The Colossal Wrestling league. A medium sized e-wrestling federation that stated off in 2001 and is right now, as you read this, trying to make a comeback in the E-world. But, then again, aren’t there hundreds of Feds out there that fill this description? Maybe. But the CWL has been so much more in their tiny existence, making an impact worth mentioning in the lore that is e-wrestling. Let me explain.

When the CWL opened it’s doors it was just another typical Geocities Fed; low roster size and a low profile. Geocities Feds were coming and going at an alarming rate back then with most hardly getting noticed or remembered. But what made the CWL different in the e-fedding game is the players that have come throught it. Roleplaying wrestlers may have come and gone but a lot have gone on to bigger things taking their Colossal experience with them. The GWL, WCW, DCW, REVOLUTION, GW, XOW, and TDW have all been started up by former CWL roster members with the XOW actually still running. Two e-Feds in particular, Revolution Wrestling and the Global Wrestling League have actually been 5-star rated e-Feds on the old X-net site, back when such ratings meant a great deal. Colossal itself has also reached the 3 star category along the way even thou their roster size never reached higher than 12 in number.

A former heavyweight champion, Mad Dog Murdock went on to form the Global Wrestling League… Wheat City Wrestling, their training Fed was run by an unknown CWL roster member. Dynamite Championship Wrestling and Revolution Wrestling were formed by Slayer… Global Warfare was owned by either Bram or Kid Heart… XOW was started by Mr.Cool It… and Total Domination Wrestling was formed by Catastrophe. That’s a lot of fed heads from one place. As a matter of fact the CWL spinoff Fed GWL itself has produced a few roster members going onward to becoming owners as well. Pitbull Holmes, has created the EGWL(since changed to the UWF) and Scythe Reavers started R.O.P.E. All may not have occurred had not the CWL been in business.

Items that I have found in the archives, that used to be available on the CWL include:

A merchandise page. This page had graphics showing CWL wrestling merchandise such as packaged action figures, DVD’s, books, and t-shirts. Everything you’d expect to find from a ‘real” wrestling federation.

An accounting page: Actually, several pages, giving in minute detail the financial structure of the federation… from employee salaries, insurance costs, office supplies, attendance revenue, TV Production costs and merchandise sales.

A nice touch. I can see why CWL roster members had such a positive experience playing in the old CWL.

In it’s hey days, of 2002-03, the CWL was quietly going about it’s business of giving players a place to enjoy themselves. As far as I can discover from interviewing past roster members and owners, is that the CWL was never a highly publicized Federation. Aside from a posting on X-Net, the CWL relied on people stumbling across them on Geocities. So, all those bad recruiting practices of trolling other fed forums, spamming other wrestlers, or roster stealing were not practiced by the owners of the CWL, and such, probably passed on to it’s roster members. I’ve also poured over the forums OOC archives and found no mention of any late results or questionable judging either. 3 years with a single case of late results? Wow, now that sets a good example indeed. Another set of traits no doubt passed on to it’s members for them to carry on to their own Feds.

So it seems the CWL may have made a positive impact on a lot of people, because after they left the CWL they not only remained in e-wrestling, they made carried on to make their own impact in the e-wrestling world.

And I highly doubt there are hundreds of Feds that fit ‘that” description.