Following up on its highly anticipated return to action in July, Empire State Wrestling will return to Buffalo RiverWorks on Sunday afternoon in dramatic fashion with “4th & Gold 2021”. The event will feature a bout between two of the hottest names currently on the independent wrestling circuit.
“There is a big ticket feel on the matches announced for Sunday and I’m looking forward to ring announcing this event,”
said Empire State Wrestling ring announcer Chris Gullo.
Freshly off being heavily featured on All-Elite Wrestling’s programming, Empire State Wrestling Heavyweight Champion “Red Death” Daniel Garcia will return to ESW for the first time since January 2020. He will defend the title against former IMPACT Wrestling star Davey Richards.
Garcia’s “4th & Gold” match will be his first in Empire State Wrestling (ESW) in 21 months, with his last matchup being against “The Hybrid” Sean Carr at “Shipwrecked on Grando Island.” Over the course of those months, Garcia developed himself into one of the top wrestling stars on the U.S. independent wrestling scene. His matches at promotions such as Game Changer Wrestling, the Maine-based Limitless Wrestling (where he held the Limitless World Championship), ICW No Holds Barred, and Violence X Suffering gained Garcia a significant amount of attention across the wrestling world that led to opportunities at major promotions. Along with wrestling heavily on All-Elite Wrestling (AEW) this year, Garcia also wrestled on WWE’s NXT and several matches for New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW).
After a multi-year layoff from pro wrestling, Richards is seeing a career renaissance on the independent scene. Well-known for his tenures at Impact, Ring of Honor, and NJPW, Richards wrestled for many of the top U.S. independent promotions this year with rave reviews and was featured in several matches for Major League Wrestling. Within Richards’s indie run includes a match with Garcia that occurred in September at the Chicago, Ill.-based AAW Wrestling. Along with Sunday’s match being his second against Garcia, this will also be Richards’s second match in ESW. His first bout was against Pepper Parks in March 2017.
4th & Gold 2021 Presented by Empire State Wrestling
“Big Time” Bill Collier was victorious in July in a hard-hitting bout versus Jay Freddie. Collier will be in store for another intense fight against the returning Ace Romero. A current star of Impact Wrestling, Romero comes back to ESW for the first time since 2018, in which he wrestled three matches. These included the infamous match against “None of a Kind” Anthony Gaines, which generated the “Pounce” video highlight that went viral across several digital media platforms.
Two tag teams will be making their ESW debuts at “4th & Gold”. Originally scheduled to debut at ESW’s Brawlfest 2020 before the pandemic led to its cancellation, Maine State Posse (Aiden Aggro and DangerKid) will wrestle in ESW for the first time against a team fresh off a match on AEW Dark: Elevation: To Infinity & Beyond (ex-World Wrestling Entertainment star Colin Delaney and ex-Ring of Honor star Cheech). The other debuting tag team hails from Pittsburgh, Penn., The Mane Event (Duke Davis and Ganon Jones Jr.), who will square off against ESW regulars High Seas (ex-Ring of Honor star Cloudy and “Your Captain” Nick Ando).
There will be a special cross-promotional match showcasing the talent of Northern Federation of Wrestling. After wrestling his first two ESW matches in Rochester, N.Y., T.J. Crawford will wrestle for ESW in Buffalo for the first time against Boston, Mass. native Alec Price.
Channeling a spirit for football that is unique to the “City of Good Neighbors,” local fan-favorite “Invincible” Vince Valor will face Syracuse, N.Y.’s “The Moonlight Son” Mike Skyros in a Buffalo Tables match.
Sticking with the football theme, “4th & Gold” will feature a 12th Man Battle Royal in which the winner among the 12 participants will challenge ESW Interstate Champion Franke Feathers for the title later in the evening. The participants announced so far are “The Big Bang” Jerk Cockins, Jeremiah Richter, “The Remix” Kevin Bennett, Vinnie Moon, Keenan Moore, and James Sayga.
“Me and my mullet are so excited to get out there, kick some tush, go all the way to the end zone in the 12th Man Battle Royal and become your new ESW Interstate Champion,” Moon said. “And yes, I just predicted the future!”
Rounding out the announced matches, “The Patron Saint of Professional Wrestling,” Brandon Thurston will look to build off his win over Ando in July when he locks horns with ESW newcomer Spencer Slade. A regular for International Wrestling Cartel, Slade also wrestled several matches on AEW Dark earlier this year.
“4th & Gold 2021” will be a special lead-in event at Buffalo RiverWorks to the Buffalo Bills-Kansas City Chiefs Sunday Night Football game later that night. To accommodate this, doors open at 1:30 pm, and the opening bell will be at 3:00 pm. Although first and second-row tickers are sold out, General Admission tickets are still available for $20. Tickets can be purchased at ESWtix.com. In addition, out-of-town fans can watch the action live on IndependentWrestling. TV’s live stream.
