Kombat Pro Wrestling

Table of contents

History

2015: The end of DDW

Kombat Pro Wrestling launched in 2015, after the founder of DDW, Don Roid, closed down his organization. At the end of 2014, DDW's operations moved from Rzeszów, where Roid lived with his family, to Gdańsk. The two cities are more than 600 km apart, and the team in Gdańsk began to run things without Roid's input. Finally, he sold the ring, closed DDW and retired from wrestling entirely.

That team, consisting of several DDW alumni, bought the ring and - after some deliberations regarding the name, with "White Eagle Wrestling" also being considered - relaunched themselves as Kombat Pro Wrestling. Their first event, KPW vs the World, was held in the exact same venue as DDW's final event proper (not counting their appearance at a convention two months later). Thus KPW is the direct descendant of Do Or Die Wrestling.

In 2016 they would relocate to Gdynia, holding their shows in a recently reopened music club. That year, KPW held the first Godzina Zero, which would later become their annual supershow, where all championships were defended. 2017 saw them move to a bigger venue in the Gdynia Sports Center, securing support from the city.

2020: COVID and losing talent to PTW

In 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and Poland implemented severe restrictions. This caused KPW to go on an 18-month hiatus between February 2020 and August 2021, during which their future was uncertain. 2022 saw them resume regular shows, moving back to a previous venue.

Prime Time Wrestling launched in 2021, headed by the controversial Arkadiusz Pawłowski. Pawłowski was also part of the team of DDW veterans that founded KPW, and later served as their host and ring announcer until 2019. During and after the hiatus KPW lost several of their headliners who chose to join the new organization: Robert Star, Peter Pannache, Sawicki and Gracjan Korpo, as well as the newcomer Diana.

2023 TV deal and FightBox

During the opening moments of Arena 23, Chairman Malinowski announced that from this moment on KPW's events would be broadcast on cable TV, on an MMA and wrestling-focused channel FightBox. This was finally realized in April 2024, when FightBox aired Arena 23. On April 2, 2024 Piękny Kawaler, KPW's owner, booker and head trainer, posted a photo of himself watching the event on TV, captioning it "he day has come". According to his replies under that post, KPW supplied FightBox with two versions: one with Polish commentary track and one without, so that an English commentary could be recorded for broadcast outside of Poland. The version aired by FightBox in April 2024 had no commentary.

2024

In 2024 the organization continued to hold successful events, often selling out their usual venue Nowy Harem. That year's Godzina Zero show was, unusually, held in a school gymnastics hall instead, trading the club for a bigger venue. It also returned to a Saturday date.

Foreign relations

KPW regularly invites talent from the European independent scene to their events, especially the yearly supershow Godzina Zero. Initially they invited wrestlers from Hungary, with whom DDW had had good relations. Later, most of the talent came from Germany and Austria. Several wrestlers from the British scene also appeared on KPW's shows. The hottest guest appearance among them were Primate and Wild Boar, by that time a tag team seen in NXT UK, and Mark Haskins, a veteran of the British scene. KPW's own wrestlers occassionally appeared abroad, mostly in Austria and Germany. KPW does not try to draw attendance by relying on foreign stars and, with a few rare exceptions, almost always puts them against their own talent.

Polish wrestling scene

KPW does not participate in the Polish wrestling scene; they do not share people with other organizations, nor do they invite other Polish performers to their shows. It is speculated to be inherited from Don Roid's way of running DDW, although there was no Polish scene back then. Some Polish-speaking characters did appear on their shows, but all of them were wrestlers of some Polish ancestry performing abroad, such as Ron Corvus or Fynn Freyhart.

The Polish Internet wrestling community reported one incident when fans wearing T-shirts of another Polish organization (specifically PTW) were asked by security to either remove them or wear them inside-out, so as not to show PTW's logo on their own video streaming. They had no issue with merchandise of international provenance, such as AEW or nWo T-shirts.

Championships

As of 2024, KPW has one tag team championship and two singles championships. The main title, KPW Championship, was created in 2016 and won at the first Godzina Zero event. KPW OldTown Championship was created and won at the OldTown Festival 2017, which was a post-apocalyptic themed LARP event to which KPW was invited to perform. This belt had an unique look befitting its origin, until 2023 when it was replaced with a more conventional style belt.

The Tag Team Championship was created in 2018 and the first champions crowned in 2018, at Arena 11.

Championship	Current champion(s)	Notes
KPW Championship	Hans Schulte	Defeated Red Scorpion at Godzina Zero 2024
KPW OldTown Championship	Chemik	Defeated Rosetti at Arena 25: Odkupienie
KPW Tag Team Championship	The Fux Brothers: Michał Fux, Filip Fux	Defeated Die Ordnung (Veit Müller, Hans Schulte) at Godzina Zero 2023

References

Video: Top 10 moments of KPW by What Is Wrestling
Detailed KPW champions list on Wikipedia (in Polish)
10 behind-the-scenes interesting facts about KPW, a video by Piękny Kawaler mentioning White Eagle Wrestling (in Polish)

Events

Add these events to your calendar by subscribing to calendar-kpw.ics.

All-time roster

🇵🇱 David Oliwa 42
🇵🇱 Greg 42
🇵🇱 Robert Star 27
🇵🇱 Boski Ostrowski 23
🇵🇱 Kamil Aleksander 23
🇵🇱 Piękny Kawaler 23
🇵🇱 Chemik 20
🇵🇱 Rosetti 20
🇵🇱 Peter Pannache 19
🇵🇱 Eryk Lesak 18
🇵🇱 Gracjan Korpo 18
🇵🇱 Kaszub 17
🇵🇱 Michał Fux 17
🇵🇱 Zefir 17
🇵🇱 Filip Fux 16
🇵🇱 Mira 15
🇭🇺 Ron Corvus 15
🇵🇱 Bianca 14
🇵🇱 Sawicki 13
🇵🇱 Leon Lato 12
🇵🇱 Adam Bravo 11
🇵🇱 Victor Rosetti 11
🇩🇪 Fynn Freyhart 10
🇮🇷 Darius 9
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Dom Taylor 8
🇵🇱 Krzysztof Zasada 8
🇵🇱 Moloch 8
🇵🇱 Alisa 7
🇵🇱 Damian Lambert 7
🇩🇪 Hans Schulte 7
🇵🇱 Luxus 7
🇵🇱 Mateusz Kowalski 7
🇩🇪 Veit Müller 6
🇵🇱 Mateusz Kakareko 5
🇵🇱 Piotr Opolski [1] [2] [3] [4] 4
🇮🇹 Red Scorpion 4
🇩🇪 Flexos [1] [2] [3] 3
🇬🇧 Lee Rogers [1] [2] [3] 3
🇸🇪 Steinbolt [1] [2] [3] 3
🇵🇱 Daniel Boza 3
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Primate 3
🇸🇰 Ricky Sky 3
🇪🇸 Carlos Zamora [1] [2] 2
🇩🇪 Crowchester [1] [2] 2
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Elliott Jordan [1] [2] 2
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Louis Basham [1] [2] 2
🇦🇹 Martn Pain [1] [2] 2
🇩🇪 Matthias Bernstein [1] [2] 2
🇵🇱 Mika The Polish Punisher [1] [2] 2
🇨🇦 Reinbakh [1] [2] 2
🇸🇪 Sixt [1] [2] 2
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wild Boar [1] [2] 2
🇦🇹 Alex Berkner [1] 1
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Alexander Roth [1] 1
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Anton Green [1] 1
🇭🇺 Audrey Bride [1] 1
🇫🇮 Aurora Flame [1] 1
Bodyguard [1] 1
🇧🇴 Carmen Rojas [1] 1
🇬🇧 Chakara [1] 1
🇮🇹 Fabio Ferrari [1] 1
🇲🇹 Gianni Valletta [1] 1
🇭🇺 Gulyás Öcsi [1] 1
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Iestyn Rees [1] 1
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Jack Jester [1] 1
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Joey Ozbourne [1] 1
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Jon Ryan [1] 1
🇵🇱 Kasandra [1] 1
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Kat Von Kaige [1] 1
🇵🇱 Leśny [1] 1
🇩🇪 Lucas Robinson [1] 1
🇩🇪 Ludy Lohan [1] 1
🇬🇧 Mark Haskins [1] 1
🇮🇷 Pahlevan Nima [1] 1
🇬🇧 Pastor William Eaver [1] 1
🇬🇷 Reece Alexios [1] 1
🇦🇹 Ritshy Rage [1] 1
🇦🇹 Robert Dreissker [1] 1
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Roy Johnson [1] 1
🇯🇵 Shigehiro Irie [1] 1
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Tom Fulton [1] 1
🇫🇷 Tom LaRuffa [1] 1
🇬🇧 Tommy Freeman [1] 1
🇬🇧 Tommy Kyle [1] 1
🇫🇷 Tristan Archer [1] 1
🇯🇵 Yuu [1] 1
🇬🇧 Zak Knight [1] 1
🇵🇱 Boski 2.0 1
🇵🇱 Diana Rega 1
🇵🇱 Diana 1
🇭🇺 Dover 1
🇵🇱 GREG 1
🇵🇱 Karol Górski 1
🇵🇱 Krystian Malinowski 1
🇦🇹 Michael Kovac 1
🇭🇺 Nitro 1
🇭🇺 Renegade 1

Gallery

Screenshot from a video by Piękny Kawaler showing the mock-up logo for the rejected White Eagle Wrestling name
Official KPW YouTube channel