Despite What You Have Heard, The Indies Are Not Dead: 2025 Redux
- Despite What You Have Heard, The Indies Are Not Dead: 2025 Redux - December 18, 2025
- Violent People Radio #79: John & Vince’s Excellent Adventure - December 18, 2025
- Episode 19 Winter Has Come And Past - December 16, 2025
Why do I feel like I’m compelled to write this piece every year? Do we not learn? Are you a baby brained nimrod who can only be spoon-fed your wrestling interests from Joseph? I love Joseph, Good Writer, Better Person. Its understandable how their love of DPW can be infectious. We make fun of it a bit on the #80 wrestling podcast in Denmark, Violent People Radio, but I get why folks are bummed out by DPW closing. They used to be one of the only Good Wrestling indies out there. A gap that isn’t going to be filled anytime soon I would guess.
Over my past 15+ years of enjoying the indies, I got to have ROH, PWG, CHIKARA and even promotions like AAW and CZW when they didn’t suck. They all landed on the Good Wrestling indie promotion scale somewhere. PWG tuned a little differently than CHIKARA but somewhere on the spectrum they landed. People have been so starved that DPW sucked up all potential good will in 100 mile radius. Good for them! Don’t get me wrong, they used to put on plenty of good wrestling. Bringing folks from all over the country and even bringing in some international imports, they were doing the thing that so many people either missed or never got to experience.
I guess that is part of it all. I look at the Violent People Discord, and the average age…is probably younger than me and I’ll leave it at that. Frankly most of them were still wetting the bed when Steen Wolf happened. So DPW got to their indie. It sucks they don’t have a wildly available/touted indie to play devil’s advocate with. That is when you get to truly develop your fandom. CZW and ROH fans from the mid 2000’s don’t have ownership over indie beefs/arguments. I remember being on Wrestling Forum and how everyone talked about PWG and there were folks going “Actually, CZW with Drew Gulak and Sami Callihan, they are doing some special stuff”. Who are you going to do it with, DPW and…Prestige? Defy? Some other half baked indie? No one could realistically pull off that sort of “devil’s advocate” fandom in 2025.
All that to say though, there are promotions out there! Southern Fried Championship Wrestling might be the promotion of the year. I highly doubt you nerds have watched it and that is a shame. They have one of the most fun stable wars in a hot minute with the Sexton Alliance and The Crusade. A great old guard against the young pups type rivalry. It is one of the main territories for my Discovery of the Year, CT Keys. A dude you could put in ROH today and he would look not at all out of place. Would likely give Shane Taylor a run for his money on the bad ass scale.
Georgia in general is a hot state for indie wrestling right now. If you look at that state alone, the idea of the indies being dead should be foolish to you. You have ACTION, which should sort of be old faithful for the indie die hards at this point. Between Tim Bosby and Darian Bengston you also get one of the best indie wrestling pasttimes, being ahead of the curve of someone and talking that shit for years. The trick is, they don’t actually need to pan out, that is the business keeping a good wrestler down. But you would know.
Southern Honor Wrestling is also out out of Georgia and, like ACTION, it is on the award winning IWTV. When it comes to production values, not many promotions can touch it at this level. The shows feel big time. Viral Pro Wrestling, also on IWTV, seems to be home of the John Skyler renaissance which I won’t complain about. And who could forgot about the former home of Mike Pain, WrestleMerica. A bit of crossover with the folks at SFCW but they continue to put on fun shows.
Georgia isn’t everything though, even if I think you could have a healthy diet with that state. You have the US deathmatch scene, specifically ICW: NHB. A touring carnival oof blood. I view it as more of a live experience with at least one match a show cracking through on a “Oh, this is escaping containment”. If you haven’t watched the Tremont vs. Kaplan vs. SLADE three way from earlier this year, do that or you are dead to me.
But you got to get over it, DPW is dead. You can get over this. I have faith.
The faith only extends if you are willing to look outside what sits right before your eyes. The faith only extends if you scour the internet. The faith only extends if you are willing to Paypal some person you’ve never met and go “I’ll take one indie match please”. I have faith that you can do this.
