Back-to-back pro wrestling in Charlotte this weekend

Charlotte’s history of professional wrestling runs deep and crosses decades, but for years following its golden age in the ’80s there was little in between the giant arena shows of WWE, WCW or ECW and matches in rec centers, VFW halls or parking lots.

Fans of pro wrestling no longer have to wait months for WWE to roll into town or venture to Lenoir or Spartanburg for the occasional old-school show. With shows in Winston-Salem, Charlotte, Concord and other nearby areas, indie wrestling is again on the rise.

This weekend fans can get a taste of the indie and national pools.

Ring of Honor – a national outfit whose former champions Daniel Bryan, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens and CM Punk went on to conquer WWE – tapes its “Winter Warriors” at Cabarrus Arena Saturday. Its roster includes former Total Nonstop Action and WWE stars Maria Kannelis and AJ Styles, as well as its own well-known grapplers Rhett Titus, Jay Lethal and the Briscoes.

Charlotte-based PWX Wrestling returns to Club Escapade on Sunday with its own packed card –featuring the Southeast’s own indie stars and some Ring of Honor wrestlers such as Charlotte’s Cedric Alexander, Michael Elgin and Moose.

Former PWX champion Caleb Konley will take on the Bravado Brothers as part of the highly entertaining Revolt! tag team. Konley began his career 10 years ago and moved to Charlotte to train shortly thereafter. He’s seen the indie scene change over the last decade.

“I started training a few months after high school,” he says. “At that time it was generally thought that if you wanted to do anything in indie wrestling you had to find a way to break into the Pennsylvania/New Jersey/New York scene. That’s where ECW (now absorbed by WWE) was. That’s where Ring of Honor started, and if you went online, that’s the area everyone was talking about.”

Outside of the Northeast, most indie shows were small scale, featuring weekend warriors who wrestled once a month.

Although Konley says the rest of the country is still behind the Northeast, there are now shows all over. He, like his peers, regularly travels to New York and the Northwest as well as overseas.

“There seem to be shows throughout the country like PWX in N.C. that are breaking the mold,” says Konley, who compares the setup to minor league baseball, with single-A hobbyists to triple-A wrestlers who make their living traveling from show to show and appear on DVDs and in Internet pay-per-view specials.

“Indie wrestling seems to be growing at the same time as much larger WWE and TNA (Total Nonstop Action) seem to be struggling,” concludes Konley. “Fans are looking for an alternative and with hundreds of small groups running every weekend, all you have to do is search a little and you can find a whole new world of wrestling.”

This story was originally published January 7, 2016 at 3:53 PM with the headline "Back-to-back pro wrestling in Charlotte this weekend."