FCW closing down

From eWrestling

WWE officials notified Bright House Network Monday that they have opted to cease their affiliation with the Florida based sports network as they are shutting down Florida Championship Wrestling effective immediately. Florida Championship Wrestling programming, which was taped last Thursday in Tampa, Florida, will cease to air on the network in three weeks.

Everyone involved with Florida Championship Wrestling will relocate to WWE's homebase in Stamford, Connecticut until a further decision regarding the developmental program is made.

WWE employees were given the impression that a developmental promotion will ultimately open in Connecticut with the possibility of a second at an undetermined location.

The promotion was started by former wrestler Steve Keirn in 2007 to be WWE's second developmental promotion when they ended their relationship with the Georgia-based Deep South Wrestling in early 2007. It became their sole developmental promotion in early 2008 when they ceased affiliation with Ohio Valley Wrestling.


On a personal note I hope this has no effect on the wrestlers currently in FCW as there is some real quality in there at present.

Not a big loss really. FCW has produced some of the blandest and subpar "superstars" in recent years. Anyone who has been good thats passed through FCW was already good before they got there, and many have come out worse.

The work Ohio Valley did was infinitely superior.

perhaps they will use NXT as this kind of show

That's what I was thinking Tooze. NXT would be ideal all they need to do is introduce a NXT belt and maybe a tag belt too if tag team is ever going to be taken seriously again.

I think it would be a good idea, gets them used to a decent sized crowd too

I always recall Gaffer having a great idea along those lines that a belt to be used on NXT that could only be fought for by people that haven't another belt yet in WWE and had to be within the first 12 months of their career on TV.

Cutting promo on NXT would be much better experience i imagine than at the FCW. I know a lot of the FCW stuff was recorded but the equipment at NXT set up is bound to be on a par with RAW and SD compared to an FCW set up.

I am only generating this idea from my expeirence of promoing in the 6WF though so could be wrong.

Another thing is that they want to hold out series' of NXT for as long as possible. Wouldnt it make more sense to get rid of the season asspect of it and have it as an WWECW sort of show with a full roster?

Agreed although I'd quite like it if there was cross over with superstars also as a proper halfway house program.

If they are going to use NXT for this they could even use a tournament style format once every few months in which the winner gets promoted to the main roster on Raw/SD. Something abit different maybe even have the tournament as a stand alone PPV available online.....but as I said only once a every few months so its not an overhaul of new stars coming onto the scene

The draft would also have meanin if this idea was brought forward.

The latest on it:


Monday night, an unreliable online news source published an erroneous report that WWE was shutting down operations of our developmental facility, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW). In order to set the record straight, WWE.com interviewed WWE’s Executive Vice President of Talent, Paul Levesque (also known as WWE Superstar Triple H) to address this issue.

“It is absolutely not true. FCW is not closing,” Triple H said. “I don’t know how the rumor started but I believe it’s a situation where the ‘dirt sheets’ want to believe they have the scoop on everything. If anything, we are in the process of ramping up our entire developmental system. It’s the lifeblood of our company. It’s what feeds our future and in no way are we going to close it down.”

Levesque also addressed plans to relocate training or FCW TV tapings out of its home of Tampa, Fla.

“There are plans in the works, but nothing definitive I can discuss right now,” he said. “Shortly after WrestleMania, there will be a major announcement about our developmental system.”

He continued, “WWE’s developmental system is being revamped, not shut down. If anything, it’s going to get bigger and better than ever. WWE Developmental cultivates the future talent of WWE. By no means is it going to get smaller or shut down.”