David Starr bids farewell to wXw

[cero2k]

Source: f4wonline.com

Coming out of his title vs. wXw career match during 16 Carat Gold weekend, David Starr has bid farewell to wXw.

Starr tweeted Monday that "I won’t go into further details regarding wXw on this platform and idk when/if I will in any public setting. Like I said, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences and that this mutual decision was one that neither of us wanted to make. I love wXw & always will."

wXw Unified Wrestling Champion Bobby Gunns retained against Starr in their title vs. wXw career match at 16 Carat Gold night two on Saturday. Starr then gave an emotional farewell speech to close the show.

wXw tweeted after the match "Thank you for everything, @TheProductDS - we will miss you. #wXw16Carat"

Dave Meltzer discussed the situation on Wrestling Observer Radio overnight, saying that details are still forthcoming, but "essentially WWE made it such that [wXw and Starr] could not work together anymore." Meltzer also noted that Starr hasn't wrestled for PROGRESS Wrestling -- which also has a relationship with WWE -- in recent months.

During a match with WALTER for OTT Wrestling last June, there was a spot where Starr stomped on WALTER's NXT United Kingdom title belt. Meltzer wrote at the time: "WWE didn’t approve the David Starr stomping on Walter’s NXT U.K. title belt. Nobody knew ahead of time. Walter and Starr made the call to shock people live knowing it would get over huge. As you can imagine, the reaction from WWE was not positive. Many wrestlers thought it was disrespectful and the higher-ups weren’t happy either."

Starr has also been a vocal supporter for unionization in professional wrestling.

Starr is OTT's World Champion and is set to face Jon Moxley at ScrapperMania 6 in Dublin, Ireland this Saturday.

[cero2k]

wWe iSNt hURtInG tHE eUroPeAn sCeEEenN!

[NWK2000]

wWe iSNt hURtInG tHE eUroPeAn sCeEEenN!

Idk why people are announcing this like it's new. Where there's a boom there's a fall, and corporations make it worse.

[Thelone]

wWe iSNt hURtInG tHE eUroPeAn sCeEEenN!

WOS and 5* did a lot more to hurt the UK scene than WWE if you ask me. Frankly, they probably did the scene a favor by poaching a bunch of talent who were hogging the spotlight in 16-18.

As for Starr burning more bridges with SHOCK VALUE, he'll either end up becoming the pro wrestling version of Jean-Marc Bosman with the boys making bank (or whatever he's trying to do with this union thing) while he's completely forgotten, or keep burning bridges while nothing changes to the point where he'll have to end his career and move on to something else entirely, or he's gonna have to go against his principles/ideals to keep his career afloat.

[Big Red Machine]

wWe iSNt hURtInG tHE eUroPeAn sCeEEenN!

Or maybe it was time that they both felt they needed some time apart (these companies- and especially wXw- have done works like this before). It's not like no wrestling company has ever gone back on a stipulation before. Hell, wXw was planning on doing so this very weekend from a stipulation last year about Melanie Gray not being allowed to wrestle in Oberhausen anymore, but they did a storyline and made it work.

You're acting like WWE hasn't let European promotions use their guys on the regular. They've been much nicer to the European promotions than they have to North American ones, and the indy scene in North America is stronger than it has ever been before.

And as for Starr... he brought this upon himself. He didn't need to turn WWE (or Sinclair, for that matter) into his own targets. But he has, because it's a cheap pop. I don't doubt that he believes everything he says, but let's face it: NJPW could also afford to give their employees healthcare but don't (they're parent company is pretty damn rich), but no one calls them out for that. Unionization is great, but it requires the workers to want to organize. If they wanted to, all of the talent in WWE could go to Vince tomorrow and say "we're forming a union" and Vince would have to go along with it. But they don't, because the vast majority of them clearly don't care enough. They're happy with how they're treated from a compensatory standpoint (creatively is a different issue).

[Big Red Machine]

wWe iSNt hURtInG tHE eUroPeAn sCeEEenN!

Idk why people are announcing this like it's new. Where there's a boom there's a fall, and corporations make it worse.

Except there hasn't been a fall (other than RevPro creatively because of their obsession with putting over NJPW guys). The European wrestling scene is at the healthiest it has been since CWA died off and the UK scene lost TV in 93.

[cero2k]

Except there hasn't been a fall (other than RevPro creatively because of their obsession with putting over NJPW guys). The European wrestling scene is at the healthiest it has been since CWA died off and the UK scene lost TV in 93.

we get it, you like WWE, but you're delusional, many companies had to close doors last year, we can say it's 'ok', but healthiest? that's just bubble talk now

[Big Red Machine]

Except there hasn't been a fall (other than RevPro creatively because of their obsession with putting over NJPW guys). The European wrestling scene is at the healthiest it has been since CWA died off and the UK scene lost TV in 93.

we get it, you like WWE, but you're delusional, many companies had to close doors last year, we can say it's 'ok', but healthiest? that's just bubble talk now

1. Not that many closed up last year, and for the ones who did, it was inevitable at some point. there are only so many wrestling fans with only so much money to spend and only so much time to go to shows.
2. The ones that are drawing are drawing a lot more than they ever have before.
3. It's not a matter of "liking" WWE or not. It's a matter of numbers.
4. You're pretending that it's just WWE who are signing up regular UK/Euro talent. I'd bet that losing the ability to use Ospreay(NJPW), Zack (NJPW), Jimmy Havoc (AEW), and Marty Scurll (ROH) on a regular basis has done just as much damage than WWE giving themselves first priority on WALTER, Ilja, British Strong Style, Toni Storm, and Jinny. It's not like these people aren't allowed to work in the UK and Germany anymore. They work there certain indies all the time. Part of the reason that PROGRESS, OTT, wXw have been able to rise up when IPW:UK closed up is that they've done a great job of building up their own stars. This part year in wXw was all about building up guys like the Pretty Bastards, Veit Muller, and Julian Pace. PROGRESS have put a lot of effort into the OJMO and DNR. A lot of those other companies were just using the big indy names that were available rather than building up their own talent base.