It seems as though every few years, one promotion in particular emerges to become the hotbed of indie wrestling during that period of time. This list includes early Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, and Game-Changer Wrestling, among others.
In the year of 2025, though, one indie promotion has arguably stood heads and shoulders over many promotions in the U.S. also having great years – DEADLOCK Pro-Wrestling.
The brainchild of content creators Anthony Douglas, James Darnell, and John Blud that started in 2021, spawning out of the trio’s successful and popular DEADLOCK Podcast, which itself began in 2019. Darnell, Blud, and Douglas quickly attracted a following online for their chemistry and selection of wrestling to talk about.
Then, the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 and the indies largely shut down. Some would run isolated shows with bare bones crews and no audience to stream on YouTube or Twitch. As the world started to reopen in 2021, the three jumped on an opening left by the pandemic, whether intentional or not. Wrestling fans searching YouTube or longtime podcast listeners who signed up to DPW On Demand would then discover DEADLOCK Pro-Wrestling, or DPW, Fire starting on December 11, 2021.
Over the next four years, the North Carolina-based promotion would grow in popularity with both fans and wrestlers. Within weeks, DPW would run its first internet pay-per-view and fans quickly appeared to attach to the idea of a new promotion truly “by fans, for fans.” The trio backed this up, too, as they would quickly bring in some of the biggest names available to work indies along with a collection of eye-catching rookies starting to appear along the Mid-Atlantic indie scene.
In turn, this meant DPW quickly became a destination spot for independent wrestlers looking to turn some heads. Established acts like ‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey and Bryan Keith before being signed by AEW helped provide some major credibility to the quality of the shows, backed up by an incredible crop of young names including Lucky Ali and Jay Malachi, both of whom are now signed to WWE. This told talent that “big eyes” are watching this place, so they need to get there.
If this sounds familiar to longtime indie wrestling fans, its akin to how hot Pro-Wrestling Guerilla got during the 2010s. Seemingly every big name working the indies visited the hot and small American Legion Hall in Reseda, California. Kevin Steen, El Generico, The Young Bucks, Ricochet, WALTER, and countless others worked PWG during this time before ending up in WWE or AEW by the time it was 2020.
DPW takes it a step further as active, contracted wrestlers to AEW/RoH continue to work the independent promotion fairly regularly. Queen Aminata, who has had a breakout 2025 on AEW TV, is the DPW Women’s World Champion at the time of this writing while Grizzled Young Veterans and The WorkHorsemen have previously been tag team champions.
Former-DPW Worlds Champion Adam Priest has also found his way to AEW TV, most recently tagging with Tommy Billington, though was reportedly still not under any contract as of this writing.
And DPW’s hot streak comes at a period where several promotions have seemingly been having hot streaks of shows. GCW, Defy, and Progress are just three of many independent global promotions all having very good 2025s in terms of show quality, and DPW, arguably, stands atop that.
Darnell, Blud, and Douglas aren’t wasting time in expanding DPW’s reach, either.
Along with DPW On Demand, DPW has partnered with Wrestle Universe to make their shows available on the wrestling streaming service alongside Pro-Wrestling Noah, DDT, and Tokyo Joshi-Pro, even growing to be able to tour Japan by 2023. It had also been running joint shows with West Coast Pro-Wrestling and Prestige Wrestling in the U.S., though Prestige is set to close its doors in 2025.
All this adds up to a company set to close out 2025 strong with two more shows as of November 2, 2025.
So if you consider yourself a true fan of indie wrestling, do yourself a favor and check out DPW to see some of the best in professional wrestling in 2025. And just support independent pro-wrestling in general, whether it be the promotions running shows or particular talent you want to see succeed.
Minimum Wage Nerd 