Polska Akademia Wrestlingu

Polska Akademia Wrestlingu (Polish Wrestling Academy, PAW) is the wrestling school associated with MZW.

Basic info

Notable alumni

History

2017-2018: Rebranding MZW Academy

PAW was created in 2017, after Maniac Zone Wrestling reorganized itself with the goal to have separate legal entities for the organization itself and its wrestling school. The goal of this split was to allow for training of both complete newcomers as well as people connected with other wrestling organizations and backyards, without linking them to MZW itself. At that time the coaches were Justin Joy, Shadow, Asmund and Jędruś Bułecka. PAW held training camps regularly (for 1-2 weekends a month) in Głuchołazy, a small town near the Polish-Czech border. Despite the remote location with limited transport connections, these sessions had decent attendance numbers and attracted both people new to wrestling and talent from backyards like PpW or DFW, of which some would later join MZW's roster.

American Dream, a documentary short from 2017, shows Jędruś Bułecka training rookies in Niedźwiedzica, another remote location near the border. Events shown in the film took place in 2014-2015, and therefore show the precursor to PAW.

2018-2019: Moving to Wrocław

In May 2018 MZW and PAW moved to Wrocław, holding most of their events and training sessions in Czasoprzestrzeń, which significantly boosted attendance and improved the frequency of training. After the summer camp of 2018 Jędruś Bułecka retired from his coach duties, leaving the trio of Shadow, Asmund and Justin Joy in charge. That lasted for almost another year until the summer training camp of 2019, after which Justin and Asmund also retired from coaching (the latter also from wrestling in general).

This period also saw the formation of a social group later called "The Greens", composed of both rookies and some of the coaches. The group's members would later become important talent in MZW and other organizations.

2019-2023: Shadow's solo run, PTW

After Justin and Asmund left, Shadow became the single permanent coach in PAW. This reduced the training sessions' frequency down to about once per month or two. The academy itself relocated to a much smaller venue, located at Aleksandra Ostrowskiego street, which was also the place in which the COVID-era Project Basement series was recorded. Despite this, PAW continued to hold summer camps in 2020 and 2021, which had worse attendance numbers than before.

PAW suffered its biggest setback when multiple MZW talent and PAW rookies decided to join the newly created PTW in 2021. This also caused another decline in training session frequency. In the later months of 2021 and early 2022, PAW moved its training sessions temporarily to Toruń.

In October 2022, PAW returned to Wrocław and Czasoprzestrzeń, hosting training sessions infrequently and with little to no social media activity. Attendance at these sessions varied between three and five rookies every weekend.

2024: Moving to Kępno, revival

Since April 2024 PAW has made yet another move, to Kępno - a small town about an hour's drive east of Wrocław, where they continued their training sessions. On June 14th, they announced a 5-day wrestling summer camp, scheduled to be held on August 19-24 at the new facility in Kępno. On June 29th, a photo was posted on their Facebook page, showing PAW trainees along with multiple ex-MZW, ex-PTW and PpW wrestlers.

Photo posted on PAW's Fanpage on June 29th 2024.
The text reads "Another weekend. Another training session with "new" faces. And one conclusion: the ring unites people."
Besides PAW trainees, multiple ex-PTW/MZW wrestlers can be seen: Samson, Marco Hammers, Disco Pablo, Dziedzic, Aron Wake, Sambor and Rafi Rarytas.

References

  • Poster for the summer course in August 2024, showing distances between Kępno and other major cities in the area.