Prime Time Wrestling

Table of contents
  1. History
    1. The 2021 launch
      1. The first show
    2. 2022
    3. 2023
      1. Sponsorship dropped, name change
      2. Fourth major show
      3. Crisis and departures
      4. Expansion into Austria
    4. 2024
      1. Pawłowski's solo run
      2. New YouTube show: "Gruby temat"
      3. The lottery
      4. The prize draw
      5. Post-Gold Rush crisis
      6. More high-profile exits
  2. Polish wrestling scene
  3. Foreign relations
  4. Championships
  5. Internet presence
  6. References
  7. Events
  8. All-time roster
  9. Gallery

History

The 2021 launch

On June 28, 2021, Arkadiusz "Pan" Pawłowski, an experienced, yet polarizing figure on the Polish scene, announced the launch of his own wrestling promotion, promising "a new quality of entertainment". He posted a trailer featuring himself and glimpses of various wrestlers. Over the course of the summer, training events have been held and social media promotion continued. Eventually, the organization announced it was going to hold their very first show in October, and revealed the booked wrestlers. These were both veterans of the Polish scene, as well as debuting Polish wrestlers and foreign guests.

The first show

This first show, titled PTW#1: REVOLUCJA, was met with positive response, even though some aspects were criticised. Fans praised the starpower, production value and overall high-budget feel. The criticism was focused on Pawłowski's character, who fans felt was overexposed, inviting influencers to hype up the show, blatantly aggressive sponsor ads, and the booking - with a significant imbalance of starpower and a DQ finish in the main event. Most of the Polish talent on that show became cornerstones of PTW's roster, while some notably flopped. TV personality and freak fighter Paweł "Trybson" Trybała, initially strongly booked as a non-wrestler entering the business, failed to ever make his PTW return.

The successful event was quickly followed by PTW announcing their Underground shows. The first one was held in the PTW Performance Center in Chorzów. It kicked off a near-monthly series of events in 2022 and 2023: an Underground show on the last Sunday of each month, except when that weekend was already booked for the bigger (numbered) events. Underground shows advanced storylines seen in these bigger events, but with significantly less starpower. While initially only available to the live public, since Underground 4 they were also streamed live, first on FITE/TrillerTV and later YouTube as well. The venue had limited capacity, which was cleverly used to make these events feel more exclusive, only for the most dedicated fans.

2022

Continuing their strong entry into the scene, PTW started the year with the second Underground show and quickly followed with PTW#2 Blackout, which was also well received. This show had even more starpower than Revolucja, featuring debuts of well-known names like Joe Hendry, Marty Scurll, Matt Sydal and John "Bad Bones" Klinger.

Over the course of the year, PTW continued its steady pace, presenting the monthly Underground shows, and debuting at Ryucon, a manga-themed fan convention in Kraków. The third major show, Legends, was the first one to be held outside Chorzów, in Warsaw. Among other notable moments, it featured the first PTW women's match (outside the exclusive Underground shows), where Diana Strong competed against two former NXT-UK wrestlers, Xia Brookside and Myla Grace. Also at this show, the IMPACT Digital Media Championship was defended, and Santino was named the kayfabe co-owner of PTW, leading to a long-standing feud between Bad Bones & Longman vs Pawłowski. This show became part of a double-header weekend: on the day before, Warsaw's PpW Ewenement hosted their own event, named Najlepsza Gala w Mieście (The Best Event In Town). This was seen as PpW playfully taking potshots at the rival organization. Legends closed 2022 as PTW's last show of such ambition and scale, until 2024's Gold Rush.

2023

Sponsorship dropped, name change

Prior to the first event, on 21st of September 2021, Kinguin was announced as one of the sponsors, later becoming the titular sponsor, and was added to the promotion's logo. Kinguin is a marketplace selling digital items, primarily game keys and in-game currency. The Kinguin mascot became a regular part of the shows, and was even included in an angle with Taxi Złotówa at PTW#3 Legends.

Though Kinguin's departure was never officially announced, the titular sponsor was gradually dropped from PTW's branding over the spring/summer of 2023. The last Facebook post featuring Kinguin PTW name was from 26th March 2023, a cover photo change announcing Underground 14. Afterwards, none of the graphics for the show featured Kinguin in either logo or name.

Fourth major show

After closing 2022 with Legends, PTW continued to hold Underground shows. Throughout the first half of the year, they continued at a monthly pace (except for January, which saw a double-header Underground weekend). On June 25th in Wrocław, PTW held their 4th major show overall and the only one for 2023 - The Mystery. This event saw the crowning of PAKA as the inaugural PTW Tag Team Champions, a storyline involving Bad Bones kidnapping Marcin Rzeźniczek, and the formation of what would later become The Sinister Kingdom. Foreign starpower was significantly lower than in previous major shows, presumably due to titular sponsor dropping out. This was also the first major PTW show to be put behind a paywall (the supporter functionality of YouTube; the first fight was available for free), with the live stream dropping out so often that it rendered the show unwatchable. All these issues caused a lot of controversy, angering the fans who were demanding refunds - which PTW later granted in the form of free tickets and discounts for PTW's merchandise.

Crisis and departures

See also: PTW Exits: 2023.

After voicing their frustrations on social media, Rafi Rarytas, Gabriel Queen, Justin Joy and Samson were all removed from PTW's roster (see Justin's page for a series of screenshots from his social media where he addressed the situation).

In the beginning of 2024, Vic Golden was also quietly removed from the roster page. Robert Star's departure went unannounced by the promotion, with his profile removed at some point between January and March 2024.

On February 12th, 2024, PTW commentary team member Piotr "Showoff" Małecki announced an indefinite leave from PTW, citing burnout as a reason. Gradually, he severed his ties with the organization, first changing his Twitter/X bio entry to "ex-PTW commentator", and becoming increasingly critical towards the promotion.

Expansion into Austria

Throughout 2023, Krampus, in addition to his in-ring career in PTW, launched a wrestling promotion of his own: Wrestling World Austria (WWA). The first set of tapings was announced for September 29th 2023, emanating from City Theater in Hallein, Austria. Among others, the show featured multiple talent from PTW. On December 4th 2023, both PTW and WWA announced that WWA had now become a part of PTW.

The initial name for the this merged promotion was "PTW: WWA" (also stylized as "PTW presents: WWA"), but the organization soon adopted "PTW German" as their social media name. In addition to covering their own shows, this account reposted PTW's updates concerning events in Poland, but translated to German.

2024

In February 2024, PTW held their fifth major event: Gold Rush, this time in Legionowo, in the Warsaw metropolitan area. The Underground shows were also moved to a new location. Initially announced as Gliwice, a historical city in the west of the Silesian metropolis, the actual location turned to be a venue in the neighboring village of Kozłów, about 9 km west of the city. This made the Underground shows far less accessible, and sparked some criticism. They also lost their regularity, with only one being announced for April. That event was followed by Total Blast From The Past in May.

Pawłowski's solo run

On Monday, March 11th 2024, Marcin "Rzeźnik" Rzeźniczek, co-owner of PTW, officially confirmed on his social media that he left PTW and Pawłowski remains the sole owner. Breaking kayfabe (a recent storyline from Gold Rush revealed him as the mastermind behind Bad Bones and Longman shenanigans), he wished his former partner, and everyone in PTW, the best of luck conquering the Polish and world wrestling scenes, and fondly recalled his time in PTW.

New YouTube show: "Gruby temat"

In March 2024, PTW launched a new format on YouTube, titled "Gruby Temat" (Fat Topic - jokingly referring to Pawłowski's rather large size), with Pawłowski and Kacper "Ludwiczek" Bociański as hosts, and one special guest for each episode. While Ludwiczek was not previously affiliated with wrestling, he was an MMA fighter on Poland's freak fight scene. The first guest of this new show was Marcel Gawroński, a popular TikToker who covers Poland's freak fight scene. Another episode featured PTW's own Puncher, while Polish boxer and UFC women's champion Joanna Jędrzejczyk was the guest in episode 3. The format of this show was mostly an interview with the guest, including questions from the audience asked via chat.

The lottery

At the Gold Rush event, Pawłowski revealed a new promotional scheme for PTW: a 2012 Nissan GTR car, the grand prize to be won in a lottery. To circumvent the legal age requirement, lottery tickets were not sold directly. Instead, fans were encouraged to purchase an ebook, which came with a free ticket. These ebooks were short PDF documents (e.g. "PTW Revolucja" at 16 pages), including results from PTW shows, photos and a short narrative. It was apparent that they were not supposed to provide any useful content, but rather serve as a legal means for distributing lottery tickets. The car was claimed to be worth 600.000 PLN, or about 140.000 EUR at the time.

In the following months leading to Underground 21 and Total Blast From The Past, Pawłowski promoted the lottery heavily on social media and in collaboration with various online personalities, most of whom had no prior connection with wrestling; one such personality was Ludwiczek, the co-host of Gruby Temat at that time. Immediately after Underground 21, PTW's social media accounts continued to focus solely on the lottery, while promoting the next major show took a distant second place, restricting itself to revealing the card in a series of posts. The organization cared so little for promoting its own show that it did not even try managing the accidental reveal of the full match card, which was leaked on the WrestleFans forum before PTW revealed the final match themselves. The leak was accidentally posted by a WrestleFans newsman Piotr "Sabinq" Gilewski. Taras called him out on the mistake on Twitter/X, and in turn revealed that he also was on a lengthy break from PTW, although officially not released yet.

The prize draw

On Sunday, May 12th, PTW held the lottery's prize draw on a YouTube live stream. Despite PTW's stated goal of providing entertainment for the whole family, this show included controversial guests: Stonoga and the cast of Królowe Życia ("The Queens of Life") reality show, spouting distasteful, sexually-charged jokes. The lottery's overseeing committee was never shown by the cameras. The lottery failed to achieve its desired goal of popularising PTW - some prize winners, who were called on the phone live as per the lottery's regulations, had no idea who called them and why, and did not recognize the names Pawłowski or PTW. After it was finished, the prize draw show quickly went private on YouTube, and other lottery-related materials started to disappear from the Internet (eventually including the lottery website).

Post-Gold Rush crisis

Main article: PTW's 2024 crisis

Between the two major shows in 2024, PTW lost a lot of credibility among wrestling fans, and saw many of its talent leave, dissatisfied at the organization and losing faith in the product. This was caused by the failures of their new marketing strategy, seemingly distancing itself from wrestling as the core product, and betting heavily on influencer appeal instead.

More high-profile exits

See also: PTW Exits: 2024.

Right after PTW#6, long-time PTW commentator Arkadiusz Paterek confirmed his departure in a tweet. Two weeks later, on a YouTube live stream, commentator Łukasz Baliński also announced his resignation.

On May 31st, PTW wrestler Dziedzic appeared on the first episode of "No Gimmick Zone", discussing various backstage topics in a shoot-style interview. This led to rumors of his release just two days after, which was confirmed by Dziedzic announcing his departure from PTW that same week.

After some teasing on his Instagram Stories, Sinister confirmed the speculations as well. On Wednesday, June 5th 2024, he shared a farewell post of his own. Shortly after that, referee Seweryn also confirmed his departure on his Instagram story.

On June 6th Boro added a set of stories on Instagram, titled "PTW Last Dance", which was an obvious farewell.

Michał "Mutant" Świątkowski, an inactive PTW wrestler who got shelved just after his return at Gold Rush, seemingly confirmed his exit through Instagram stories.

On June 8th, Legia Łysych, a tag team consisting of Marco Hammers and Olgierd, who never announced leaving PTW, made their surprise debut for PpW at Ledwo Legalne IV.

On June 9th, Sambor posted a black and white photo of himself and his valet Rusałka on his Instagram profile. This was also interpreted as his exit from PTW.

On Thursday June 13th, PTW has taken down the roster section of their page.

In a Twitch stream on June 25th, Pawłowski confirmed that Axel Fox, a popular babyface, has also quit the organization. This was the first time this info was shared, as Axel himself did not reveal it before.

Polish wrestling scene

PTW's initial roster was built from wrestlers previously appearing in MZW, KPW or MCW, however PTW itself is known for its lack of interaction with other federations in Poland. Talent were strictly prohibited from appearing in any other Polish rings, and any form of cooperation, either as a performer or in a backstage role, resulted in "firing" from PTW. One early example of that is Jacob Crane, ostensibly fired for "damaging the organization's image". That fact was one of the key factors leading to most of the PTW exits, where the talent wanted to have more freedom and to be able to take bookings from other Polish organizations. This is similar to KPW's approach. Fans theorize that this isolationist attitude was inherited from Don Roid's DDW, where Pawłowski learned the ropes. Their attitude towards "backyards" like PpW is also shared with KPW and DDW.

Foreign relations

One of the main selling points of PTW, differentiating them from their competition, were sponsors, an actual budget and the ability to bring in a lot of pro wrestlers from abroad. At PTW 3: Legends it was announced that Santino Marella, former long-time WWE star, would become one of the organization's co-owners. This, however, was only a short-lived storyline angle lacking any real payoff, leaving fans confused when Santino made his return at PTW 5: Gold Rush only as an English-language commentator, and suprise entrant in the Gold Rush Rumble.

Later, PTW entered into collaboration with Austrian wrestler Krampus and his new organization called "World Wrestling Austria". It was quickly renamed to PTW: WWA and became a de facto "sister federation" ran by Krampus with assistance from Pawłowski. This cooperation allowed PTW talent to be booked at the PTW: WWA show on 2024-01-05. See the Expansion into Austria section above.

PTW also entered a deal with British Revolution Wrestling (BWR), which allowed BWR Champion Scotty Rawk to defend his championship in PTW. In return, Diana Strong and Puncher were booked at one of BWR's shows in the UK.

One remarkable deal between PTW and a bigger promotion was an agreement with Impact Wrestling, for Joe Hendry to defend his Digital Media Championship against Trent Seven at Legends.

Championships

ChampionshipCurrent champion(s)Notes
PTW ChampionshipPuncherInaugural champion, won the championship rumble match at Gold Rush.
PTW Tag Team ChampionshipBudapest Bastards: Renegade and NitroDefeated PAKA: Disco Pablo, Boro and Taras at Gold Rush.

Internet presence

References

Events

2024

2023

2022

2021

All-time roster

  • Marcin Rzeźniczek announcing his departure from PTW
  • Wrestlefans' Sabinq realising he leaked a match. Further down, Taras admits to being on a break from the ring.
  • Taras seemingly happy that he is no longer part of "this circus".
  • Jakub Tyczyński accusing Taras of ratting out other wrestlers to boss Pawłowski. Jacob Crane is named for holding an exhausting training session, and Axel Fox for some crude humor during training. Also mocking his debut victory over Tischer, as something that the entire German scene supposedly derides.
  • Arek Roter criticizes that a 10-year old car is pushed way more than any wrestler in PTW. Taras declares he's done with wrestling for the time.
  • Wrestlefan's Sabinq declaring he know nothing about Stonoga's involvement, and dropping out of collaboration with PTW.
  • Zbigniew Stonoga posing outside of a McDonalds kids playground, with "fans" wearing PPW merchandise. Except one, these fans are PPW wrestlers and personnel.
  • Group post re-sharing Stonoga's announcement. The comment mocks people who spent their own money on the show. The bottom popup text is an alert that the post was removed.
  • Kacper "Ludwiczek" Bociański next to Baba-thunder. The post promotes Total Blast From The Past and the lottery.
  • Anonymous post on the PTW Fan group, mockingly asking for at least 3 matches on the upcoming Ryucon show, and wishing well to Dziedzic, Marcelito and Sinister.
  • Puncher's Instagram post stating 'Chapter closed', which spurred rumors about his exit.
  • Puncher's long letter, page 1: meeting Pawłowski, training.
  • Puncher's long letter, page 2: honing his skills, first PTW events, sleeping in the ring.
  • Puncher's long letter, page 3: anonymous accusations, the lottery flop.
  • Sambor thanking the fans, organization and Pawłowski for support. The text states that his time in wrestling is not over, and his story will be told in many taverns.
  • Marco Hammers feuding online with Vincent Caravaggio, three days before his surprise debut for PpW. He links to Kornel Tomicki's (Vincent's real name) site, where prior to his wrestling career, Tomicki offered coaching, prominently promising successful dating.
  • Kacper "Ludwiczek" Bociański and Zbigniew Stonoga, in front of the lottery grand prize Nissan GTR. They building in the background is located in Warsaw's old town, next to Piłsudski Square.
  • Ludwiczek's instagram post. In the comments, several PTW personalities point out the author's hypocrisy.
  • Discussion under Ludwiczek's instagram post. He criticizes the organization, its "mouldy" ring, and writes about "protecting the lottery".
  • Further discussion under Ludwiczek's instagram post. Pawłowski is called a manipulator who keeps pretending he's the victim of circumstances. Former PTW wrestler Justin Joy (as oski_ninja) praises Ludwiczek for talking sense, while Samson wants a match against Pawłowski.