16 YEARS AGO TODAY: I made my first ever trip to Coventry as independent British wrestling promotion the FWA presented it's biggest ever event, 'British Uprising 3' in front of 1,800 people at the SkyDome. The height of their growth, and the beginning of their downfall.
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In the late 1990s & into the early 2000s, British wrestling was mainly of the AMERICAN WRESTLING LIVE-type touring shows, that would roll into your local town hall, put on a one-off night of family-friendly fun, then move on to the next town, coming back 6-12 months later.
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There had indeed been a few attempts at bigger, TV-style promotions (such as UWA & UCW) and shows for the 'hardcore' newsletter-reading, tape-trading fans (e.g. WrestleXpress, the EWA shows with Sabu & RVD), but all were either one-offs or had outright failed.
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FWA had originally been founded in 1999 in Portsmouth as the 'Fratton Wrestling Association', but had branched out into the London area, merged with Capital City Wrestling and transformed into the Frontier Wrestling Alliance. By the early 2000s, they were leading the way.
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FWA featured storylines and characters fans could follow from show-to-show. Matches were exciting, styled more like US indies. They had a branded ring & entrance, used ringside barriers, and put out merch like video tapes and FWA t-shirts, all things no-one else was doing.
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In 2002-3, FWA featured heavily on the TalkSport wrestling radio show and were the force behind the 'SWAT Revival' event at Crystal Palace that drew 2,000 live and aired on Bravo. They were attracting travelling fans from across the UK to their shows, including yours truly
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The shows were great. The in-ring action was more appealing than you could see anywhere in the UK, they were using exciting imports you'd only ever see on imported videotapes, the storylines were creative and engaging, and there was a real sense of community in the fanbase
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The Wrestling Channel launched on Sky TV in 2004 and FWA struck a deal to be the sole British promotion featured on the platform, so their weekly show, storylines and wrestlers could now (potentially, at least) been seen in millions of households.
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Off the back of the exposure on The Wrestling Channel, FWA decided the time was right to run their most ambitious event yet. And so, it was announced that the 3rd incarnation of their big annual 'British Uprising' supershow would be held at the 3,500 seat Coventry SkyDome.
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Bear in mind that, despite their growth and well-deserved praise for their shows, FWA was still mainly only running 300-500 seat halls in London suburbs at that time, peaking at the 700-900 they had put in London's York Hall for the 3 supershows they'd done there in 2002-3.
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This was definitely a step up. Coventry 'sounded' about right for a 'next level' British show: central for travelling and, being an ice hockey arena, the kind of size that we don't really have many of in the UK, bigger than 1k seat town halls but smaller than 8k arenas .
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The monthly FWA live events and weekly TV show did a marvellous job of building all the storylines so that they peaked perfectly for the November mega-card. This genuinely AWESOME video played at just about every ad break on TWC, hyping every match:

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While great storylines helped sell tickets to existing fans, FWA recognised more was necessary to do the kind of numbers necessary for a place like SkyDome, so arranged to bring in legendary wrestling personalities Terry Funk and 'Mouth of the South' Jimmy Hart.
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And, while that might satisfy hardcore fans, though he wasn't an FWA regular "COVENTRY'S OWN THUNDER" (big scary bloke in WWF Warlord gear, son of World of Sport wrestler Tony 'Banger' Walsh) was plastered all over the posters in an attempt to attract the local families.
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Another attempt to gain publicity for the show came with the involvement of British boxer Danny Williams, who had just hit the headlines when he stopped Mike Tyson and was going to be brought in for a role on the show. They did an angle at FWA 'Hotwired' to set it all up.
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Williams and his entourage were sat in the front row at that Broxbourne Civic Hall event, introduced to the crowd, waved and watched the show. Lead heel Alex Shane came out and did a promo calling him, and I quote, a "gayboy", and the pair got into a wild pull-apart brawl.
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The angle did hit mainstream press, and Danny Williams was announced as guest enforcer for the Alex Shane-Doug Williams British Heavyweight Title match at Uprising. That fell apart when Danny was offered a world title fight against Vitali Klitschko and pulled out to train.
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There was also TNA and ROH star AJ Styles, who was featuring prominently across Wrestling Channel programming at the time, and one of the hottest talents in the world. He'd done multiple shows for FWA in the past, including 'Vendetta' that summer, which set up this return.
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The day arrived. We drove to Coventry in time for the Fan Slam, held in Jumpin' Jaks nightclub. I stocked up on the latest ROH & Japanese tapes from the Outcast Video stall and listened to Terry Funk give the most polite, humble Q&A session you'll ever hear. Lovely bloke. [cont]

We had gone for the £60 tickets, which included a front row seat in the arena, free poster, programme, a t-shirt and early entry for 2 extra matches. The t-shirt was one of FWA's best ever designs, but for some reason they put it on the back and, ern, NOTHING on the front:
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At the time, I'd been doing bits of writing for 'Frontier News', the fanzine/programme that was sold at FWA events. I was asked to write a couple of match previews for the Uprising 3 programme and did so, but they ended up using a different team and so weren't used. Poo.
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As was the running joke with FWA, they started late and had to start letting 'general' ticket holders in while the 2 extra matches for premium ticket holders were going on. I don't remember much about the 6-man tag, but the Colt Cabana-Dirk Feelgood match was really fun.
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Now with everyone in, the place looked half empty. Because it was. They'd managed to draw 1,800 people, easily FWA's biggest ever attendance and massive by independent wrestling standards, but leaving whole areas of the 3,500 seat SkyDome completely empty. It 'looked' bad.
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They'd clearly over-estimated the ceiling of interest for this type of British wrestling show, or potentially over-estimated the effect/influence of their weekly TWC TV show. It was too big. People sat back in the half-empty stands told me they felt detached from the show.
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Oh well. I bought multiple Rollover hotdogs, that are a hollowed-out BAGUETTE with a sausage slipped in the gap. AMAZING. Also took advantage of AT SEAT SERVICE for bottles of lager, that brilliantly kept cold on the floor by virtue of fact it was an ice rink underneath.
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Despite the fantastic build up for months, a lot of the big show just simply didn't deliver on the night in this place, and much of British Uprising 3 had to be considered a disappointment from the fans' perspective. There wasn't much noise and loads just fell flat.
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The main show opener was the "Next Generation 3-Way" between Ross Jordan (now RJ Singh), Spud (now Drake Maverick) and Aviv Maayan (now gone), showcasing new, young stars & styled to be the sequel to the much-praised 3-way opener of 'British Uprising 1' two years prior.
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This one was a good match, with clever moves and fast-paced action. Unfortunately, the bit I remember it most for was Spud puking up during the closing stages of the match, poor lad.
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Hade Vansen vs Jack Xavier was a Last Man Standing rematch of a double-KO they'd done that summer. It wasn't great. It kinda lacked drama and the crowd wasn't hot for it, despite a big guardrail spot.

I'm afraid I cannot remember a thing about D-Lo Brown vs. Mark Belton.

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Terry Funk, Burchill & Paul Travell (managed by 'Twisted Genius' Dean Ayass) took on Drew McDonald, Thunder & Raj Ghosh (with Greg 'The Truth' Lambert) playing up the rivalry between the managers and using Jimmy Hart as ref. Unfortunately, as a match, this was crap.
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A plodding, directionless, slow-motion brawl, dominated by the heels and giving the goodies nothing, that lacked any kind of drama or build and thus got zero crowd reaction. Crap, really, though I really did appreciate the opportunity to see Terry Funk wrestle live.

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Next, they did an angle where the BANNED Jonny Storm (he'd lost a stipulation match earlier that year to cover for fact he was doing a Scott Conway Thailand tour) came out and presented his petition to be reinstated. He was attacked by heels Mark Belton & James Tighe.
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During his "absence", the TV show had been airing Jonny's "video postcards" from Thailand, that were hilariously actually clearly filmed on the beach at FWA regular stop MORECAMBE. He'd then 'invaded' FWA shows and got fans to sign his petition, turning him babyface.
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The tag title match fell flat. Hampton Court (Duke of Danger & Simmons) were usually one of FWA's most popular acts, and the Stevie Knight-Mark Sloan double-act had been legit comedy gold on the TV show, but this match just didn't work on this occasion with this crowd.
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The Doug Williams vs. Alex Shane title match was the "real" main event, in that most of the TV build and live show storylines had emphasised it. They were arguably FWA's biggest babyface and heel, who'd been kept apart in-ring for years. A TalkSport presenter was the ref.
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This was one match that I thought was very good on the day; exciting and dramatic. The ref went down; Alex tried to cheat. ULF HERMAN, who had been absent from FWA since Shane turned on him a year ago, returned to stop him, but accidentally hit Doug & cost him the title.
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So AJ Styles vs. James Tighe went on last; Tighe headlining Uprising for 2nd year running. The pair had had a genuinely awesome match in the summer, where Tighe had turned heel and tricked the ref into DQing AJ, so expectations were high for this 30min Iron Man rematch.
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Unfortunately this wasn't anywhere near as good, mainly due to the stipulation. I mean it was decent, probably very good "wrestling wise", but it didn't end up particularly interesting, and had a real lack of drama. AJ was just ahead on the scores, and time just ran out.
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The post-match, show-closing angle was really good, though: Mark Belton came back to help Tighe beat up AJ, which brought out Jonny Storm looking for revenge from earlier on. Storm was also beaten down, until Jody Fleish ran out to make his big comeback and save the day.
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One of FWA's top stars, Fleisch had been gone for 18 months after mysteriously & suddenly "retiring" amongst much rumour. He'd been announced as making an appearance, and did so to clean house and hit a fantastic springboard shooting star press to the baddies on the floor
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We decided to sack-off the post-show meet & greet session (which was included in our expensive tickets) in favour of hitting the town, ending up in Jumpin' Jaks, where nearly all the wrestlers ended up (expect D-Lo, who bouncers didn't let in in his bumbag and trackies...)
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And *that* brought the curtain down on FWA's biggest show, the peak that their fantastic 2002-2004 was all built to... and probably a key point in their eventual downfall.

'Uprising 3' in the half empty Cov SkyDome reportedly made a loss of TWENTY-FOUR THOUSAND POUNDS.

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Despite their all cult popularity, attention and rave reviews, FWA was still a promotion mainly being run on a show-to-show shoestring budget, with multiple parties having elements of control and shows being run using a network of local promoters. Something had to change.
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Going into 2005, with backstage changes to the way they were being run, "FWA on a budget" wasn't what their fans, who'd been seeing shows crafted to their specific tastes, were used to seeing. Creative was all over the place as they tried new ideas & characters to make up
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Other upstart promotions run by former FWA insiders like IPW:UK, LDN and SAS started doing "the FWA thing" (i.e. storyline shows you could follow, with a few exciting imports) better than FWA themselves. 1PW came along with *all* imports. FWA stopped being as interesting.
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FWA's Morecambe shows were already their own thing and run to a better template, but 'down south' it all went wrong through 2005. There was no signature Uprising supershow that year. And if 2005 was a downward spiral for FWA, then 2006 was where it collapsed altogether.
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Back to 'British Uprising 3' itself, the show did air on The Wrestling Channel a few weeks later, WITHOUT the Styles-Tighe main event, which was kept as a DVD exclusive. I didn't bother buying the 'official' release of this one, there wasn't much I wanted to see again.
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From a personal perspective, the big show might not have lived up to the lofty expectations or FWA's own standards at the time, but I cannot say that I did not thoroughly enjoy the day, night and all the fun that came with the, *sigh*, "away day". Great memories of it.
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As with nearly all of FWA's output, the full British Uprising 3 show can be watched on The FWA Files' channel on YouTube. This was a big, defining event of the era and still worth a look:

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