A love letter to MPW & LEVEL UP | Lam Son POV
“Wrestling is a love story” ~ Cody Rhodes
For well over a year my eyes have been on Southern California’s Wrestling Schools Millennium Pro Wrestling (Chatsworth) and Level Up Pro Wrestling (San Diego). How did I got into the two promotions? Let us take a look back.
Due to the global pandemic (started in 2020) I was in a 6 month lockdown from Mid December till June 2021. At the time – except for WWE & AEW running shows -United Wrestling Network got into hiatus and Dustin Starr’s Memphis Wrestling just kicked off. Despite having new & fresh Wrestling content every week I was curious what talents are around Southern California – who weren’t on TV. What talents are considered undiscovered diamonds in that area?
Thanks to social media I saw that some wrestlers are connected to different Wrestling schools & promotions like Jordan Cruz & Sweet Robin Shaw, two I saw every week on Championship Wrestling From Hollywood. So I contacted Robin Shaw on social media and asked him out about Level Up Pro Wrestling. He explained to me that Level Up Pro Wrestling is a Wrestling school around the San Diego area and is run by B-Boy. He recommended that I should take a look at the Showcase Matches that are on Youtube right now as they uploaded matches every week. Those Showcase Matches showed the students of the school – which I’m a big fan of because I love to see the development of Wrestlers. Thanks to the Showcase Matches I got to see J2 Mattioli, Michael Hopkins, DTF, Remi, Sexy Fabrizio, Leo Canedo, Cameron August, KC Douglas, CJ Tino & Rebel Storm in 2020 and was blown away by their development from Month to Month while they compete against each other and against established names like Jordan Cruz or Robin Shaw. 1 Year later most of them are established. Some of them debuted on TV for United Wrestling Network, some of them are wrestling around Southern California, Las Vegas & Arizona to build their brand. Meanwhile a new crop of talents made their debuts like Jeff Roth, Rev. Bishop Thunderbird, Los Otros, Bamboo, Flama De Oro, Sunset Tiger, Xander Phillips, SDC and more! And this is not the end… And more talents are ready to make their debut as Singles & Tag Teams. But not only did I saw the development in-ring but also how the talents developed their characters and got more confident in front of the camera by cutting promo and stuff.
I asked Referee Allison Leigh – who is now located in Tennessee and worked for United Wrestling Network’s Championship Wrestling From Hollywood & Arizona – about which promotions (they had to be on Youtube) I should have a eye on. One of the promotions she mentioned was Millennium Pro Wrestling. Lucky enough around the same time Millennium Pro Wrestling just returned to live action. I knew Ray Rosas was involved in it because I saw the name “Millennium Pro Wrestling” on some of his promos so I know how to rate how good a talent is when he faces Ray Rosas. Luckly there were other talents I knew from previous CWFH appearences like Vinny Wasco, Brendan Divine. Through out multiple months I got more and more into the MPW wrestlers like Miggy Rose, Danny Divine, Diego Valens, Full Send, Barbie Boi, Johnnie Robbie and more. I was blown away from Johnnie Robbie – who technically just started her Rookie year and could hang with the best of the bests in MPW in the ring. I notice how important it is to tell stories – something MPW takes a lot of pride doing so. Like seeing the Fall & Rise of Barbie Boi in 2021 was a huge story making him a Main Eventer. Or Johnnie Robbie from being a Referee to one of the SoCal Rookie Of The Year 2021. Or how Auntie Hydie’s Void turned J2 Mattioli into this unbeatable monster until The Rebel Storm saved him from the spell. Or now this year with Duke Bennett who just won the California Classic.
One year later Millennium Pro Wrestling & Level Up Pro Wrestling are working close together with talents wrestling on both shows and creating new fresh up matches & stories. A lot of talents using that to create & try new things out. Some challenged for the titles in the other promotion and some even won the titles like J2 Mattioli and Rebel Storm. And some deliever SoCal MOTY candidates on MPW & Level Up.
While Santino Bros is considered by most as THE wrestling school in Southern California, I think Millennium Pro Wrestling & Level Up Pro Wrestling are heavly overlooked. If you look at most SoCal Promotion Matchcards a lot of the talents on it are from MPW or Level Up. Because they got overlooked I tried my hardest to put the word for both Promotion by tweeting about them constantly every week. Thanks to Jay Cal from The Alliance-Wrestling I was able to write articles about them as well. My support for this wonderful group of talents didn’t stay unnotice by the talents as I grow a great relationship with them. Thanks to Robin Shaw I even got a Shirt “I’m A Lam Son Guy” and was overwhelmed by pictures of the MPW & Level Up Wrestlers wearing that shirt. Even loyal MPW Fans like Liz from MPW Xpress & Alex Blowcone wore the shirts. Well… Some wore something else like The Shady Boyz who got themselves a “I’m Not A Lam Son Guy” shirt.
As a Wrestling Fan from Europe you never expected being conntected to the Wrestling business at any shape of form or get to be virtual friends with Wrestlers in America but thanks to Level Up Pro Wrestling & Millenmium Pro Wrestling it got even more real to me. While it all started with United Wrestling Network and my Fan Account @CWFHFanNews, the connection to MPW & LVL Up manifest it even more. I hope that my support is enough to get them enough attention around Southern California and beyond.
Hopefully I will be able to travel to America one day to see them all in action on Millennium Pro Wrestling, Level Up Pro Wrestling and United Wrestling Network and to tell all of them: Thank you.
Best regards
Lam Son