5 Worst Wrestling Promotions You May Not Have Heard Of
2. World Wrestling All-Stars
In 2001, the professional wrestling industry was in a state of flux.
Both WCW and ECW had died a death. The WWF's attempt to reanimate those corpses was, fittingly, a monstrosity. The overflowing talent pool was left with three options. 1) Accept the offer of a WWF contract and subject themselves to the defensive booking of Vince McMahon; 2) Sit at home and feast on the spoils of a cushy Time Warner contract or; 3) In the absence of any overtures from the WWF, ply their trade in one of several enterprising offshoots designed to capitalise on the decimated wider landscape.
One such offshoot was World Wrestling All-Stars - a company which came into existence following the demise of WCW and still plagiarised the hell out of it. WCW encapsulated its failure to tap into the mainstream pulse by paying relic rockers KISS an extortionate amount of money to perform on Nitro. Failing to understand the young adult-oriented world around him, WWA promotor Andrew McManus installed kids' TV performers The Fruits to interfere in major matches on the company's first pay-per-view offering, The Inception, complete with Hulk Hogan-imitating crowd appeals.
Wrestling had never been more popular, and yet the WWA, with its homophobic leanings (as you might have guessed, much mileage was wrung from the "Fruits" double entendre) was hopeless in its attempts to sustain it. The matches, at least, were mercifully brief. The longest match at The Inception - the main event pitting WWF midcard talents Road Dogg and Jeff Jarrett - went just 10:26.
It felt far longer.