ICW Wrestling Territory: The OUTLAW Promotion of the POFFO Family
The WrestleVerse
47,019 views
In 1979, four veteran wrestlers sat down in front of a camera and exposed the business on purpose. The tape vanished for forty years. The men who made it ended up working for a family nobody in the National Wrestling Alliance would speak to.
That family was the Poffos, and this is the story of the outlaw territory they built in Kentucky.
Before "Macho Man" Randy Savage became a WWF World Champion under Vince McMahon, and before Miss Elizabeth became the most recognized woman in wrestling, the Poffo family was fighting a war nobody televised. Angelo Poffo, a former Navy man who set a world sit-up record in 1945 and wrestled for decades as The Masked Miser, opened International Championship Wrestling out of Lexington in 1978. He did not ask the NWA for permission. He ran shows in their towns, bought airtime on their stations, and signed the wrestlers they had blacklisted.
The cartel pushed back. Arenas closed their doors. Wrestlers who worked for ICW risked being frozen out of every NWA territory in the country. Angelo answered with a $2.4 million antitrust lawsuit against the NWA and nine of its promoters, and it went nowhere.
This documentary covers the whole six-year run. The Knoxville rebellion that sent Ronnie Garvin, Bob Roop, Bob Orton Jr. and Boris Malenko into the Poffos' locker room. The betrayals behind the Plan B tape. The Slapawitz Syndicate and the night fans tore the seats out of the building. The Savage versus Garvin feud that carried the promotion. The young woman working the front desk of a Lexington gym who became Miss Elizabeth. And the 1984 collapse that put ICW's assets in the hands of Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler, the very men the Poffos had spent years attacking.
It is a story about the Golden Era that never made the highlight reels: territory politics, stolen gates, blacklists and the price of independence in a business built on control.
In 2023, WWE bought the ICW video library. The outlaw footage the NWA fought to keep off the air now sits in the vault of the company that ended the territory system.
Subscribe for more deep dives into wrestling's forgotten territories, buried feuds and the stories behind the curtain.
CHAPTERS
01:59 The Miser and His Sons
05:30 Going Outlaw
08:54 The Knoxville Rebellion
12:51 The Heat Machine
16:35 Savage vs. Garvin
19:53 The Squeeze and the Fall
23:22 The Graduates
Watch next: SAVAGE vs LAWLER: The Most ICONIC FEUD in Memphis HISTORY
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Kevin Sullivan v. Austiñ Idol and the Savoldies
ICW Wrestling Territory: The OUTLAW Promotion of the POFFO Family
The WrestleVerse
47,019 views
In 1979, four veteran wrestlers sat down in front of a camera and exposed the business on purpose. The tape vanished for forty years. The men who made it ended up working for a family nobody in the National Wrestling Alliance would speak to.
That family was the Poffos, and this is the story of the outlaw territory they built in Kentucky.
Before "Macho Man" Randy Savage became a WWF World Champion under Vince McMahon, and before Miss Elizabeth became the most recognized woman in wrestling, the Poffo family was fighting a war nobody televised. Angelo Poffo, a former Navy man who set a world sit-up record in 1945 and wrestled for decades as The Masked Miser, opened International Championship Wrestling out of Lexington in 1978. He did not ask the NWA for permission. He ran shows in their towns, bought airtime on their stations, and signed the wrestlers they had blacklisted.
The cartel pushed back. Arenas closed their doors. Wrestlers who worked for ICW risked being frozen out of every NWA territory in the country. Angelo answered with a $2.4 million antitrust lawsuit against the NWA and nine of its promoters, and it went nowhere.
This documentary covers the whole six-year run. The Knoxville rebellion that sent Ronnie Garvin, Bob Roop, Bob Orton Jr. and Boris Malenko into the Poffos' locker room. The betrayals behind the Plan B tape. The Slapawitz Syndicate and the night fans tore the seats out of the building. The Savage versus Garvin feud that carried the promotion. The young woman working the front desk of a Lexington gym who became Miss Elizabeth. And the 1984 collapse that put ICW's assets in the hands of Jerry Jarrett and Jerry Lawler, the very men the Poffos had spent years attacking.
It is a story about the Golden Era that never made the highlight reels: territory politics, stolen gates, blacklists and the price of independence in a business built on control.
In 2023, WWE bought the ICW video library. The outlaw footage the NWA fought to keep off the air now sits in the vault of the company that ended the territory system.
Subscribe for more deep dives into wrestling's forgotten territories, buried feuds and the stories behind the curtain.
CHAPTERS
01:59 The Miser and His Sons
05:30 Going Outlaw
08:54 The Knoxville Rebellion
12:51 The Heat Machine
16:35 Savage vs. Garvin
19:53 The Squeeze and the Fall
23:22 The Graduates
Watch next: SAVAGE vs LAWLER: The Most ICONIC FEUD in Memphis HISTORY