Mark Dallas gone from ICW

[Daddymagic]

ICW have announced that creator Mark Dallas had left the company with Duncan Grey (previous Co owner) now fully in charge and a group including Jack Jester running creative. 
 

I personally think the WWE tie in really damaged them as a brand and they haven't recovered so hopefully this marks a new direction .

[kidzero]

17 minutes ago, Daddymagic said:

ICW have announced that creator Mark Dallas had left the company with Duncan Grey (previous Co owner) now fully in charge and a group including Jack Jester running creative. 
 

I personally think the WWE tie in really damaged them as a brand and they haven't recovered so hopefully this marks a new direction .

Who cares

[Infinity Land]

19 minutes ago, Daddymagic said:

ICW have announced that creator Mark Dallas had left the company with Duncan Grey (previous Co owner) now fully in charge and a group including Jack Jester running creative. 
 

I personally think the WWE tie in really damaged them as a brand and they haven't recovered so hopefully this marks a new direction .

I saw this around the end of last year. Along with the news that Fight Club ending. It was said at the time that even though he's left the running of the company, Dallas was still the owner. Has that part changed?

[DavidB6937]

I mean it is a wrestling forum and people have been to ICW so it's not completely out of the question that someone might care.

[I Bent My Wookie]

10 minutes ago, kidzero said:

Who cares

Don't be a dick.

ICW is a weird one. They obviously got massive based off BBC and being able to run the Hydro but there was never a long game for them and WWE getting involved and stealing most their talent for NXT UK really didn't help.

The videos I've seen the last few months seems like taped shows for their "TV" is in front of a handful of people, I imagine genuinely smaller than some shows ran in cities/towns with local attractions. 

Were they also not hugely complicate in the Speaking Out Allegations and tons of different things came up much like they did with Fight Club Pro in Wolverhampton?

Its been a solid run and they've all done more than I expect they ever imagined to but Scottish Wrestling is very much hitting the doldrums and the whole "golden age" of huge crowds and interest in British wrestling feels close to being over post COVID 

[Keith Houchen]

1 minute ago, Shy Dad said:

Were they also not hugely complicate in the Speaking Out Allegations and tons of different things came up much like they did with Fight Club Pro in Wolverhampton?

 

[Daddymagic]

15 minutes ago, Infinity Land said:

I saw this around the end of last year. Along with the news that Fight Club ending. It was said at the time that even though he's left the running of the company, Dallas was still the owner. Has that part changed?

Yes. It says he's completely left and Grey is sole owner 

[Infinity Land]

9 minutes ago, Shy Dad said:

The videos I've seen the last few months seems like taped shows for their "TV" is in front of a handful of people, I imagine genuinely smaller than some shows ran in cities/towns with local attractions. 

Were they also not hugely complicate in the Speaking Out Allegations and tons of different things came up much like they did with Fight Club Pro in Wolverhampton?

Fear & Loathing 2023 was at their training school this year. So much of it has been self-inflicted I don't have much sympathy for the situation. Going by the press release even though Dallas is gone. Its the same crew running the place that would have been around during the Speaking Out allegations.

 

[Devon Malcolm]

Didn't Mark Dallas used to post on here?

[SuperBacon]

32 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Didn't Mark Dallas used to post on here?

 

1 hour ago, Keith Houchen said:

 

Figures.

[LaGoosh]

2 hours ago, Shy Dad said:

interest in British wrestling feels close to being over post COVID 

The scene was on its way to dying off before COVID. It had its moment and it peaked with some great shows and moments but after that the only way was down. While things hadn't bottomed out yet the buzz was gone.

Edited January 10 by LaGoosh

[Infinity Land]

RevPro seem to be the only one that's kept a kind of consistency. Just don't feel they have much buzz online going into shows, just 'hey check this match out' after the fact. They're keeping their anniversary show on All In weekend. If they can get a hot storyline heading into that one year it'd probably be the closest thing to Grado's title win, the first Hydro show or Progress at Wembley. 

[Marshmallo]

They had lightning in a bottle with that roster round about the time of that SECC show. The regular wrestlers were unbelievably talented and in Drew vs Grado they had a perfect story of big bully corporate guy that was built like a Greek god against the loveable everyman underdog.

The booking after that was mental and they started to lose guys to the WWE. They didn't cash in on Joe Hendry or Jackie Polo who were over, charismatic and really good in the ring.

[LEGIT]

ICW came about just after my interest in going to shows somewhat fizzled out. If they'd been a few years earlier I'm sure I'd have been a big fan. 

They had a great roster when they hit their peak and I think they had a problem replacing those who left. I was a regular at BCW shows back in the day and a lot of BCWs main stars were ICWs main stars, Drew, Wolfgang, Lionheart, Red Lightning, Jack Jester. Really talented guys. Drew and Wolfgang left for WWE and of course Lionheart's tragic passing left a big void.

That being said I think it was always going to have a shelf life, what made it popular couldn't last forever. Dallas used to drink heavily at his shows. Also, I remember one show Wolfgang's match went out into the streets, and he was throwing his opponent into buses and through a kebab shop. Exciting for fans, but probably got them into trouble.

I only ever went to 2 shows, their 2 big Fear and Loathing shows. First show I was in standing and unfortunately couldn't see anything. Second show was in the seats and had a better experience, however I wasn't blown away by the show. I didn't know anything about their storylines at the time so maybe it was just all lost on me.

Dallas definitely did used to post on here, to promote his shows. Wonder if it's the last we've heard of him or if there's anything else he can do in the wrestling world.

Edited January 11 by LEGIT

[BomberPat]

13 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

The scene was on its way to dying off before COVID. It had its moment and it peaked with some great shows and moments but after that the only way was down. While things hadn't bottomed out yet the buzz was gone.

I'm not sure about dying off, but I think it had reached the crest of a wave and was falling back to a size that made sense rather than the big grand gesture shows like Progress at Wembley. The buzz was definitely gone, but I thought at the time - and I think that, largely, time has seen this borne out - the strength of the last boom period of British wrestling was that it had laid down some better foundations, so even if the scene largely collapsed, the floor wasn't nearly as low as it had been in the late '90s/early '00s, or even the late '00s period between the end of the likes of the FWA and IPW and the rise of companies like Progress and RevPro.  

13 hours ago, Infinity Land said:

RevPro seem to be the only one that's kept a kind of consistency. Just don't feel they have much buzz online going into shows, just 'hey check this match out' after the fact. They're keeping their anniversary show on All In weekend. If they can get a hot storyline heading into that one year it'd probably be the closest thing to Grado's title win, the first Hydro show or Progress at Wembley. 

RevPro do really well - they run often and draw well, and with the NJPW relationship are able to run really big shows when the timing is right, and my understanding is that they're turning a profit on streaming shows. I think what they lack is an emotional connection to their audience, and the vocal and passionate fanbase that (for good and for ill) comes along with that - PROGRESS at their height had their Ultras, EVE had (and to some extent still has) a fanbase that affords them a lot of goodwill and will sing their praises, even a more supposedly niche show like Lucha Britannia, they came back last year and I saw faces in that audience I hadn't seen in years, because they don't go to any other wrestling shows, but are die-hards for that one product. RevPro obviously have their regulars, but I'm not sure they have that dynamic, which is why even when they're doing really well, you hear less of them than you might expect - in my experience, and admittedly I haven't been to one of their shows in years, the format and presentation of the shows they produce doesn't lend itself to that dynamic, but what they're doing obviously works.

I'm rambling, but by way of example, I was at EVE's last show, and doors were due to open at 7:30pm. Somebody working outside of the venue cut through the wrong cable, and it cut the power to the entire street, from around 5:30pm. So we were setting up in the dark, not sure if the show would even go ahead, but needing to have everything ready just in case. Power eventually came back on after 8:30pm, and the show began shortly after 9pm, and the room was still packed - I don't think anyone gave up and went home, and the crowd were with it and really engaged for the entire thing, perhaps moreso than if things had gone well, because there was this collective sense of having made it through a difficult situation and having a fun story to tell. I don't think you'd have the same goodwill and sense of collectivism if the same thing had happened at a RevPro show, or a lot of other promotions, because they seem to lack that active engagement and investment with their fanbase. But I may be completely off-base on this - they sell thousands of tickets and I don't, so they don't need to listen to my takes on this at all!