History
2006–2012
Mark Dallas founded the promotion while living with his girlfriend in Glasgow's Red Road Flats in 2006. [10] After attending wrestling training to learn the business from the inside, he ran his first shows at Maryhill Community Centre. Drew Galloway was crowned the company's inaugural Heavyweight Champion on 15 October 2006 after defeating Darkside and Allan Grogan in a three-way match at ICW: Fear & Loathing. [11] Galloway held the title until 22 July 2007 when he was defeated by Darkside. [12] After an almost 2-year hiatus, ICW returned on 9 May 2009 with ICW: Fear & Loathing, [13] however, after another brief hiatus, the company began running shows every other month beginning with ICW: Payback on 28 February 2010. [14]
On 5 June 2010, ICW: Menace 2 Society, a new ICW Heavyweight Champion was crowned for the first time in over three years as BT Gunn won the vacant title in a 4-way match against Wolfgang, Liam Thomson and Johnny Moss. The event also kicked off a tournament for a secondary title, the ICW Zero-G Championship. [15] Another title change occurred on 4 September 2010 at ICW: Dazed and Confused when moments after defeating Red Lightning, BT Gunn was challenged by James Scott who won the match and joined the villainous Gold Label faction. [16]
ICW: Fear & Loathing 3 signaled ICW's first venture into Glasgow City Center with the event taking place at Apollo 23 nightclub on 21 November 2010. The finals of the Zero-G Championship Tournament took place with Noam Dar defeating Andy Wild, Falcon and Rob Cage in a four-way elimination match. The Zero-G Championship was briefly dropped by Dar to Lionheart at ICW: Summerbam on 14 August 2011 before winning the title back at ICW: Fear & Loathing 4 on 23 November. [17] [18]
2012–2023
2012 saw the introduction of a new event on 22 January, Square Go!. This event was headlined by an over-the-top-rope battle royal granting the winner a shot at the ICW Heavyweight Championship at a time of their choosing. [19] ICW's next event, ICW: Smells like Teen Spirit, took place in The Garage venue, in Glasgow; the venue would later host many ICW shows. [20] The beginning of the year saw ICW gain TV exposure through MyChannel, although their tenure on the station was short-lived as they were removed from programming after one of their shows was shown at an inappropriate time.
During the summer, the ICW Tag Team Championship was introduced and, after a series of elimination matches, STI (Dickie Divers & William Grange) defeated The Bucky Boys (Davie Boy & Stevie Boy) for the titles at ICW: Hadouken!. [21]
After the airing of an in-house mockumentary and his prominent role in the Vice documentary, Grado became prominent in the promotion of ICW. At the 2nd Annual Square Go!, Mikey Whiplash secured his opportunity at the Heavyweight Championship while ICW ventured out of Glasgow for the first time with a show at Studio 24 in Edinburgh. [22] In Edinburgh at ICW: Tramspotting, qualifying matches would begin for the new ICW Fierce Females Championship. [23] The Tag Team Championship changed hands for the first time with STI losing their titles to The Bucky Boys in a ladder match at ICW: Get To Da Choppa. [24] At ICW: Reservoir Dogs, ICW announced that they were being filmed as the subject of a BBC documentary. [25]
On 7 February 2015, the ICW Heavyweight Championship was renamed the ICW World Heavyweight Championship following title defenses in England, Denmark and the United States by Drew Galloway. [26] On 27 February 2016, ICW had their first show in Ireland named The Big Elbowski, where Big Damo defeated Chris Renfrew for the ICW World Heavyweight Championship.
On 20 November 2016, ICW ran the Fear & Loathing IX PPV at the SSE Hydro, which was their biggest event to date and featured Kurt Angle, Team 3D, Ricochet, Finn Balor and others. [27] [28]
On 5 November 2017, on a Road to Fear and Loathing X tour show in Cardiff, Triple H and NXT United Kingdom Champion Pete Dunne made a special guest appearance. [29]
Three days later, Lionheart died by suicide, [30] causing the ICW title to be vacated. Stevie Boy defeated Wolfgang for the vacant title at Shug's Hoose Party 6 on 28 July 2019. [31]
2023–present
Leyton Buzzard, who had won the ICW World Heavyweight Championship Fear & Loathing XIV on 20 November 2022, became ICW's first champion to defend the World Championship outside of the UK since 2018. Inspired by Drew Galloway's internationally recognised reign, which spanned multiple countries, Buzzard eventually broke some of Galloway's records for international defences with matches in Italy, Spain, Ireland, Sweden, Germany and Canada. [32]
In January 2023, ICW announced that its deal with WWE had ended and their library would no longer be available through the WWE Network and Peacock. [33] ICW began airing its weekly TV and events through FITE, this began with The 11th Annual Square Go airing as a PPV on 26 February 2023, [34] during which it was announced that ICW would be airing its events via FITE+ going forward. [35] The first major event of this partnership was Get The F Out! on 14 May 2023. [36]
