Resurgence, formerly Wrestling Resurgence, started out from a project at the Attenborough Arts Centre in Leicester and has rapidly claimed a place in my heart. Primarily hosting shows out of the same venue – but also having dalliances to Nottingham and once to Loughborough – their artistic, theatre-based approach has won many fans.
Their ideals are clear to see through the makeup of their roster – most of their shows feature around 50% women and yet they don’t shout about it. They just simply put on amazing cards and give good representation to a wide gamut of individuals and teams – including an amazing celebration of BAME wrestlers with their Everything Patterned show, which was curated by Roy Johnson.
Even with their choice of champions, they have shown their ideals. They’ve had Gene Munny – the nicest guy in wrestling, with a title reign that lasted much longer than Gene would have imagined. That’s not a knock on his ability but rather a reflection of how the scene treated him as a comedy guy. Through his defences against Chris Brookes and others, he proved his credentials and the title consequently had a lot of prestige associated with it.
Running parallel to this was a main event program between Kanji (my favourite) and Charli Evans – I know, a main program featuring women in a promotion that isn’t solely for women, who knew that was possible. These two took each other to the limit in an amazing Iron Woman match, which gave Chevs the right to face Gene at the latest Resurgence show before the hiatus.
And it’s not just those two women that Resurgence elevate, they have memorable storylines with Chakara and Candy Floss, which has built to Chakara being on a tear and looking unbeatable.
Alongside that, there’s the dissolution of Sanitarium storyline, with Shax being unceremoniously dumped from the trio and all the conniving of Jayde and NightShade.
Given the plethora of storylines for the women, there’s the tag titles (now vacant) and a program between Cara Noir and Spike Trivet that involves male wrestlers aside from the developing thread between Charles Crowley and local boy Hari Singh.
It seems that there’s lots of representation and lots of good things coming from Resurgence. I was hyped to see how Chevs having the title would develop and whether Kanji could get it from her given their history and then COVID happened.
This caused a pause to proceedings, and the Speaking Out movement happened. All those brave enough to speak out, and those who have stories but aren’t ready to speak have my full support. I don’t want to come back to wrestling shows until wrestling has cleaned up; and from the looks of things, Resurgence have a similar mindset. That’s not to treat Speaking Out as a roadblock in any way, because it’s absolutely not. The point is, if wrestling is not a safe place for fans and wrestlers, then it shouldn’t be happening.
I’m aware they are putting together a safeguarding policy and I am confident in them ensuring that it is rigorous enough to keep fans and wrestlers safe. This company has their hearts in the right place and when they return I am certain that it will only be when the time is right.