Revolution Pro Wrestling’s first UK terrestrial TV show was on October 19th, 2018, FreeSports in the United Kingdom. Here is a brief history of Revolution Pro Wrestling.
Revolution Pro Wrestling – A Brief History Of Revolution Pro Wrestling
Revolution Pro Wrestling is a British professional wrestling promotion based in Portsmouth, UK. It was founded on August 26, 2012, by Andy Quildan.
After leaving IPW: UK as part of the booking team, Quildan wanted to stay in the industry and create his own promotion that would maintain the very high standards he maintains himself.
Unlike many promotions, Rev Pro doesn’t have a world championship. Deciding to stay true to its roots, they have a British Championship, a British Tag Team Championship, and a British Women’s Champion. Some of their past champions in 2018 included;
British Champion – Tomohiro Ishii
Women’s Champion – Jamie Hayter
British Tag Team Champions – Suzuki Gun (Minoru Suzuki & Zack Sabre Jr)
As you can see from the list of champions above, many of the champions aren’t from these shores. Ishii and Suzuki Gun are from Japan, and Zack Sabre Jr is from the United Kingdom, which goes to show you the reach of Rev Pro.
With a few years under his belt, Andy acquired a working relationship with not just New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) but Ring of Honor and CMLL, allowing their wrestlers to perform at Rev Pro shows such as Global Wars and War Of The Worlds, all around the UK. And not just any wrestlers, No, Rev Pro have served up and continued to serve worldwide names such as –
Revolution Pro Wrestling
- AJ Styles (former British Champion)
- Kevin Owens/Steen
- Finn Balor/Prince Devitt
- Shinsuke Nakamura
- Adam Cole
- Tommaso Ciampa
With the influx of world-class talent and the groundswell of British talent, Rev Pro was and continues to stake a claim as THE place to work for in the UK.
By the time 2015 came rolling around and Rev Pro teamed with the WWE to host a WWE Cruiserweight Classic qualifying match.
Huge news that allowed Rev Pro programming onto the WWE Network, shining an even bigger light onto their work.
Going from strength to strength Rev Pro announced in 2016 that they would be following WWE’s lead and released their own streaming service, RPW OnDemand, giving fans from all over the world the opportunity to see one of the world’s best-kept secrets in pro wrestling.
And last year, Rev Pro held the very first British J-Cup tournament, much like the NJPW Super J-Cup, where cruiserweights from around the world descended to these shores to compete and win the inaugural event and become number one contender to the British Cruiserweight championship.
Revolution Pro Wrestling –
Television Programming
And then this year, Rev Pro in conjunction with FreeSports, announced that they have a terrestrial TV show which aired on October 18th, 2018. The first few episodes of the series were taped a few weeks back at their spiritual home of York Hall, Bethnal Green in London itself.
Knowing Rev Pro, I doubt if they’ll stop there. And I, for one, hope that they don’t…..
Thank you for taking the time to read this Brief History Of…..Revolution Pro Wrestling, I’m hoping this has to wet your appetite for their debut show on FreeSports.
Watch it and show your support for Rev Pro and British Wrestling in general. Let’s show the world just how great the scene is over here.
After 2018 came to a close, the promotion endured a number of challenges, whether it was the United Kingdom wrestling scene being affected by the #SpeakingOut movement, a global pandemic stopping shows, or the need to rebuild.
In 2019, they would take over Southwest Wrestling Entertainment, and their titles were initially defended on RevPro shows being made defunct or absorbed by the promotion moving forward.
The promotion would reassess what it had and begin to move forward. They built relationships with Major League Wrestling in the United States and CMLL in Mexico.
With Will Ospreay and Michael Oku a part of the promotion’s past and, in some cases, present, the potential for a bright future remains!
