WCCW All-Star Wrestling

**No. of episodes** | 915

***WCCW All-Star Wrestling***, previously known as ***California All-Star Wrestling TV*** and ***All-Star Gym Wars***, was an American professional wrestling television program first produced by the independent California All-Star Wrestling (CASW) and later by World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW). The show featured wrestlers from CASW as well as wrestlers from the indies. When WCCW took over, the program's name referred to the All-Star Wrestling brand division, to which WCCW employees were assigned to work and perform. The show debuted in 2002 and aired its final episode on February 8th, 2020.

## History

### Predecessor program (2002–2020)

#### *California All-Star Wrestling TV* (2002–2009)

*WCCW NexGen* originally premiered in 2002 as the independently produced *California All-Star Wrestling*, featuring matches from the independent promotion of the same name. The program aired on Channel 50 / Cable 199 in the San Francisco Bay Area from its inception until mid-2009 when the promotion relocated its corporate offices and television tapings to Sacramento with *CASWTV* moving to Channel 3. In December 2009, *California All-Star Wrestling TV* was rebranded as *All-Star Gym Wars* and moved from Tuesday nights to Saturday mornings.

#### *All-Star Gym Wars* (2009–2018)

With the move to Saturday mornings, California All-Star Wrestling saw a surge of popularity that would help attract talent from TNA, Ring of Honor, New Japan Pro-Wrestling and even the WWE. Former World Heavyweight Champion and WWE Champion Jeff Hardy would become a one-time California Heavyweight Champion and two-time California Tag Team Champions (with his brother Matt Hardy) during his time on *Gym Wars*. By 2012 however, the promotion was hemorrhaging money and was unable to pay its biggest stars the type of salary they requested causing them to sign with other promotions. CASW began exploring a possible sale of the company by 2015 and in February 2018, they announced a deal had been struck with World Class Championship Wrestling that would see the two promotions fold into one unit. The acquisition was made official in May 2018 with WCCW announcing that *Gym Wars* would be rebooted to replace their cancelled *Saturday Morning Slam* show. The rebooted program debuted in June 2018 on ESPN3 as *WCCW All-Star Wrestling.*

#### *WCCW All-Star Wrestling* (2018–2020)

The WCCW version of *All-Star Wrestling* made its official debut on June 23, 2018, airing live on ESPN3 from the Hornets Nest at California State University, Sacramento. The program was considered a spiritual successor to *Campus Fight Night* and *Saturday Morning Slam*, with the added benefit of being populated exclusively with independent wrestlers formerly from California All-Star Wrestling. This helped WCCW promote the rebooted program as a developmental territory, with the All-Star World Champion often earning a chance to prove themselves against the world champion of either the Battle Zone or Intensity brands.

With the debut of *All-Star Wrestling*, WCCW also broke ground on a permanent home arena for the promotion that would also serve as a training and development center. Originally dubbed the WCCW Arena, its name was changed to the NexGen Arena in January 2019 when WCCW announced plans to eventually rebrand their new third brand. The first episode of *All-Star Wrestling* to air from the WCCW NexGen Training Center was the November 30th episode.

WCCW announced in January 2020 that they were cancelling *All-Star Wrestling* and that it would be replaced by a brand new "groundbreaking development" show in March. The final episode of *All-Star Wrestling* aired on February 8th, 2020 with *WCCW NexGen* scheduled to premiere on March 14th before being pushed back due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

## Broadcast history

 ESPN3 | Saturday 5–6 PM. PT | June 23, 2018 – February 8, 2020