International Championship Wrestling

The promotion was founded in 1978 as a rival to Ron Fuller's Southeastern Championship Wrestling and Nick Gulas's NWA Mid-American territory, extending into Verne Gagne's American Wrestling Association and Dick Afflis' World Wrestling Association territories by 1981. Later on they'd come in direct competition with Jerry Lawler and Jerry Jarrett's Continental Wrestling Association^[1] as well, operating in their territories and even managed to get several wrestlers to leave Southeastern and the CWA to join ICW.^[3] This, among other issues, would result in a series of lawsuits between Poffo and NWA-affiliated organizations during the late 1970s and early 80s.^{[4][self-published source]}

The main stars of ICW were Poffo's sons

Elizabeth Hulette, who would later gain fame in the WWF and WCW as Miss Elizabeth, got her start in professional wrestling as an on-camera host (using the name "Liz Hulette", as she was known to her friends while growing up) of ICW's weekly TV show where she also started her romance with Randy Savage. They were later married.

In 1984 the promotion closed down due to dwindling attendance and its assets were bought by Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler. Due to the fans' knowledge of the extremely bitter rivalry between ICW and CWA, Randy Savage was able to migrate to the CWA and begin a memorable feud with Jerry Lawler that established Randy Savage as a world-class superstar.^[1]

In 2023, it was reported that WWE had purchased the ICW video library.^[6]

Same name, different promotions

Paul Christy, the wrestler who had ended Randy Savage's final reign as ICW World Champion, started a new ICW when Poffo's promotion folded. He ran the promotion for a few years with little publicity or success before closing it down in the late 1980s.

Another promotion called International Championship Wrestling operated out of Boston in the late 1980s, promoted by

The ICW Television Championship Tournament was a single-elimination tournament to crown the first-ever ICW Television Champion. It was held in the fall, with the finals occurring on September 9, 1980.^[9]

ICW U.S Tag Team Championship Tournament (1982)

The ICW U.S. Tag Team Championship Tournament was a one-night tag team tournament held in Johnson City, Tennessee on January 5, 1982, for the vacant ICW United States Tag Team Championship.^[10][11]

Championships

Alumni

Wrestlers

Tag teams

• The Batten Twins
  – (Brad Batten and Bart Batten)
• The Convertible Blondes - (Pez Whatley, Rip Rogers and Gary Royal)
• Devil's Duo – (Doug Vines and Jeff Sword)
• The Samoans - (The Great Tio and Chief Tapu)

Announcers

• Tim Tyler
• Edgar Wallace
• Liz Hulette
• Robert Phillips Jr. (timekeeper)

Referees

• Sam Diamond aka Jack Barnett
• Jim Davis
• Emmitt Couch
• George Hill

See also

• List of independent wrestling promotions in the United States

References