New Midwest Wrestling has overcome numerous obstacles and has developed into the foremost independent wrestling federation in Central Illinois.

New Midwest Wrestling was originally coined Midwest Wrestling Alliance, and was formed November 4th, 1999. The MWA was the product of five young men's love for professional wrestling, and their desire to take part in it. The original wrestlers had trained with such greats as Pat Tanaka, Les Thatcher, SharkBoy, Dan Severn and Cowboy Bob Orton.

Soon after its inception, MWA began holding “Saturday shows” to give its wrestlers much-needed experience in front of a crowd. In less than six months, crowds of only peer wrestlers had become crowds of fifty or more. MWA's small wrestling roster became larger as more students signed up for the school. All this with no advertising other than word-of-mouth.

MWA was forced to move from their original training location, and relocated to a warehouse on Stockyard Road. Word-of-mouth continued to bring in larger crowds each Saturday, and MWA’s popularity soared. In response to crowd demands, a the first annual super-card was revealed: Capital Punishment. The Capital Punishment show was a huge success, drawing nearly 300 fans, introducing more students, and sparking a feature article in the Illinois Times.

At this point, the owners decided to take the next step in creating a credible federation; they wanted MWA to become incorporated. However, the acronym MWA was already being used elsewhere, and thus New Midwest Wrestling was born and incorporated.

With increased popularity comes increased scrutiny. The City of Springfield inspected the Stockyard Road warehouse and deemed it unfit for NMW to use as a training gym or as an arena for shows.

After a brief search for new premises, NMW temporarily settled into the old Ice House building at Ninth and Cook. This stay did not last long, as the City deemed the new NMW home unfit for use as intended.

NMW had nowhere else to go. All its options had already been explored, and the roster was at a stand-still. The talent had been out of the ring for nearly a year when an opportunity finally presented itself. New Midwest Wrestling signed a lease for a warehouse on Great Northern Road. It was not possible to hold shows in the training facilities, so NMW rented the Soccer World stadium once a month. This was where First Blood, NMW’s “welcome back” show took place. It drew approximately 500 people, several of which signed up to become NMW wrestlers.

After nearly a year on the Great Northern Road, another opportunity presented itself to New Midwest Wrestling. The USA Sports Center on Bradfordton Road had a gymnasium, as well as a training area, available for rent. The NMW owners toured the facilities and decided to move the gym to the USA Sports Center. This is the current home for the NMW training facilities. Until a zoning dispute opened up between the small-minded citizens of the Bradfordton Road area and the landlord of USA Sports, NMW shows were held in the gymnasium. Even though the head of the county board, Randy Armstrong, was the brother of the USA Sports Center's loudest detractor and far from a neutral party, he still voted to shut down all entertainment in the complex.

NMW was once again forced to find a new home for our public shows. Luckily, the owner of Stork Catering (217-523-5075) owned the American Center in Springfield. New Midwest Wrestling held several shows in this arena, and never had any problems with the neighbors.

In May of 2005, NMW took it's first steps into The Warehouse, a new venue in Springfield with high ceilings and plenty of parking. After holding several shows in The Warehouse and building a great working relationship with it's staff, NMW moved it's training facilities into The Warehouse. Although we'd love to have a training facility to call our own, The Warehouse is a great building in a wonderful location.

The NMW roster continues to grow, and its shows bring in, on average, 250 people.