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Five Star Wrestling, the British promotion that began live weekly broadcasts on Freesports TV, a channel listed available in 18 million homes in the UK last month, is already done. The group had taken several weeks off in March, despite the original plan being to run every Thursday night live and were slated to return tonight on the network. Instead, they are out of business.
"It is with great sadness that we announce that there will be no more 5 Star Wrestling events," the announcement reads. "Fans need to contact their point of purchase for refunds. Pro Wrestling UK, Ltd. the company running the events has been shut down. We're sorry to all involved."
The promotion quietly announced they were canceling all of their events, days after word circulated among talents. The group had been trying to build itself on a former WWE stars vs. UK stars theme, had drawn poorly for almost all of its live events. Rey Mysterio, Jack Swagger, Alberto el Patron, and John Hennigan were among the names brought in for the events.
Free Sports TV announced in September 2017 that they would be broadcasting Five Star Wrestling, with live events airing on Thursdays, followed by replays and then shorter, edited versions of the shows playing over the weekend. The plan was to try and take the content and syndicate it out to other countries as well. Obviously, that plan is now dead.
The promotion's plan was to run in legitimate large arenas every week live, but the shows didn't draw well, at times having just a few hundred fans in venues that fit upwards of 10,000 fans. When you factor in production and talent costs, it was a bloodbath. Unless Five Star showed immediate signs of success, it was just a matter of time before the bottom fell out and there were zero signs of success, unless the plan was to spend and lose a lot of money immediately.
In the UK scene, with so many hot groups, the reality is Five Star Wrestling never picked up any momentum. It was a weird promotion, in that we would receive a press release every few days, but no one ever responded to emails. There is talk among British talents that contracts they signed were breached and there was a lot of negative feelings towards Dan Hinkle, the lead promoter of the group. This is the second time in the last few years the promotion has shut down in the middle of a planned tour.
Five Star Wrestling is the same promotion that announced a 128 Man tournament in 2016 following a live special on SpikeTV in the UK. That tournament was later announced as postponed. After the one live Spike special, the cable network instead signed a deal to carry Impact Wrestling. Five Star had also made a grandstand offer to CM Punk to return to wrestling for one million dollars, although contractually, Punk couldn't do it due to his UFC deal and wouldn't have done it anyway.
Hinkle had toyed with finishing the announced dates and then closing, but financially, it was impossible.
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