Ring Warriors was an American

professional wrestling Professional wrestling, often shortened to either pro wrestling or wrestling,The term "wrestling" is most often widely used to specifically refer to modern scripted professional wrestling, though it is also used to refer to Real life, real- ...

promotion based in

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

. Ring Warriors was a member promotion of the

National Wrestling Alliance The National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) is an American professional wrestling professional wrestling promotion, promotion and governing body owned by Billy Corgan and operated by its parent company Lightning One, Inc. Founded in 1948, the NWA be ...

from September 2011 to 2012. They returned with a television series, which premiered on

WGN America WGN America was an American subscription television network that operated from November 9, 1978 to February 28, 2021. The service was originally uplinked to satellite by United Video Inc. as a national feed of Chicago independent station WGN-T ...

on September 15, 2018. Their latest heavyweight champion was Killer Kross.

History

In the early 1990s, Florida-based promoter Howard Brody partnered with

Hiro Matsuda (July 22, 1937 – November 27, 1999), best known by his ring name , was a Japanese professional wrestler and trainer. Professional wrestling career Kojima played an active role as an ace pitcher at baseball in Nittai Ebara High School Baseball ...

for World Superstars of Wrestling, Inc. and together they created an Americanized version of

New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) is a Puroresu, Japanese professional-wrestling Professional wrestling promotion, promotion founded on January 13, 1972, by Antonio Inoki, and based in Nakano, Tokyo. It is currently majority owned by card-game company Bushiroad, with TV As ...

's ''World Pro Wrestling'' Japanese TV show for international TV called ''Ring Warriors''. The show appeared on Eurosport, ESPN Asia, South African Broadcasting Corporation and various other networks around the world. Initially the show was hosted by Craig DeGeorge and Sir Oliver Humperdink and after the first 26 episodes, DeGeorge was replaced by

Gordon Solie Gordon Solie (born Francis Jonard Labiak, later Jonard Pierre Sjoblom, January 26, 1929July 27, 2000) was an American professional wrestling play-by-play announcer. He is best known for working for Georgia Championship Wrestling, Championship Wr ...

, who was retiring from WCW. While the goal of ''Ring Warriors'' was to eventually create a U.S.-based promotion with the same philosophy and style as what was presented on TV, Matsuda died before that goal was realized. In an attempt to get into the U.S. market, in 1997 World Superstars of Wrestling, Inc. partnered with the now defunct VDO and Webstar (ISP), Scott Crompton and George Zhen, broadcasting one of the first video based websites. Shot on location in Tampa Bay, Florida, Matsuda and Brody produced six one hour episodes with hosts Gordon Solie and Bruno Sammartino. Sir Oliver Humperdink did an interview segment with various wrestling personalities such as Dan "The Beast" Severn, Danny Spivey and others. With the Internet in such an infancy, technology and bandwidth could not support the endeavor so the broadcast only lasted the six episodes. Unofficially, ''Ring Warriors'' was the first television show to be broadcast on the Internet. Brody, along with partners Larry Brannon (a.k.a. Vito DeNucci) and Paul Jones (not the wrestling manager), revived the "Ring Warriors" name for a new promotion in 2011. This incarnation was founded as a member of the

. In May 2013, Ring Warriors announced a restructuring of its organization. Paul Jones, who had been chief executive officer of Ring Warriors, LLC since it was first established in September 2011, was moved to business development adviser for the company and consultant on the Ring Warriors executive board. In addition to his new duties at Ring Warriors, Jones was the Battling Bombshells CEO and President. Also, the managing partners Larry Brannon and Howard T. Brody assumed the roles of COO and CEO respectively and the company also announced it has secured Angel Financing from a private funding group that has offices in South Florida and Las Vegas. The private funding enabled Ring Warriors to begin its long-awaited foray into television production and the company planned its first set of tapings in South Florida in July 2013. On March 20, 2014, Ring Warriors announced an international TV distribution deal with Fighting Spirit. In April 2015, Ring Warriors held a 6-hour TV taping at the WPBT studios. The company planned to broadcast the show in

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and

Thailand Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...

. On August 15, 2015, Ring Warriors announced a TV Taping deal at Tampa Letter Carriers Hall in

Tampa, Florida Tampa ( ) is a city on the Gulf Coast of the United States, Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. Tampa's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and t ...

. However, the promotion closed in 2016. On June 9, 2018, Ring Warriors announced they would return in August. On July 23, 2018, Ring Warriors announced on

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a national television partnership with

. Ring Warriors would debut on the network starting September 15, 2018. In December 2018, it was announced that episodes of Ring Warriors would begin streaming on

Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming television service owned by Amazon. The service primarily distributes films and television series produced or co-produced by ...

, starting with the show's "Winter Finale" on December 22, 2018. Ring Warriors ceased operations after the season finale on December 22, 2018.

Champions

Grand Championship

Global Tag Team Championship

Bahamian Championship

Battling Bombshells Championship

References

General * Specific

External links

Ring Warriors on Cagematch.net
{{Professional wrestling in the United States American professional wrestling television series Independent professional wrestling promotions based in Florida Entertainment companies established in 2011 National Wrestling Alliance members Defunct professional wrestling promotions