Border City Wrestling

Border City Wrestling (BCW) was founded in late 1992 by Scott D'Amore, Chuck Fader, and "The Canadian Destroyer" Doug Chevalier. After Chevalier's departure in 1994 and Fader leaving the company due to his diagnosis with throat cancer in 2000, D'Amore became the sole owner of the company. D'Amore closed BCW for several months in 2000 but re-opened the company later that year.

Starting with humble crowds in LaSalle's Centennial Arena, BCW's audience has expanded to crowds of thousands at various locations all over Ontario. During the first few years, BCW was based out of LaSalle, with shows being held most often at the Arena and at the Pilot House, with a few scattered shows in Northern Ontario. The local wrestlers were the backbone of the company with BCW blending rookie stars like Scott D'Amore, Chris Pillon, Bobby Clancy and Otis Apollo with veterans such as "Kangaroo" Denny Kass and 1970 Rookie of the Year, "Irish" Mickey Doyle. BCW was also in on the ground floor in UFC popularity, bringing in stars such as Geza Kalman, Jr., Dave Beneteau and UFC Champion, Dan Severn, for fighting exhibitions.[8]

In 1998, BCW took a gamble by bringing in one of the biggest up-and-coming superstars in the WWE (then WWF), Intercontinental Champion, The Rock. BCW and The Rock, along with Nation members D-Lo Brown and Mark Henry, drew BCW's biggest crowd at the time.

In order to grow, they needed to find a venue that could handle the crowds they were now expecting. They eventually brought their brand of hard-hitting, high-flying entertainment into the prestigious Ciociaro Club, just outside of Windsor in Oldcastle, Ontario. BCW and the Ciociaro Club was a match made in heaven. Crowds continued to grow and more big-name superstars were inquiring about wrestling for Border City. Border City went on to run over twenty events in three years at the Ciociaro Club, with stars such as Lance Storm, Tommy Dreamer, Jerry Lynn, Mikey Whipwreck and Sabu.[9]

In 2001, BCW began utilizing several Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) employees who had been left without full-time work when ECW declared bankruptcy in April of that year. On August 29, 2001, BCW held the "Mikey Whipwreck Retirement Bash" to honour the retirement of Mikey Whipwreck.

From 2002-2003, during arguably BCW's hottest period ever, a weekly television show was produced for Cogeco Cable. Aired in several markets in Ontario (Windsor/Essex, Chatham-Kent, Sarnia, and Owen Sound), and featured many of today's Superstars including Gail Kim, Eric Young, Bobby Roode, Rhino, plus already established names like Johnny Swinger, Simon Diamond, Terry Taylor, Chris Sabin, D-Lo Brown, Gangrel, and Shane Douglas.

After another short hiatus the previous year, BCW returned in Spring 2004 after merging with rival promotion, Ontario Championship Wrestling (OCW), and taking on OCW founder James Trepanier as a new partner. After the merger, BCW began running regular smaller scale shows at OCW's former venue in Windsor.

On December 12, 2004, BCW, and their partner promotion from Michigan, Prime Time Wrestling, held A Night of Appreciation for Sabu, to raise funds to assist Sabu in paying the costly medical bills he had incurred with his serious back injury and viral infection that year.

On January 21, 2005 they held the 4th Annual Doug Chevalier Memorial where the main event featured the culmination of a long-running BCW feud between Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley for the BCW Can-Am Television Championship refereed by Mick Foley. The show also featured Abyss and Jimmy Hart.

On July 22 they held their annual WrestleFest show which was headlined by a four-way Can-Am Television Championship match between Chris Sabin, Petey Williams, Alex Shelley, and A.J. Styles.

At International Incident on September 15 TNA wrestler Jeff Jarrett defeated Raven for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship with the unexpected help of America's Most Wanted.

After their WrestleFest event in the summer of 2006 featuring Christian Cage, BCW once again went on a hiatus, not holding a show for nearly 2 years.

On May 3, 2008, BCW held its return show, 'Awakening', in Windsor, Ontario featuring Al Snow in the main event. Since the revival, BCW has returned to running regularly in Windsor and the surrounding area. This has included an ECW themed show entitled 'A Night of Extreme' on October 4, 2008 featuring Team 3D, Jerry Lynn, and Little Guido Maritato as well as their 15th anniversary show on December 13, 2008, featuring Kevin Nash.

On February 3, 2010 it was announced that owner Scott D'Amore had left TNA Wrestling and that BCW would be merging with Toronto's BSE Pro, run by Jason A. Brown, to become Maximum Pro Wrestling.[10] BCW then went on hiatus.

Current BCW Logo

In August 2012, an offshoot of BCW known as CAN-AM Rising debuted featuring up-and-coming talent as well as past graduates from BCW's Can-Am Wrestling School including Aiden Prince and Abe 'Action' Jackson. CAN-AM Rising also featured many indy stars make appearances including Shawn Spears, Allysin Kay, and Leah Von Dutch. As well, many past BCW stars would appear including Sirelda, Mike Legacy, Otis Apollo, Caleb Stills (formerly known as Gutter) and Scott D'Amore. The February 8, 2013 event featured one of Jerry Lynn's retirement matches as he took on Tyson Dux. On the debut Can-Am Rising show Phil Atlas defeated Tyson Dux to become the new BCW Champion. CAN-AM Rising had a YouTube show until it was scrapped and BCW continued.

In October 2012, BCW returned with its first show in two years. It featured former WWE stars Kevin Nash and Carlito. From there, BCW continued to run yearly "major" shows at Windsor's St. Clair College Gym. BCW also run smaller shows throughout the year.

On October 19, 2013 BCW held their 20th Anniversary show at St. Clair College. Featuring many stars of the past from Rhino to Angelina Love. And also featured familiar names like Rikishi, Jake Roberts, and Scott Hall.[11] The event was originally supposed to be headlined by Kevin Nash and Scott Hall but Nash was unable to make the event. The main event was Cody Deaner, BCW Champion Phil Atlas, and Cody Hall with Scott Hall in their corner against the reformed group, The Syndicate (Tyson Dux, Scott D'Amore, and Jon Bolen).

On May 9, 2014, BCW presented a special event featuring several wrestlers from New Japan Pro Wrestling.[12] The even was titled East Meets West and featured the likes of Shinsuke Nakamura, Kazuchika Okada, Karl Anderson, and Hiroshi Tanahashi from NJPW going up against BCW's best including Petey Williams, Chris Sabin, and Phil Atlas. The main event saw Cody Deaner battle Kongo Kong with Booker T as special guest enforcer. The event was held one night before Ring of Honor's annual Global Wars PPV in Toronto, which spiked interested to work with BCW while in Canada. Jushin Liger attended the event, watching from the curtain.

BCW Excellence in October 2014 was their biggest event to date. Headlined by Bret Hart[13] the event drew the largest BCW crowd yet. They would go on to make Excellence a yearly event.

Excellence returned to St. Clair College in October 2015. Headlining this event were The Hurricane, Jeff Jarrett, and PJ Black. In the main event, Cody Deaner defeated Bobby Roode and Kongo Kong to become the interim BCW Champion.[14]

In the spring of 2016, BCW revived their BCW Can-Am Tag Team Championship through a tournament which was won by Phil Atlas & Brent Banks after defeating The Fraternity at Spring Loaded 2016 on May 28, 2016.[15] At this event Cody Deaner also defeated Jon Bolen to become the official BCW Champion, after holding the interim title. Eric Young and Tyson Dux came to the aid of Deaner when The Syndicate interfered. In the midst, Dux turned face. This would be one of Young's last indie appearances before going full-time with WWE NXT.

In March 2017, BCW formed a partnership with Japanese promotion Pro Wrestling Noah exchanging talent between Japan and Canada.[16]

On December 5, 2017 D'Amore and Don Callis were announced as Impact Wrestling's new executive vice presidents.[17] As a result, Impact and BCW began to work together, with content from BCW becoming available on the Global Wrestling Network [18] and most of the promotion's events serving as television tapings for both Impact's eponymous weekly program and Xplosion.[19][20]

Border City Wrestling announced their 25th Anniversary show in July 2018, on October 6 at St. Clair College replacing their annual Excellence event.[21] The event was filmed for the Global Wrestling Network as one of Impact One Night Only events.