After a hiatus of nearly two months, Bryan Conroy, the conquering FSW owner who defeated CAW, debuted his new creation – the Progressive Wrestling Alliance – amid much fanfare. The new national wrestling promotion launched with a televised Saturday evening special on August 3, 2002, one year to the date after the original closure of CAW. Three nights later, PWA Frequency debuted in its Tuesday night cable TV timeslot, and aired episode #1 from the CAW-FSW hotbed of Long Island, NY. This would be the first of 210 consecutive weeks that Frequency would air in that slot.

The initial PWA roster was comprised mostly by the best CAW and FSW had to offer, though a greater focused was placed on ring names and gimmicks at this time. For example, the FSW tag team TFU, consisting of Mike Pantozzi and Greg Tarascio, now were known as Mike Griffin and Greg Tantalus. New wave CAW stars James Carr, Dre Dixon, Josh Schwartz, and Geoff Chiang became Jaguar, Romeo, GI Jew, and Scythe, respectively. Mike Scarchilli re-appeared a month into PWA’s run as the cryptic and enigmatic Vulture. Former CAW Champion and owner “The Iceman” Jason Carnevale was rebranded Jason Calysto. However, the CAW/FSW graduates weren’t the only game in town, as newcomers such as Jade, Chad Hasty, and The Omega Steve Beovich made an early impact. PWA held its first pay-per-view event, Everlasting Epic, at Madison Square Garden on August 31, 2002, and after the successful completion of that show, the company took its tour national, and never looked back.

Built from the core base of CAW and FSW alumni, PWA launched a New York-based developmental league in early 2003 called New York Championship Wrestling. Jerry Georgatos, CAW’s founder and former owner, was put in charge, and NYCW went on to produce a new wave of PWA talents who would go on to great success. Solomon, Showtime Damon Savage, Jackie Baccaro, Briggs, and the late Allison Kelly, among others, all got their starts in NYCW before making sizeable contributions to the PWA landscape.

Later that year, Georgatos ended his affiliation with NYCW and returned to PWA as commissioner. However, in a blatant abuse of this power, he reunited with Mike Griffin, Greg Tantalus, and Mike Troha, the three men he managed years earlier in CAW. Together, they formed a full-scale TFU faction with the intent to overthrow the reign of PWA owner Bryan Conroy. As its membership grew to eight, TFU, equipped with Georgatos’ power, was disruptive enough to the overall equilibrium of PWA that, in April 2004, Conroy sanctioned a 16-man elimination steel cage match, pitting TFU’s eight against PWA’s eight best, with the stipulation that if PWA won, TFU would have to disband and Georgatos would be stripped of his power, while if TFU won, Georgatos would acquire PWA and become its new owner.

In arguably the biggest match in PWA’s history to date, PWA team member GI Jew emerged as the sole survivor, securing the company for Conroy, who promptly released Georgatos from his PWA talent contract and named Kerry Cox PWA commissioner. As a reward for his victory, GI Jew was granted a shot at Vulture’s PWA World Heavyweight Championship a month later, which he was able to capture.

With the seas of PWA’s front office calmed, the focus was placed back on the competition, which was at an all-time high. Jaguar and Jason Calysto emerged as the company’s most prolific champions, while newcomer Solomon took the world by storm, rattling off an obscene 18-month undefeated streak, during which he defeated Scythe, PWA’s longest reigning world champion, in a classic 60-minute Iron Man match. Vulture, a two-time world champion in his own right, spent most of his time engulfed in personal turmoil, focusing his energies on his failed personal relationships with women’s division competitors Jade, Magnifica, and Lauren Tantalus, along with his failed business partnership with Greg Tantalus. In fact, after retiring six-time CAW Champion Mike Tortorici in June 2004, Vulture himself was retired by Tantalus just two months later at Everlasting Epic III, bowing to extensive neck injuries.

With Vulture gone, the spotlight shone brighter on stars such as Jaguar, one of the true humbling success stories of PWA. Getting his start in CAW as James Carr, Jaguar didn’t ascend to main event heights (despite a brief run at the top of CAW towards the end) until months into PWA’s inception. Jaguar entered PWA alongside his Hot Boy$ tag team partner Romeo, and the duo reigned atop the division. However, in December 2002, Jaguar got one and only one shot at the PWA World Heavyweight Championship, and made the best of it, capturing the gold. He won the title twice more before his crowning achievement when, on New Year’s Eve 2004, in his hometown of Jacksonville, Florida, Jaguar became the first man in PWA history to pin the reigning world champion Solomon, to capture his fourth title. However, this very event sowed seeds of discontent between he and Romeo, leading to the eruption of the Hot Boy$, and Romeo taking that title from him several months later.

On the subject of dominant tag teams, the unit of Griffin and Tantalus, however cohesive they could be, just couldn’t seem to stick together. However, the one constant in their inevitable feuds and breakups was that every single time they competed against one another, Griffin emerged victorious. This pattern continued for years, until Tantalus got one final opportunity against him at Everlasting Epic IV in August 2005, in the main event. This time, Tantalus toppled Griffin to win his second of three PWA World Heavyweight Championships, effectively conquering his demons on perhaps PWA’s most prominent stage in history: Everlasting Epic IV represented the zenith of the company’s international expansion, with portions of the show emanating from four different continents.

The Iceman Jason Calysto reigned as the steady rock of the PWA throughout almost its entire run, but even his arc was not without controversy. In December 2003, Calysto was defeated in a loser-leaves-PWA match by The Machine, and drifted off into the sunset. However, the following summer, Calysto made a special guest appearance on PWA programming that led to their issues being brought to the forefront once again. When Machine torched Calysto’s home in the Hamptons, the battle was on. Calysto agreed not to press charges, provided The Machine granted him a rematch at Everlasting Epic III in August 2004, with the same stipulations. This time, Calysto triumphed, and his career was restored. He would go on to win the world title two additional times, giving him four when all was said and done.

A bright spot of PWA through the years was the women’s division, which grew from humble beginnings to emerge as one of the most competitive championships in the company. When the company launched in 2002, Jade quickly emerged as the dominant female, holding the title for much of the first six months of its existence. Then came Allison Kelly, who captured the title in March 2003 and never looked back, effectively holding onto that title with very limited interruption through the remainder of 2003. That is, however, until she met Lauren Tantalus. Lauren followed her brother Greg into the PWA, and after several attempts, finally wrested the title from her in December of 2003. Tragically, what could have been an epic feud between the two was cut short when Allison was shortly thereafter diagnosed with sarcoma, a rare form of cancer. She passed away in the fall of 2004.

Lauren reigned atop the division through most of 2004, but by the end of the year, she herself succumbed to injury. However, just as she disappeared from the scene, the dominant Keiko Ishida emerged from Japan, and took the division by storm. Winning the championship on December 7, 2004 – Pearl Harbor Day, fittingly – Ishida would rule over the division until New Year’s Eve 2005, 389 days later, by far the longest championship reign in the history of PWA or any of its predecessors. Ishida’s reign was finally brought to an end by Morgan Day, a mysterious figure from Keiko’s Muay Thai past. Once Morgan toppled her for the title, the two engaged in an electrifying seven-match series that lasted almost the entire remaining duration of the company’s life, and raised the women’s division to an entirely new level.

Another thing that made PWA stand out was the several custom specialty matches debuted over the years. The crown jewel of the original PWA creations was the Seven Deadly Sins match, in which eight competitors would compete over eight grueling falls, called “Sins.” Each Sin would be contested under a different stipulation, growing more and more dangerous as the match continues on. Finally, when only two men remain, it becomes a ladder match to decide the ultimate victor.

The Symphony of Destruction was PWA’s answer to the Royal Rumble, with 30 participants competing, a new man entering every two minutes. However, in the SOD, eliminations could be scored ONLY via pinfall or submission, adding a whole new element of strategy to the mix.

Also, by far the most violent and sadistic contest in PWA’s playbook was the House of Horrors match. In this unique battle, two men start in the ring in a structure slightly smaller than the ring itself that contains a caged floor, reinforced glass windows, and is filled with weapons. On the outside of the ring are stacks of four tables on each side. Once the match begins, the entire structure is raised two feet in the air each minute. After each five minutes, one of the stacks of tables is set ablaze. The only way to win the match is to throw your opponent through one of the windows and to the outside. If enough time has passed that it sends him through a stack of flaming tables, so be it. This match is so brutal that it was only contested twice in PWA history, the first time keeping the loser out of action for close to a year. The loser of the second bout never returned.

In 2004, the PWA launched the Progressive Entertainment Hall of Fame, which considered achievements in PWA, CAW, and FSW. Three classes of inductees were enshrined. Jason Calysto, Vulture, and Mike Tortorici made up the inaugural class in 2004; Bryan Conroy, Kerry Cox, and the late Allison Kelly received the call in 2005; and Jaguar, Mike Griffin, and Greg Tantalus comprised the final class in 2006, receiving induction the night before Everlasting Epic V, PWA’s final show.

Getting to that point was quite the winding road. In the second half of 2004, after ridding the company of the TFU threat and securing his company’s future, Bryan Conroy stepped away from the PWA for a time, leaving the reigns to Commissioner Kerry Cox. However, when Conroy returned, something had changed in him, and he and Cox, once great friends, could no longer see eye to eye. Conroy even began employing the Organization of Responsible Advertisers, giving them direct control as the PWA’s main sponsor. He brought their head of advertising, Helen Summers, into the company, and gave her legitimate power. When Conroy didn’t agree with the referee’s decision in a March 2005 PWA Championship bout, he and Summers declared that they would not personally recognize the decision, which led to the creation of the ORA Championship.

Finally, with tensions between Conroy and Cox at an all-time high, and Conroy was unable to fire Cox due to a very favorable contract signed when he and Conroy were on the same page, Conroy put full control of the PWA on the line against Cox at Everlasting Epic IV in August 2005. However, unlike his feud with Jerry Georgatos, Conroy this time came up short. Cox defeated Conroy, taking the reins as principal owner and president of the company. He dissolved the company’s relationship with the ORA, dismissed Conroy from his duties as company president, and merged the ORA title back with the PWA belt.

A long period of stability followed this, until the spring of 2006, when Conroy shockingly resurfaced on PWA television. Conroy claimed that he found a loophole, allowing him to return – he had an interminable talent contract, allowing him to return to the roster as an active wrestler. There was nothing Cox could do about it, and Conroy did everything he could to make Cox’s life a living hell. He brought Helen Summers back to the company as his manager, and sponsored a 64-man tournament, where the prize would be $500,000 of his own money, in order to undermine Cox’s authority.

Finally, at the May 2006 Animosity pay-per-view, Cox and Conroy did battle one more time, with full control of the company up for grabs yet again. Conroy had pushed Cox to his limit, causing him to agree to the bout. However, thanks to outside interference from Anthony Failla, who was revealed to be working with Conroy, Cox was beaten, and Conroy regained control. This time, however, Conroy wasn’t looking to keep the company running strong – he was looking to destroy it, to make everyone pay for the injustices he felt he was a victim of.

On PWA’s benchmark 200th episode of Frequency later that month, Conroy announced that he was selling the company to a buyer who intended to shut it down and liquidate it for its assets. The final PWA broadcast was set for the August 12, 2006 Everlasting Epic V pay-per-view, and Conroy was intent on subjecting everyone to two and a half months of misery while we counted down to the final broadcast.

PWA was sold, and it continued on its death march, but the men and women who had built the company from the ground up refused to let it die with a whimper. Everlasting Epic V was perhaps the greatest show in the company’s history, as the competitors did everything they could to ensure the fans were at least treated to one last amazing show before the doors were closed forever. Showtime Damon Savage won a grueling Elimination Chamber bout to become the only three-time International Champion in the company’s history. Mike Griffin and Greg Tantalus reunited as TFU, this time as fan favorites, and defeated former TFU brethren Mike Troha and his partner Bodycount to capture the Tag Team Championship. Morgan Day, fresh off conquering Keiko Ishida in their classic feud, defeated the deadliest villain in the history of the women’s division, Magnifica, to join Jade, Lauren Tantalus, Keiko Ishida, and Allison Kelly in the three-time Women’s Champion club. And Vulture, now engaged to Morgan Day, came out of retirement for one-night-only to defeat Jackie Baccaro, his former friend and protégé, the man he managed to the PWA World Heavyweight Championship before being violently turned on once Baccaro decided he didn’t need him any longer.

But just as we were about to dive into our main event, the final match in PWA history, where Jason Calysto would defend the PWA World Heavyweight Championship against Jaguar, Bryan Conroy hit the ring, furious with how wonderfully the evening had gone, and decided to cancel the match. He told people to just go home, because he wasn’t going to give them the pleasure of seeing that main event, because they didn’t deserve it. Enter Jerry Georgatos, appearing in a PWA ring for the first time in close to two and a half years to shockingly tell Conroy and the world that the “JG Enterprises” that Conroy sold PWA to was in fact owned by Georgatos himself. He informed the crowd that he was indeed closing PWA, but only to break any and every contractual loophole that Conroy might have in place to secure his return at some point in the future. He then banned Conroy from the building, promised everyone that he would soon launch a new national wrestling company to take PWA’s place and that would give many PWA stars jobs, and also ensured that the main event would indeed take place.

With Georgatos finally scoring ultimate victory over Conroy, Jaguar and Calysto came out and tore the house down, with Jaguar scoring the win, capturing his record fifth PWA Championship to close the company down in style. As Jaguar and Calysto celebrated in the ring, and the fans gave them both one last monstrous ovation, there was a real bittersweet taste in the air, with the knowledge that PWA was now dead and buried forever.

At least, that is, until now.