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Big Vision Entertainment will be running a 10 year anniversary for Xtreme Pro Wrestling (XPW) on Saturday 8/1 in California. The plan is for the show to feature local wrestlers from California only, as opposed to a ton of fly-ins from outside of the area as a number of former XPW locals had been pushing to commemorate the anniversary. No venue has been booked yet for the event.
XPW ran from 1999-2003, mostly out of California, although the company
would late branch out into running Philadelphia and Pittsburg in latter
years. Formed by porn guru Rob Zicari (who appeared on camera as Rob
Black), it was heavy on blood and shock value and played itself as
something of a rebel enemy to the original Extreme Championship
Wrestling, based on legitimate grudges between Zicari and then-ECW
owner Paul Heyman after a fallout of some sort.
Perhaps the company's most infamous moment came during an incident at
the 2000 ECW Heatwave PPV in Los Angeles where a number of XPW
performers were ejected from the front row during the main event,
leading to a street fight between the ECW locker room, including
Heyman, and a number of XPW personalities. Although it was long assumed
that one of the talents was physically involved with ECW manager
Francine, she noted in a Ring of Honor shoot interview that she was
never accosted during the incident.
Among the California talents that worked regularly for XPW are The
Messiah, Supreme, Jasmin St. Claire, Vic Grimes, Kaos and White Trash
Johnny Webb. The company would also regularly use former ECW talents that
left the promotion as well including Sabu, the late Big Dick Dudley,
The Public Enemy, Chris Candido, Shane Douglas, and Axl Rotten.
Additional talents that would later appear included Juventud Guerrera,
Terry Funk, and Psicosis, among others.
The promotion ran weekly TV in Los Angeles and later Philadelphia. The
XPW insurgence into the former ECW Arena sparked a hot period for
Philadelphia's indy scene with a number of companies all running at
once in the market, including CZW, Ring of Honor, and XPW with XPW
painting themselves as the enemy coming into the market looking to take
over. At one point, they even leased the ECW Arena, locking all other
independent promotions from running the facility.
XPW shuttered operations in April 2003 when Zicari and wife Lizzy
Borden (also an on-air performer for the company) were indicted on
obscenity charges due to pornographic material produced by XPW's parent company,
Extreme Associates, being sent via the United States mail service to Pittsburgh.
Zicari and Borden plead guilty as part of a plea bargain earlier this year.
Zicari would later sell the XPW trademarks, library, and name to Xtreme Entertainment Group (XEG), which handled video tape releases for the company. Houston Curtis, current CEO of Big Vision, was a partner in XEG at the time, which is how that circle all comes together.
Big Vision promoted a larger-scale reunion show "Cold Day in Hell", which is
currently available on DVD in the PWInsider Superstore.
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