All-Star Championship Wrestling was an independent wrestling promotion existing in various incarnations from 1999 until 2005, when it was renamed NWA Wisconsin.

The promotion was founded by Michael Krause, also known as "Mike Mercury" in the wrestling world, along with the wrestler known as "Straight Edge" Eric Hammers. Taking advantage of the pro wrestling boom of 1998, with interest in WWF, WCW and ECW sky-high, All-Star Championship Wrestling (also known as ACW) offered Green Bay, Wisconsin area fans a steady dose of wrestling, during a time when the big promotions rarely put on shows in Wisconsin.

The federation ran its first show at the now-defunct Concert Cafe in Green Bay in 1999. Featuring a varied roster of performers, from noted indy talent Adam Pearce to Mercury and Hammers and others, the show immediately spawned loyal legions of fans from Green Bay to Manitowoc and beyond... which would serve the promotion well in the coming years.

ACW would then run shows in a bigger and more well-lit building: the indoor sand volleyball courts of The Watering Hole in nearby Howard, Wisconsin. Bringing on board more local, intense performers such as Kujo, the fire-spitting dark devil character Sam Hayne, "Pimp Daddy" Rob Norwood, Adrian Lynch, "Hillbilly" Shane Hills, and "Kamikaze" Ken Anderson (who would later go on to WWE fame as "Mr. Kennedy"), as well as ring announcer/play-by-play man Matt Byron, hated manager Angelo Stefano, and chief referee Gino Lanza, the action inside the ACW ring was quickly generating buzz.

Under the guiding hand of noted graphic artist TJ Rappel and Krushervision, the federation's website, www.acwprowrestling.com, had a leg up on other independent federations' online presence, thanks to a slick, professional look and active message board.

The federation then took itself to the next level when their efforts were noticed by a local TV station's photographer, who brought along his professional cohorts, including future booker, promoter and eventual owner Jason E. Jerry. Intrigued by this local phenomenon, the group (known as the A2NWO) worked with Krause and ACW management to produce an All-Star Championship Wrestling television show, debuting in September 2000. Episodes were taped during the course of an ACW show (starting at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, but primarily at The Watering Hole), and the night's card (order of matches) was split up into several weeks of television, aired Saturday nights at midnight on WACY-TV (UPN 32) in the Green Bay/Appleton market. The federation even commissioned a new championship for this new era to go with the heavyweight and tag-team belts: the ACW Television title.

Many experts in the pro wrestling field, and tape-traders the nation over, deemed ACW television as some of the best TV produced by independent wrestling companies, and some said even better than ECW's weekly television program nationally televised on TNN. The company put together episodes of TV taped from an individual show, complete with backstage interviews and sketches (the "Stefano Family Christmas" of 2000 is still talked about by tape traders to this date) and sold them under the brand name of ACW Home Video... a practice that continues to this day with the successor company, NWA Wisconsin.

ACW shows featured a wide variety of matches, from technical contests, to tag matches featuring flamboyant performers such as The GQ Centerfolds, to hardcore, battle-all-over-the-arena matches with Eric Hammers and "The Hardcore Luchador" Dino Bambino doing all sorts of leaps from very risky heights...and many more in-between. Perhaps ACW's best-known moment, however, was the Seasons' Beatings show in December 2000, where Sam Hayne's valet, Angelica, lit a folding table in the ring on fire, and Hayne powerbomed Bambino through it. The flames were very real, as Bambino was carried from the ring, and hospitalized with burns to his back.

During this period, the federation booked many formerly national performers for ACW shows, such as King Kong Bundy and George "The Animal" Steele, and current ones like WCW's Meng, and ECW's Simon Diamond and Jerry Lynn, further exciting causal and hardcore fans.

Unforseen events with equipment availability and personnel issues suspended the TV show in early 2001, but by April, television producer Jerry had assumed a larger role backstage, and helped put the company back on TV...this time on WIWB-TV (WB 14), on Saturday mornings. However, this run of television for the company, due to inferior equipment, did not look nearly as good as the earlier programming.

ACW management then made a deal with the promoters of Midwest Pro Wrestling (or MPW), based out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, to run an "invasion" angle, culminating in the two companies' merger. This plan led to many matches between wrestlers aligned with MPW (such as Sheriff Johnny Emerald, Shifty, and a young Shawn Daivari, currently seen on WWE television as "Khosrow Daivari") battling home-grown ACW veterans, such as Loker and Ruff Ryder Rashaan. To heat up the feud a little further, ACW wrestler Adrian Lynch, playing up his real-life Minnesota roots, turned heel on his ACW comrades and became the on-screen leader of the MPW invasion, culminating in a 6-on-6 cage loser-leaves-town match in September 2001's "Kickoff Karnage" show at The Watering Hole. This bloody affair (on a show which also saw Anderson also shed blood when he finally captured his first ACW heavyweight title from "God's Gift to Women" Kevin Krueger) gave the fans a surprise ending, when another ACW-to-MPW turncoat, Loker, revealed himself to be aligned with the hometown ACW after all, defeating Lynch and the Minnesota interlopers.

Behind the scenes, though, the merger was in full swing, and soon it was announced that ACW shows would now be presented under the MPW banner. The new management made a few changes, cancelling the TV show and booting what was left of the A2NWO out of the company, forcing them to sit in the stands to watch the show. This new arrangment lasted all of one show, "Revelations", before MPW retreated back to its home base of operations in Minneapolis, and Green Bay fans were left with no local pro wrestling federation nearby...the closest would be Carmine DiSpirito's Mid-American Wrestling (MAW) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

After finding sitting on the sidelines too grating, Jason Jerry, a few of his old A2NWO comrades, and others who missed the grand experiment that ACW had been, decided to start anew. Jerry secured the rights to the name "All-Star Championship Wrestling", and this time without Krause behind the scenes, re-started the company at "Rebirth" in Rockwood, Wisconsin, in 2002. The former television championship had been re-named the ACW Midwest title for this new era. Several vets of the old ACW, such as Horace the Psychopath, along with new talent like J-Cash, showed up for this new beginning. However, some fans, unhappy that not all their old favorites were there, were disappointed that it wasn't exactly like the old days.

The company continued under Jerry's leadership, but wrestling as a whole was on a downward trend. ACW had gone from drawing a reported 700 fans at The Watering Hole in 2000 to less than 100 at some shows in 2002 and [[2003], even at a new venue: the Neng Yee Performance Center in Green Bay, and even with such names as ex-WWF wrestler "Road Dogg" Jesse James in Kiel, Wsconsin. In an attempt to stop this trend and continue the company's evolution, Jerry affiliated the company with NWA Midwest, and re-named the federation ACW-NWA Wisconsin, thus gaining access to NWA titles and wrestlers, and becoming part of the rich tradition of the National Wrestling Alliance

Under this joint banner, Ed Chuman and NWA Midwest brought new talent to the ACW arenas, such as Colt Cabana, CM Punk, Austin Aries, the tag-team of "Spanish Stew" ("El Vato" Jose Guerrero and Dinn T. Moore), Chandler McClure, Bryce Benjamin, Joey Eastman, and "The Underwear Model" Eric Priest. NWA titles were also defended on ACW-NWA shows, such as the NWA Wisconsin title, and even the NWA Midwest X-Division title. Jerry also continued bringing in names from the past, such as Gangrel (who briefly held the ACW heavyweight title), Jerry "The King" Lawler, Raven, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, and The Honky Tonk Man. Jerry even commissioned the company's first new championship belt since the TV title in 2000: the ACW X-Division title, keeping in the new spirit coming from NWA-TNA.

The company continued to evolve in 2004, beginning to run more shows away from Green Bay, breaking ground in wrestling-hungry cities such as Appleton and Oshkosh, signing fresh performers such as "The World's Sexiest Midget" Shortstack, and running more X-division style matches, featuring younger, smaller wrestlers doing fantastic flips.

In mid-2005, after a benefit show raising money to donate to the Salvation Army in aid of Hurricane Katrina victims, Jerry officially changed the company's name to NWA Wisconsin, fully embracing its ties to the National Wrestling Alliance and seeking to forge its own reputation, leaving the legacy of All-Star Championship Wrestling in the past once and for all. The new company still refers to and honors its past, but the ACW brand name has been laid to rest. Those who were there for the ride, though, will say that it was the best thing going in the business anywhere short of "The Big Three" (WWF, WCW, ECW), and truly was "The Midwest A**-Kicking Machine."


_Copyright___2005___Will_Sentowski_and_[[NWA_Wisconsin,_Jason Jerry, Owner.
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