How Pro Wrestling Stereotypes Almost Canceled Wrestle Circus

At about an hour and a half into Wrestle Circus’ Raise The Curtain event, they aired a mini-documentary which told the story of the nightmare they had to go through in order to make the show possible.

Wrestle Circle had a stacked card for the show including Shane Strickland vs Penta El Zero M and Tessa Blanchard vs Chelsea Green. Plenty of tickets had been sold for the show as well and they had a dedicated fanbase ready to watch it all go down on Twitch.

However, the Austin-based promotion was plagued with a last minute venue change due to the stigma attached to pro wrestling and they were forced to scramble in search of a new venue.

It seems their previous home of 800 Congress in Austin, Texas was no longer an option. Wrestle Circus announced their time was up in the building and hinted that an ordeal before a show didn’t help things for them. The venue also priced them out of the space by tripling the rent cost per show.

Wrestle Circus found another venue to house Raise The Curtain. But two days before the show, the owner of the building found out it would be a pro wrestling show so he pulled the plug.

They didn’t want the liability of housing a pro wrestling event on their hands and that didn’t just include the action in the ring. Fans are also a problem as they can stereotypically damage the building, not to mention fight in the crowd.

Even though Wrestle Circus takes on one million dollars of liability for each event they still couldn’t secure a lease with a building. It was said they got down to the final paperwork two times to lease a building but each time when the landlord found out they were a pro wrestling company the deal was killed.

This stigma was enough to cause the owners to force Wrestle Circus into full-on damage control the day before their event as they scurried to secure another venue at the last minute.

I highly doubt the owner of the building looked Wrestle Circus up or he would have discovered they are one of the top indie promotions in North America in regards to match quality and overall talent. But unfortunately, Wrestle Circle fell victim to an uninformed preconception of what pro wrestling is like. This is why as pro wrestling fans it is so important to be on your best behavior while at events.

Thankfully, Wrestle Circus found a new venue pulled off an outstanding show for Raise The Curtain and you can check out the event on Twitch here. Everything seemed to go off without a hitch, but it just goes to show there could be more drama going on behind the scenes than in the ring.