Rogue League Wrestling

The RLW logo, which began usage on September 22nd, 2022.

### Products

Live events, merchandise, podcasting, pay-per-view, publishing, television, streaming

### Website

rogueleaguewrestling.com

Rogue League Wrestling, better known as RLW or Rogue League, is a indie wrestling promotion that was formed on March 17th, 2019. RLW is the first wrestling promotion located in Cleveland, Ohio. The current owner of this promotion is Joyce Malik. The previous owner was Cassandra Pierce, who was a former writer for WWE’s NXT and Monday Night RAW. RLW currently has over 125 wrestlers signed to the promotion, as of August 2023. Their flagship show is Saturday Night Slammin (abbreviated as SNS) and their biggest pay-per-view (PPV) is All For One. SNS episodes air bi-weekly on Saturdays at 8pm EST on RLW's Youtube channel.

## History

### Formation and beginning

After graduating from college in 2017 with a Bachelor's degree in sports management, Cassandra Pierce, Joyce Malik, and a few of their former classmates joined forces to form a women-owned and queer-owned wrestling promotion of their own, which would showcase scripted wrestling catering to a more "women-dominated" and LGBTQ-dominated audience. On January 3rd, 2019, RLW was successfully formed and trademarked. Before their big debut pay-per-view, which would be titled "After Hours", RLW recruited as many indie wrestlers they could, stocking up a 38-person roster, which consisted of 19 men and 19 women.

On November 9th, 2019, RLW hosted the debut After Hours PPV. Notable wrestlers, such as Xavier Ellis (XAVi), Everett O'Connell (Jakson Moreno), Leona Godin, and Esme O'Connell (Queen Aliyah) made their debuts.

On November 16th, 2019, RLW began airing their first episode of Saturday Nite Slammin' on a Youtube livestream, which racked over 58,000 views on its premiere.

### "April Fools" announcement

Saturday Nite Slamming aired on TBS and sometimes TNT from April 9th, 2022 to April 22nd, 2022. Saturday Nite Slamming' began to re-air on TBS & TNT from July 30th, 2022, to September 7th, 2022. RLW went back to airing SNS on Youtube after September 7th.

### Controversy and boycott

##### To view receipts and photos for this section of the page, click here!

On April 27, 2022, Tasha Singleton, a member of RLW's creative team, was released. She was reportedly released after a drawing she made of Xavier Ellis, where he is pictured as a demon, was leaked on the internet and shown to CEO Cassandra Pierce by art director Ashley Butler, who has had a long history of transphobia, racism, xenophobia, and harassing minorities and minors online. Ashley claimed that Tasha's artwork was "normalizing" illegal activity and consensual sexual activities that she deemed "illegal". Tasha's release sparked outrage across the internet and made employees furious, including a large majority of the RLW roster.

A couple hours after Tasha's release, RLW wrestler DeAngelo Skinner organized a boycott of RLW, protesting for Tasha to get rehired, Ashley to get laid off, and Cassandra to either fix the issue or resign. Fellow wrestlers and fans of RLW joined the boycott, and decided not to compete on future episodes of Saturday Nite Slammin' or any RLW pay-per-views until further notice.

Cassandra was alerted of the boycott DeAngelo organized and wanted to make things right. She had a talk with Tasha and Ashley, discussing whether or not the firing was morally right or not. After two hours of discussing, Cassandra felt that Ashley was right about "holding Tasha accountable", and decided to not rehire Tasha.

*"Ashley is a great person, and I am proud of her for speaking up... Tasha will not be rehired and it will stay that way."* - Ashley on a Zoom call with RLW employees and news reporters

A day after the boycott began, DeAngelo organized a two-day peaceful protest outside RLW Headquarters in Cleveland, OH. Many RLW wrestlers, employees, and some fans attended the protest. On the first day, Cassandra barred protesters from RLW HQ during the first few hours of the protest, claiming that she found their peaceful protest "disruptive and distasteful to her work". Despite their first protest day ending abruptly, their second day went on smoothly with no interruptions.

On April 30, 2022, three days into the RLW boycott, Cassandra released 11 wrestlers and two referees. This was the first time in RLW history that a mass release occurred. The last release was in February 2021, after wrestler ROSE was let go after she posted several anti-gay tweets. Four champions were released. Many speculate that Cassandra was overreacting over her promotion being boycotted.

* All members of SALVATiON (Xavier Ellis, Brynn Griffith (Women's IC Champ), Sylas Foster, Leona Godin
* Alya Queen (TOTAL Women's Champ)
* DeAngelo Skinner (1/2 of TOTAL Tag Team Champs)
* Chris Nightmare (IC Champ)
* Everett and Esme O'Connell
* Christin Yamamoto
* Valentine Zepida
* Mateo Lavernge (TOTAL Titile Champ)

Many of the RLW wrestlers that were released, including Mateo and SALVATiON, were considering moving to a different wrestling promotion, such as AEW or WWE. SALVATiON is currently signed to AEW.

On May 3rd, 2022, Cassandra Pierce resigned from RLW and put co-worker Joyce Malik and friend Tony Khan in charge. It is not known whether or not RLW will be stable, due to Pierce’s mass releases and loss in revenue.

### Split from AEW

On September 7th, 2022, RLW announced that they would be splitting away from All Elite Wrestling, after backstage drama between wrestlers and CEO Tony Khan was made public. With the split, RLW wrestlers can no longer compete on AEW programming and live shows. The same goes for AEW wrestlers competing at RLW. Also with the split, SNS would no longer be aired on TBS and TNT.

Almost a year later, CM Punk's AEW contract was terminated, after he had another backstage altercation, this time with Jack Perry. In after Punk was terminated, RLW released a statement, saying they were willing to make a new deal with AEW. More details are yet to be revealed.

## List of pay-per-views

* All for One
* RISE
* After Hours (Valentine's Day/Halloween/Holiday Season)
* Lock and Key
* Villa of Violence

## Current Champions

* RLW TOTAL Champion: Mateo Lavernge (2022-2022) Xavier Ellis (2021-2022), DeAngelo Skinner (2020-2021), Everett O’connell (2020-2020)
* RLW TOTAL Women’s Champion: Alya Queen (2022-2022), Leona Godin (2021-2022), Latavia Palmer (2021-2021)
* RLW Men’s TAG TEAM Champions: Cyclone System (2022-2022), Hot n’ Cold (2021-2022)
* RLW Women’s TAG TEAM Champions: Heather Hunter & Cameron (2021-)
* RLW Intercontinental Champion: Chris Nightmare (2021-2022) Aaron Tanaka (2021-2021)

## Trivia

* The font "Ethnocentric" is used for the current logo. "Thunderblack" was used for the logo from 2021-2022. The font used for its 2019-2021 logo has yet to be identified.
* All for One 2022 would've taken place at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in Cleveland, Ohio, before the RLW boycott. Last year, the pay-per-view took place at FirstEnergy Stadium with limited capacity.
* Before becoming alliances with AEW, and before they split off, IMPACT! stars would compete on Saturday Nite Slammin.