Texas Forever brings the spirit of Texas independent wrestling together for WrestleMania week

Texas Forever will highlight the best of Texas independent wrestling as part of GCW’s The Collective, and we spoke to representatives of all five Texas promotions about what this event means and how it all came together.

The week and weekend surrounding WrestleMania has begun to take on a life of its own in recent years, and much of the thanks for keeping that going this year goes to Game Changer Wrestling’s The Collective. One of the key events in the massive lineup for The Collective is Texas Forever, a five-company interpromotional supershow spotlighting the absolute best of Texas independent wrestling.

Inspire Pro Wrestling, Sabotage Wrestling, Heavy Metal Wrestling, New Texas Pro Wrestling, and Lucha Brutál have joined forces to show the world, and the fans in Tampa for WrestleMania week, exactly what makes Texas independent wrestling so special. With the event still a few weeks away, the currently announced lineup is nearly as big as the state of Texas itself.

So far, seven huge matches have been announced. The field highlights many of the stars that have been crucial to Texas independent wrestling in recent years, but also features a handful of huge names from the current national independent scene.

Currently Announced Card for Texas Forever

• “Heavy Metal” Ruben Steel vs. Mance Warner
• Rocketboy Wilson, Prince Adam, and GPA vs. Chandler Hopkins, Fuego Del Sol, and ASF
• Sabotage World Championship Match: Hyan (c) vs. Shazza McKenzie
• Sabotage Tag Team Championship Match: Team Sea Stars [Ashley Vox & Delmi Exo] (c) vs. Allie Kat & Laynie Luck
• “The Pinfall Wizard” Steve’O Reno vs. “The Product” David Starr
• New Texas Pro Wrestling Championship Fatal 4-Way Match: Mysterious Q (c) vs. Gino Medina vs. Moonshine Mantell vs. J.D. Griffey
• “The Stroke Daddy” Ricky Starks vs. “Filthy” Tom Lawlor

Other announced talent includes EFFY, Shigeyuki Kawahara, Gregory Iron, Andy Dalton, Andre Law, Joe Demaro, Nastico, Great Scott, Jeff Gant, Pistolero Balderas, Thomas Shire, and Corvice.

It’s truly a star-studded lineup, but there’s so much more to this event than a next-level card. There’s so much more to Texas Forever than just another WrestleMania week show. There’s so much more than a fun addition to GCW’s The Collective.

Texas Forever is about the past, present, and future of Texas independent wrestling. Ahead of this landmark event, I had the opportunity to speak with representatives of all five independent promotions taking part. Those representatives included: Justin Bissonnette, CEO of Inspire Pro Wrestling; Jeff Cerda, CEO of Sabotage Wrestling; Dylan Dunbar, Promoter of Heavy Metal Wrestling; Kiefer Bartek, Owner and Promoter of New Texas Pro Wrestling; and Rogelio Martinez, Owner and Promoter of Lucha Brutál.

While everyone had their own reasons and comments for being excited about Texas Forever, there was one theme that permeated everything. Texas Forever is about showcasing the best of Texas independent wrestling, lifting up all of Texas independent wrestling, and showing the world exactly why Texas is a destination that more people in wrestling need to be paying attention to.

Texas Forever brings together Texas’ best for WrestleMania week

Justin Bissonnette, CEO of Inspire Pro Wrestling, talked about the opportunity to put a spotlight on Texas independent wrestling during WrestleMania week.

“I think that right there is the most exciting spot. Part of it is that it’s a different challenge. Because we’ve kind of, Inspire, Sabotage, New Texas, Heavy Metal, Lucha Brutál, have worked kind of together, but it’s been for shows in Texas. So this is now taking what we’ve seen that we can do in Texas and going ‘okay, here’s the biggest wrestling weekend of the year, is this something that we can show that audience, and will that audience respond to it?’ And that challenge for me is the most exciting part.”

“We’re really excited about the things that have been going on in Texas in the past year, year and a half,” Bissonnette continued. “But now this is the biggest stage, right? So can we take it to that audience, and can we reach that audience?”

Dylan Dunbar, Promoter of Heavy Metal Wrestling, talked about how special it’s been to have companies working together like this to collectively help all of Texas independent wrestling.

“I think now people are finally starting to realize everybody can eat at the table,” Dunbar said. “There’s room for everybody. It works a lot better when everybody is working together, because rising tides are gonna lift all ships.”

That final line, “rising tides are gonna lift all ships,” is one I found myself repeating when I interviewed nearly everyone else. It’s a mentality everyone agreed with, because these promotions all understand that when their fellow Texas independent wrestling companies succeed, they all succeed. Unfortunately, it’s not a mentality that has been the standard in the past.

“As opposed to just a few years ago,” Dunbar began. “Where it was basically dirty tricks where [someone would] call the Fire Marshal on the other promotion or [someone would] call their building the week before and in a phony voice cancel their building on them. Just unnecessary dirty tactics. And those are gone. That is gone now.”

Those dirty tactics aren’t something specific to Texas. They’ve permeated the wrestling industry for decades. Even as recently as September of 2019, New Japan Pro Wrestling fell victim to this kind of sabotage and had the start of their show significantly delayed as a result.

“Instead, it’s been replaced by a bunch of promotions that are trying to work together,” Dunbar emphasized. “That are all in the same boat. That are all putting their money together. That are all bringing in guys. They’re all agreeing on something. ‘This is what we’re gonna do, we’re doing this, everyone on board? Yes? Okay, we’re gonna execute the plan the best that we can, and we’re gonna change the foundation of what Texas is.’”

“It’s so childish,” Dunbar said of the dirty tactics of the past. “And I’m so glad that, for the most part, the major shakers and players in Texas have all banded together. No more of that stupid bullsh*t.”

Putting Texas independent wrestling back on the map

The ultimate goal, as several of them explained in their own ways, is to make Texas a destination in independent wrestling. The goal is for independent wrestling stars nationwide to be chomping at the bit to get to Texas and compete in that scene, which unfortunately hasn’t always been the kind of thing Texas was known for.

Kiefer Bartek, Owner and Promoter of New Texas Pro Wrestling, spoke about what Texas Forever, as a WrestleMania week show, has the chance to do for Texas wrestling.

“I think it’s something that’s never been done for Texas, and it’s important to me just building up the Texas scene in general,” Bartek explained. “For so long, it’d been like a dead zone or where your career goes to die. We’ve been wanting to change that, and this year I think it is gonna be the big turnaround for Texas independent wrestling.”

Dylan Dunbar, Promoter of Heavy Metal Wrestling, echoed very similar sentiments as he emphasized his ultimate endgame with Texas Forever and all the work that’s been done to lift up the Texas independent wrestling scene.

“For the longest time, everyone was so eager to get out of Texas, but to me at this point, my goal is to make Texas the destination,” Dunbar said. “I want guys in the midwest to be like ‘the only way you can make it now is you train in St. Louis and then you move to Austin.’ That’s the goal, man. That’s the endgame, or my endgame, personally.”

While the Texas independent scene’s influence has fluctuated throughout the last few decades, there’s a rich history of wrestling in Texas. No name seems to come up more often than World Class Championship Wrestling, a staple of the Dallas/Fort Worth area from its founding in 1966 to their closing in 1990.

Notable alumni of WCCW included The Von Erichs, Andre the Giant, Bam Bam Bigelow, Mick Foley, Dory Funk Jr., Ernie Ladd, Jake Roberts, Junkyard Dog, Koko B. Ware, Ole Anderson, Paul Bearer, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, Stan Hansen, Steve Austin, Terry Funk, and Wahoo McDaniel, just to name a few. It’s a time that is remembered fondly by Texans, but Justin Bissonnette, CEO of Inspire Pro Wrestling, was clear that those glory days are far from over.

“Anyone that’s involved in Texas independent wrestling has heard from like the day they started, ‘man the World Class days, back in the day in the World Class days.’ Every one of us just wants to be like ‘no, it’s still here.’ That same spirit [is here],” Bissonnette said.

Hard work from multiple independent promotions in Texas, even ones that aren’t a part of Texas Forever, has led to this moment, but Dylan Dunbar, Promoter of Heavy Metal Wrestling, explained that this is only the beginning.

“It’s a lot of hard work. It’s a culmination of a lot of hard work, but I don’t wanna even call it a culmination because to me it really truthfully feels like the start of what we’re about to do,” Dunbar said. “It just feels like we’re about to f*cking be launched into the stratosphere if we play our cards right. And that’s what we plan on doing is being able to utilize being part of GCW’s Collective to shine an even brighter light on the scene throughout 2020.”

Forming lasting ties from all sides

That unified vision of coming together to push Texas independent wrestling to a whole new level is one that Jeff Cerda, CEO of Sabotage Wrestling, is all too familiar with. While Cerda may be running a wrestling company today, the seeds of this movement for him and others goes back to the launch of Heel/Face Wrestling, a media company that began years ago with the initial goal of covering Texas independent wrestling in the same way that local newspapers and outlets cover high school and college sports.

“That goes back to Heel/Face Wrestling, why we wanted to start it as well,” Cerda said. “We wanted to provide the platform, but at the same time why can’t everyone contribute to that platform and root on the next person or root on the next company and say ‘hey, I want you to do well, because if you do well, then Texas does well, which means we all do well.’”

Another Heel/Face Wrestling alum is also a key part of Texas Forever. Rogelio Martinez, Owner and Promoter of Lucha Brutál, took a path that went directly through Heel/Face Wrestling and has led to the launch and continued success of Lucha Brutál. When Martinez got to meet Cerda and Rudy Hernandez of Heel/Face Wrestling, it formed a bond that quickly turned into a working relationship once they knew that Martinez had experience with video work.

“I was doing promo pictures. I’d never done anything like that,” Martinez said. “I was filming matches. I’d never- I kinda just jumped [in] head first, and after that any time Heel/Face was somewhere, I was there with them working shows and filming and doing photography. And so really, like my first step into the wrestling business was through that experience and through Heel/Face.”

Heel/Face Wrestling began with humble aspirations but has become a beacon of support for several independent wrestling promotions in Texas. Whether it’s through spreading the word, filming and live streaming entire events, or their eventual roles in two separate independent wrestling companies, Heel/Face Wrestling has become an inseparable part of the fabric of Texas independent wrestling. Martinez also talked about how having promoters with different backgrounds has helped bring these promotions together.

“I think there’s just enough of a balance of guys who did wrestle and who didn’t, who came through obscure ways. Sabotage [Wrestling] through the media. Heel/Face [Wrestling] came from the media side, and then me through video production then coming into the wrestling business,” Martinez explained. “Like, I think there’s enough of that to where there aren’t any huge egos, you know?”

“The other guys that run these companies, they’re just cool guys. For the most part, we’re all younger. And I think we just kinda [think] this business is hard enough as it is,” Martinez continued, emphasizing that the removal of ego and bickering, the same things that led to the dirty tactics Dunbar mentioned, helped bring everyone together. “It’s literally just all about setting your ego aside and working towards, like [Dylan] said, high tide raises all ships. That’s just the best way to look at it. It just makes too much sense to not look at it that way.”

“I just wanna set up people to have a good time, you know? I think all in all, it just all comes back to that community wanting to help each other. Knowing that if we make the state attractive, our company is attractive,” Martinez said.

How GCW, Joey Janela, and TJ McAloon made Texas Forever possible

That willingness to lift others up, rather than cut them down, is really the key to all of this coming together. Justin Bissonnette, CEO of Inspire Pro Wrestling, helped explain just how far back the seeds of this event go.

“It actually goes back to Joey Janela,” Bissonnette began, referencing Janela working with Inspire Pro Wrestling as far back as 2018. “Joey came down to Texas, and without Joey putting in a good word for us, we don’t have the GCW relationship”

That was an opening, and it led to a moment where GCW wanted to come to Texas and run a show of their own. That event came to fruition back in January of 2020 with GCW Take A Picture, which saw both Inspire Pro Wrestling and Heavy Metal Wrestling come together to help GCW. Dylan Dunbar, Promoter of Heavy Metal Wrestling, talked about how these moments influenced Texas Forever.

“It was a great effort from GCW and Inspire that got this Texas Forever thing started. Really, it’s because of how we conducted ourselves when we were working with GCW. Because they [came] down to Texas, and [ran] in Inspire’s venue and using Heavy Metal’s ring,” Dunbar said. “It’s not necessarily a ‘I scratch your back, you scratch my back’ thing. It goes right back to rising tides lift all ships. Because now this national company, these guys are bending over backwards to help us out.”

Justin Bissonnette, CEO of Inspire Pro Wrestling, echoed the same sentiments, saying “without working with Brett [Lauderdale] and GCW, we don’t have the opportunity for The Collective. So huge thanks out to both of those guys just for the opportunity.”

While Justin Bissonnette was the representative from Inspire Pro Wrestling that I spoke to, he wasn’t the only one from within that company helping things come together. Kiefer Bartek, Owner and Promoter of New Texas Pro Wrestling, talked about how they became a part of Texas Forever.

“It’s pretty wild. So TJ McAloon, who is one of the people with Inspire in Austin, he asked me if I wanted to join and be the representation for Abilene. For New Texas Pro just to be a part of the show is something cool,” Bartek said. “Hopefully, a lot of wrestling fans will know that there’s a scene in Texas that should be taken more seriously.”

Rogelio Martinez, Owner and Promoter of Lucha Brutál, also brought up TJ McAloon’s role in bringing Texas Forever together.

“One of the companies that hasn’t gotten a ton of mention in this is McAloon Productions. TJ McAloon. He ran a couple of shows in Atlanta before the Super Bowl. He’s a big, big piece of this. He works with Inspire, and I think that’s why he doesn’t necessarily put a whole lot on his company. But without the initiative to be able to speak to GCW and get that on board, it wouldn’t be happening without TJ, so that’s huge,” Martinez emphasized.

Justin Bissonnette, CEO of Inspire Pro Wrestling, went on to explain how quickly the event came to fruition.

“So TJ, who works with us as far as like marketing and advertisement, kind of brokered the deal, and then we pieced together the deposit that we needed for the spot, and it was basically I think in 36 hours we had figured out who we wanted to work with, who we wanted to bring on board, and just the general idea of what we wanted the show to be,” Bissonnette said. “It all came together very quickly.”

The spirit of Texas permeates Texas Forever at all levels

Bissonnette also hammered home, as was mentioned by many, how many people came together to make this dream a reality. Every single promotion had important figures behind the scenes that I haven’t spoken to that are just as important to Texas Forever, and the event itself is about more than just Texas independent wrestling promotions working together.

“Not only is it the Texas guys working together to put on the show, but it’s us working with Pizza Party Wrestling and Black Label, and all those people in the same building,” Bissonnette explained. “We would be competing for a building, right? Or for a ring. Working together, everything is right in one place and it just makes it so much easier.”

It’s a joint effort from so many, and don’t for a moment forget the wrestlers themselves who have helped create the kind of independent wrestling scene in Texas that has made Texas Forever a reality. Rogelio Martinez, Owner and Promoter of Lucha Brutál, talked about the efforts of those wrestlers to put this state on the map.

“Obviously without GCW and The Collective and without TJ and Inspire kind of taking the lead on our end to do this [it wouldn’t happen], but Texas Forever is not possible without the amazing wrestlers, amazing talent,” Martinez said. “If you think the promotions work together with no ego, these guys don’t care about ego. They’re hungry. They want to wrestle and they work hard at their craft, and without these amazing wrestlers, these talented guys coming out and busting their butt for our shows, busting their butt for the Texas scene, without them this isn’t possible.”

All of that hard work comes to a boiling point at Texas Forever, and that Texas influence is all over the show from top to bottom. That said, it doesn’t mean there aren’t a few outsiders there to sweeten the pot, as Justin Bissonnette, CEO of Inspire Pro Wrestling, explained.

“The idea was, how can we best showcase this Texas talent,” Bissonnette said. “Really, you can’t just come to Tampa and put on a show that would draw in San Antonio. There has to be some acknowledgment that it is the WrestleMania crowd. So you have to have those David Starrs and you have to have those Tom Lawlors.”

“While there’s a ton of Texas influence too on most of the names that we were able to bring in,” Bissonnette continued. “Where there’s not, it’s a match with a guy like Steve’O Reno who’s a pure Texas guy or Ricky coming from Texas just now getting out there, and then EFFY has our Pure Prestige belt.”

“Then if you get into some of the other matches, Heavy Metal is presenting Mance Warner and Ruben Steele,” Bissonnette said. “Mance has been through Texas a few times. Ruben is one of Heavy Metal’s faithful performers. While Mance may not be a Texas guy, he has the ties, and he’s wrestling a guy that is from Texas in that style.”

“I think [another] great example is Allie Kat and Laynie Luck,” Bissonnette said. “Both started in Texas, and they’re coming back to wrestle for Sabotage for the tag belts [against The Sea Stars]. That could be on a Shimmer card.”

Perhaps nothing hammers home the intangible element of Texas Forever than a few words from Bissonnette about Texas spirit. As a fellow Texan, it’s a sentiment that I understand all too well, but one that might seem odd to outsiders. For those of you still a bit confused, it’s similar to the energy that Paul Heyman exuded in his legendary “Welcome to the Dance” speech before an ECW event.

“It’s that Texas spirit,” Bissonnette said. “To people that aren’t from Texas, it’s the most arrogant sounding thing in the world, but if you’re not from here you just don’t understand that Texas spirit. Excuse the language, but it’s ‘f*ck you, we know what we are, and we’re gonna show you.’ It’s exciting to be with other guys that are like that and have that mindset.”

There are so many exciting events during WrestleMania week, but Texas Forever stands out because of just how many people have put in hard work to bring this event to the fans in Tampa. If you’re going to be in Tampa that week, individual tickets are still available.

Texas Forever will emanate from The Cuban Club in Tampa, Florida on Thursday, April 2, 2020, at 3 PM ET. Fans who have the opportunity should definitely get there to see this groundbreaking spectacle in person, but fans who can’t be there will still have the opportunity to watch live via Fite TV. Fans can watch all 17 events from GCW’s The Collective for just $139.99, but Texas Forever can be purchased separately for just $11.99.