From www.pwinsider.com- Big Vision Entertainment will be running a 10 year anniversary for Xtreme Pro Wrestling (XPW) on Saturday 8/1 in California. The plan is for the show to feature local wrestlers from California only, as opposed to a ton of fly-ins from outside of the area as a number of former XPW locals had been pushing to commemorate the anniversary. No venue has been booked yet for the event.

XPW ran from 1999-2003, mostly out of California, although the company would late branch out into running Philadelphia and Pittsburg in latter years. Formed by porn guru Rob Zicari (who appeared on camera as Rob Black), it was heavy on blood and shock value and played itself as something of a rebel enemy to the original Extreme Championship Wrestling, based on legitimate grudges between Zicari and then-ECW owner Paul Heyman after a fallout of some sort.

Perhaps the company’s most infamous moment came during an incident at the 2000 ECW Heatwave PPV in Los Angeles where a number of XPW performers were ejected from the front row during the main event, leading to a street fight between the ECW locker room, including Heyman, and a number of XPW personalities. Although it was long assumed that one of the talents was physically involved with ECW manager Francine, she noted in a Ring of Honor shoot interview that she was never accosted during the incident.

Among the California talents that worked regularly for XPW are The Messiah, Supreme, Jasmin St. Claire, Vic Grimes, Kaos and White Trash Johnny Webb. The company would also regularly use former ECW talents that left the promotion as well including Sabu, the late Big Dick Dudley, The Public Enemy, Chris Candido, Shane Douglas, and Axl Rotten. Additional talents that would later appear included Juventud Guerrera, Terry Funk, and Psicosis, among others.

The promotion ran weekly TV in Los Angeles and later Philadelphia. The XPW insurgence into the former ECW Arena sparked a hot period for Philadelphia’s indy scene with a number of companies all running at once in the market, including CZW, Ring of Honor, and XPW with XPW painting themselves as the enemy coming into the market looking to take over. At one point, they even leased the ECW Arena, locking all other independent promotions from running the facility.

XPW shuttered operations in April 2003 when Zicari and wife Lizzy Borden (also an on-air performer for the company) were indicted on obscenity charges due to pornographic material produced by XPW’s parent company, Extreme Associates, being sent via the United States mail service to Pittsburgh. Zicari and Borden plead guilty as part of a plea bargain earlier this year.

Zicari would later sell the XPW trademarks, library, and name to Xtreme Entertainment Group (XEG), which handled video tape releases for the company. Houston Curtis, current CEO of Big Vision, was a partner in XEG at the time, which is how that circle all comes together.