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American Wrestling Federation
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| American Wrestling Federation | |
|---|---|
| Details | |
| Acronym | AWF |
| Established | 1994 |
| Style | Professional wrestling |
| Location | Chicago, Illinois |
| Founder(s) | Paul Alperstein |
| Owner(s) | Paul Alperstein |
The American Wrestling Federation (AWF), was a national professional wrestling federation founded by Paul Alperstein.
Contents |
Alperstein, a promoter from Chicago, founded the AWF in 1994 and was on-air president of the company.
He intended to reintroduce rules as a significant part of professional wrestling. This was carried out by the use of timed rounds and judges in every match, which is similar to the rules of professional wrestling in Europe.
Each round was four minutes long with a one-minute rest period between rounds. Title bouts were scheduled for twelve rounds while all other fights were scheduled for three. One referee and two judges were assigned to each match. The winner of each round was decided by both the judges' scorecards and the referee's scorecard. If a match lasted the full amount of scheduled rounds, the winner was declared as whoever had the majority of points on each of the three scorecards.
Another rule implemented was that throwing opponents over the top rope resulted in an automatic disqualification.
Only a few wrestlers in this organization had experience in European wrestling, most notably England's Chris Adams and "Mr. Ambassador" Steve Casey (not to be confused with the World Class wrestler of the same name).
Jim Brunzell was named AWF commissioner by Alperstein in hopes that he would make sure the above rules were enforced.
The promotion held several house shows and was building towards a Pay Per View event, but closed in December 1996 for financial reasons.
Tito Santana defended The AWF Championship Belt on a National Championship Wrestling event in York, Pennsylvania against former AWF wrestler Salvatore Sincere. The storyline was that Santana had dodged Sincere during their AWF days in the mid 90s and Santana agreed to put the belt on the line against Sincere. Santana won the match for his last title defense, albeit unofficial.
In 1995, the company introduced a program called "Warriors of Wrestling" for syndication. The initial run consisted of footage shot from 1994 to 1995.
The program resurfaced throughout the United States in late 1996 with new episodes.
The announce team consisted of Mick Karch as announcer and Terry Taylor as color commentator. Taylor was replaced by Lord Alfred Hayes in 1996.
Ken Resnick handled interview segments. He was replaced by Missy Hyatt in 1996.
In 2005, the entire run of 1995 episodes was released as a 4-disc DVD set by Highland Entertainment. It is unknown when or if a second volume will be released with the remaining episodes as there were many not in the DVD set.
As of January 2006, reruns can be seen on Europe's Clear Television via the Astra 1 cluster of satellites at 19.2°e.
| Wrestler: | Times: | Date: | Place: |
| Tito Santana | 1 | November 29, 1994 | Chicago (defeated Bob Orton Jr. in tournament final) |
| Bob Orton Jr. | 1 | October 5, 1996 | Fort Lauderdale, FL (defeated Tito Santana to win title) |
| Tito Santana | 2 | October 5, 1996 | Fort Lauderdale, FL (defeated Bob Orton Jr. to win title) |
| Wrestler: | Times: | Date: | Place: |
| Tommy Rich and Greg Valentine | 1 | May 21, 1995 | (defeated Koko B. Ware and Tony Atlas in tournament final) |