The Invasion of Kick Ass Wrestling

As a teenager my life was pro-wrestling, and thankfully I found myself living in Memphis, Tennessee which was home to two major wrestling promotions at the time. There was Power Pro Wrestling, which was a feeder organization into the WWF that aired Saturday mornings, and then there was Kick Ass Wrestling, Memphis' own version of ECW which aired at 1:30 AM on Sunday mornings.

Over time, there was some financial disagreements, and Kick Ass Wrestling was bought and turned into Memphis Championship Wrestling and Power Pro Wrestling collapsed. KAW only operated for a few short years (I think the TV tapings lasted around eighteen months), but it made an impact. The wrestling was dirty, violent, and tapings were often held in bars or at the New Daisy Theater. The opening segment was beautifully edited to AC/DC's Shoot to Thrill (which of course is muted on all the YouTube videos 🤬) and the entire show felt on the verge of being out of control. It was clearly a low-rent ECW, but it was my ECW and I fuckin loved it.

Sadly, the footage hasn't aged all that well, since most of what exists is VHS recordings from TV. The production value was always just a short step up from public access, so it's not exactly the type of programming that tape traders get excited about.

I still keep up loosely with Memphis Wrestling, despite living in North Carolina now. It's evolved over the years, but the current iteration is run by Dustin Starr, someone I used to watch wrestle often when I lived in Memphis. The shows are uploaded to YouTube, and I typically watch/skim through each weekly show. However, I fell out of this habit the last few months, after resetting my YouTube search history.

Last week, Memphis legend Bill Dundee passed away, so I was interested to see what tribute they might have for him and I found myself watching a good portion of the show. Imagine my surprise when a familiar face, Terry Golden, former owner of KAW came out sporting KAW shirts and operating as a stable. It was an invasion of Kick Ass Wrestling and it has been going on the last few months!

I have to admit... I popped so hard. Never in my life did I think I'd ever see anything KAW related ever again. It's not talked about, blogged about, or popular on YouTube. You don't see podcasts or books written about it. It was just this blip of regional pro wrestling history, that I was there for, but has largely been neglected for twenty-seven years.

It was fun, and it really made my day. Had the t-shirts been a bit less AI generic (I think I just invented that term) and didn't actually feature the word "ass" on them, I would have ordered one right away. Anything to support that little part of my teenage history.

I've got to go back and follow this invasion angle a bit, and while I don't expect much as this is clearly not some watershed moment in pro wrestling history, it made me a smile.

While researching videos for this article, I ran across a post from eight months ago announcing the return of KAW. It looks like a few shows have been run under the KAW name, and while I'll be honest, I'm not sure this is something I'd watch these days, its nice to know it's around and making people happy.