did find WhatCulture Wrestling on YouTube when I did so that I could see this through from the start. I'm glad they got a real commentary team, as opposed to King Ross and Simon. Nothing against the original 2, but, even as a super casual fan, I really wasn't impressed by them. They rely to heavily on NC matches, with a DQ pretty much every single one of the first episodes, the the NC match at the end of the last match before Built to Destroy was booked perfectly. You can see the growth that they are easing into, what with the introduction of the Womens' Division and the obvious build up for a Tag Team division as well. I'm glad to see that they gave closure to the Martin Kirby/El Ligero rivalry, though I wasn't impressed with how it was booked. (A dress? Was I supposed to laugh? Because I didn't) Ecstatic to see that they are not done with building this promotion and that they are constantly improving the quality of the production (no more cruddy green screen! ) with each new episode. Looking forward to where they take this."

[10.0] "They are really entertaining in my opinion. I think they are going to be the most entertaining thing ever"

[10.0] "The Built to Destroy special event was outstanding. The previous shows has been a bit average but I'm glad they've finally worked it out and replaced the commentators. The new ones aren't amazing but they do they job well enough and importantly they've clearly been following the youtube channel and have context to draw on. The finish to the Lethal v Dar match was fantastic and to be honest the whole card was really good. Ten. Ten. Ten."

[9.0] "love what culture wrestling I think that having some of the best English wrestlers in the company sets it up to succeed. exposes people to British wrestling who wouldn't usually watch so people like joe Hendry and el ligero can show what they can do to a broader audience"

[9.0] "Martin Kirby, Adam Blampied, Joe Hendry, King Ross, El Ligero and Prince Ameen are the characters that catch the eye here. They are brilliant and are surrounded by also good wrestlers and personalities"

"There is A LOT of work to do for this guys. Being a fan of their YouTube channel, I was surprised about the announcement back then and thought this was going to be some backyard project. And well, it very much is, although they are trying to disguise it as something bigger and better. It is still too early to grade them in my opinion and I will give them the benefit of the doubt for some more weeks. After all, they DO have some potentially amazing talent under their name, like Joe Hendry, Big Damo, Martin Kirby and some really big names like Jay Lethal and Aaron Stevens for what I assume to be occasional guest appearances. But so far, even with rose tinted glasses there was nothing that impressed me and the negatives far outweigh the positives. Most notably technical issues in the sound department, the lack of charismatic speakers and a horribly miscast Simon Miller at commentary. The booking doesn't help much, which is quite baffling if you take a look at some of Adam Blampied's ideas he covers on his channel. Then again, with those he is merely rearranging good puzzle pieces that have been terribly put together by WWE. Now he is working with his own pieces and its clearly a whole different story. What I liked however was the enthusiastic crowd. It's safe to assume that all of those are hardcore fans of the YouTube channel and they don't mind most of the flaws. But it helps, even if its just a little bit. I really hope they can fix their problems in time and don't fall flat. I feel like they have the potential to make something out of nothing, but it's going to be a tough road and bumpy road. The first impression wasn't that good, so they have to step things up quickly. Something I could imagine working for them, is if they drop the regular formula and make things more "smarky", if that makes sense. After all, everything else on their channel is aimed towards a smarky fanbase, which makes this product seem very out of place."

[6.0] "WCPW overall doesn't have to many problems but they are glaring issues. For example the production value is not that good especially the audio where at times it can be too loud, too quiet, and then perfect good. Though we can't blame them since it is their first few shows and they don't have enough money to continue to upgrade equipment. One of my only problems with the staff is Suzaro. She's like the Vickie Guerrero of the group except without the clarity because it is really hard to understand what she says due to her accent. One of my other problems is that the staff of whatculture are basically the mchamons of this promotion. They're all over it! Now for some of them it's okay like both Adams, Kenny, Jaime, and the commentators but Suzaro and Jack have no real businesses being there except for Jack who really only should have been there for the first episode. Overall it's fine nothing to groundbreaking but they have only gone through 2 episodes so we'll see how things go and if i may have to change my rating."