International Championship Wrestling
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International Championship Wrestling was a short-lived independent professional wrestling promotion based in Lexington, Kentucky. It was run by Angelo Poffo.
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[edit] History
The promotion was founded in 1978 as a rival to Jerry Lawler's Continental Wrestling Association and even got CWA wrestlers to leave CWA and go to ICW.
The main stars of ICW were Poffo's sons Randy (better known as "Macho Man" Randy Savage) and Lanny (better known as "Leaping" Lanny Poffo), although the promotion featured many more stars such as Ronnie Garvin, Crusher Broomfield (better known as One Man Gang and Akeem), Bob Orton, Jr., Bob Roop, Rip Rogers, "Pistol" Pez Whatley, George Weingeroff, and the Devil's Duo (Jeff Sword and Doug Vines) with their manager Izzy Slapowitz.
In 1984, the promotion closed. Due to the fans' knowledge of the extremely bitter rivalry between ICW and CWA, Randy Savage was able to migrate to the CWA and begin a memorable feud with Jerry Lawler. Paul Christy, the wrestler who had ended Randy Savage's final reign as ICW World champion, started a new ICW and ran the promotion for a few years before finally closing it down in the late 1980s.
Another promotion called International Championship Wrestling operated out of Boston in the late-1980s, promoted by Mario Savoldi and his son, Joe Savoldi. After forming a working agreement with World Class Championship Wrestling,, the Boston-based ICW was renamed International World Class Championship Wrestling (IWCCW).
[edit] Trivia
Elizabeth Hulette, who would later gain fame in the WWF as Miss Elizabeth, got her start in professional wrestling as an on-camera host of ICW's weekly TV show.
[edit] Championships
The main championships in ICW were:
- ICW Heavyweight Championship (although called a world title by ICW, it did not have 'world title status' in PWI)
- ICW United States Tag Team Championship
- ICW United States Heavyweight Championship
- ICW Television Championship
- ICW Southeastern Heavyweight Championship
- ICW Southeastern Tag Team Championship