Despite online chatter claiming independent professional wrestling is dying, hundreds of fans packed the Middletown Sports Complex on Friday night for Fight Factory Wrestling’s “No Thanks Given” event.
The show, held in a venue better known as the home rink of the North American Hockey League’s New Jersey Titans, put wrestlers on an actual ice surface for the night. Despite the chilly conditions, fans largely stayed through the card, which organizers estimated drew between 300 and 400 people.
The card featured an elimination eight-person tag team match pitting a team assembled by Ben Bishop, who recently made a surprise appearance at Total Nonstop Action Wrestling’s Bound for Glory pay-per-view, against a team called MADE. Bishop’s squad included Richard Holliday, Jack Vaughn and Madisyn Maxwell. Elsewhere on the card, Kristin Blaze defeated Rachel Ley, and WWE Hall of Famer Arn Anderson attended to watch his sons compete against Sent 2 Salute.
The main event was a no holds barred match between TNA star KC Navarro and Steve Gibki for Gibki’s openweight championship. Gibki won after spearing Navarro through a table and applying the Hell Hammer submission hold.
Pushing back on the “indies are dead” talk
Talk online in recent weeks had suggested independent wrestling was fading, fueled partly by Produce Wrestling and Absolute Intense Wrestling (AIW) both announcing hiatuses toward the end of the year. Produce Wrestling, however, already has a show scheduled for Feb. 25.
Bishop, asked directly whether he thought independent wrestling was dead, pointed to the turnout in Middletown as evidence otherwise.
“I mean, look at it, look at it here. In Middletown, New Jersey, on a Friday night, you could be doing anything,” Bishop said. “We’re close to (New York City). There’s a ton of things you can do. We got about 300, almost 400-plus here in Middletown, New Jersey, here at Fight Factory. You can thank me for the house. So yeah, this whole notion, indies are dead, all that stuff, it’s just words, it’s just noise. It comes up every few months. Everyone wants to pretend that they think that when they were wrestling on the indies, it was so much better. It is what it is. Things evolve, things change. I believe that indie wrestling is alive and well.”
Killer Kross, who wrestles for Major League Wrestling, a promotion with media rights deals and partnerships with CMLL and New Japan Pro-Wrestling, offered a similar view, noting that he has also toured independently in the U.S. and abroad.
“No, that’s hilarious to me,” Kross said. “These are people who don’t attend indies that are saying that, and I don’t even think they’re saying it to be malicious. I think they’re just innocently saying it because… when you’re a young adult and you have a very busy life, if you’re not paying attention to something… then you innocently will think that it’s not important cause it doesn’t have your attention. But when you go to an independent show where there’s 2,000-3000 people there, that kind of speaks for itself. I don’t get involved with neurotic conversations online.”
The Friday night event competed for attention with WWE’s “Friday Night SmackDown,” a new “World of Warcraft” release, and live basketball and hockey broadcasts. Even so, the Middletown Sports Complex filled its available seats for the card.
