So you decided to check out West Coast Pro’s WrestleMania Weekend show (West Coast vs. The World), and you liked what you saw.
Like every company, WCP has had it’s ups and downs, but it feels like they are firing on all cylinders right now, and it is the perfect time to start getting into this promotion.
What’s next for Starboy Charlie & Titus Alexander?
Remember back in 2006 when Homicide beat Bryan Danielson for the ROH title? If you are reading this and you have some grey in your beard like me, there is a good chance you do. But do remember his actual title reign and the “uhh… now what?” feeling of malaise that surrounded it? That’s the vibe I get with Starboy Charlie and Titus Alexander, who have been the “main characters” of West Coast Pro for the past few years. Both have held the WCP Men’s World Title, WCP Tag Titles as the Crush Boys, and authored the most important feud in company history. But now what? They are only in their early 20s, but it already feels like there is nothing left for either to accomplish.
Charlie is also a WWE ID wrestler now, which gives me the ick, but more importantly, you have to question if it would be a smart move to give Charlie anything near the top of the card. WWE has been good about not pulling ID talent so far and not getting in the way of booking, but history has proven that trusting WWE has been a fool’s errand.
Titus can be great when motivated, but it feels like that isn’t the case a lot of the time; it’s the same issue I had with Jacob Fatu when he was around. I don’t know if we’ll ever see “chip on his shoulder” Titus again, like we did when he held the title, but his team with Charlie has been his best run since then.
The state of West Coast Pro’s Heavyweight Championship
As great as Vinnie Massaro’s title win at West Coast vs. The World was, the reign has been… fine? He hasn’t been given much to do, and hasn’t wrestled anybody who could be considered a serious threat. It looks like that won’t be the case much longer.
Adam Priest jumped Vinnie in Vegas and looks to be getting a title shot soon. He would be the first serious challenger and someone I’d love to see hold the belt. Unfortunately, he has an AEW/ROH contract, so having him win the title sounds ultra risky, especially if he couldn’t lose it clean. The men’s title has a clean lineage, which is invaluable and something you can never get back when broken. If not Priest, who the hell is the next champ? Unless you want to go back to Titus or Charlie, I can’t think of anybody else who’s ready to take that spot.
“Women, amirite?”
The West Coast Pro Women’s Championship, on the other hand, is white hot. Every Johnnie Robbie title defense felt big, especially towards the tail end of her run. She pretty much single-handedly took the title from a mid-card belt to a main company title on the same level as the men’s. I think everyone pretty much agrees that Robbie isn’t long for the indies and will likely be offered a contract to AEW or WWE before long.
Mio Momono is someone who can keep the momentum going. She is the second Marvelous wrestler to hold the belt, and I think she will be a lot more successful than Takumi Iroha was. Takumi is an amazing wrestler, but she never really got over with WCP crowds. She also wasn’t defending the title regularly, and the few times she made it to the US, she was stuck having to wrestle Sandra Moone. Mio is more over with WCP fans and is arguably a better wrestler. The big thing with her is getting her out to shows on a semi-regular basis at the very least.
It seems like Miko Alana is being built up as the next ace of the company, and her ending Mio Momono’s reign, which followed a great Johnnie Robbie reign, should do the trick.
One of my favorite booking moments from Vegas was Miko running down to help Vinnie while Vinnie was being attacked by Adam Priest. It told the audience that she’s on the main event level, but because she didn’t interact with the women’s title, they didn’t put that thought of her challenging in our heads yet.
I am really high on Sweet Caroline. She flew through the school faster than anybody else ever has, and I believe has the highest ceiling of any of them… for now anyway. As we know, prospects are just prospects, and they don’t always pan out—remember when Joey Bart and Marco Luciano were supposed to save my San Francisco Giants? Caroline is set to tour with Marvelous soon, along with Miko Alana, and I think she will do well. She has the joshi “thing” where she walks to the ring smiling and dancing, and is a psychopath when the bell rings, screaming like a banshee and throwing out f-bombs like candy on Halloween. She is a black belt and throws some really nice-looking stiff kicks, which I wish she would start spamming if I’m being honest.
Zara Zakher also returns to WCP in July after a failed WWE ID run and retirement. She is a former WCP women’s world champion and a welcome addition to the roster. Rounding out the roster is the much-improved Amira, Maya World, and Gabby Forza, who just made her debut a few weeks ago. The WCP women’s division is just about as good as you can get in the US, and continues to evolve and expand.
I’ve Got A Golden Ticket
The Golden Gate Championship is much more chaotic than either world title, which makes sense. The champion isn’t expected to carry the company, and you can kind of switch it around and have some fun with it. The title got off to a rocky start with inaugural champ Bret The Threat having to relinquish the belt after a real-life injury. Immediately following that, there was a lot of weirdness with Alpha Zo’s title reign (which I will touch on in a second). Andrew Cass has stabilized the division and given the belt its identity. When you think GG Title, you think Andrew Cass, and vice versa.
Wow, that Alpha Zo guy is kind of a loser.
Wrestling is weird, and in any other context, this would sound incredibly insulting, but pro wrestling is super weird. Let’s go back to 2023, when Zo made it to the semi-finals of the West Coast Cup. In the second round, he had his ribs legitimately injured by a botched senton by Shigehiro Irie. In the semis, Starboy Charlie worked them over before mercy killing him, ending his run.
A few months later, Zo gets his first crack at the WCP men’s title, and a chance at revenge against Charlie. The match was a completely pedestrian affair that was overshadowed by the angle that immediately followed, Titus’s babyface turn, and the formation of the Crush Boys.
In 2025, he was awarded the Golden Gate Championship after Bret The Threat was forced to vacate due to injury. Being awarded a title is enough to taint any title reign, but the kicker? He was named the interim champ, oh, and it was filmed as a backstage segment for a video that aired on Twitter—cagematch has him winning it in a gauntlet at Cruel Summer, which isn’t true.
Alpha Zo is the tortured soul of West Coast Pro. All of his contemporaries have been given their time in the sun, but Zo doesn’t get that. He is only allowed fleeting moments that never last, always tainted by controversy and overshadowed by more important events.
Maybe one day he will finally get his moment of triumph and sustained happiness, but WCP has to spend a lot more time torturing him for that to be really effective.
Nuthin’ But A ‘Gee’ Thang
What’s going on with Danny Rose? Dude hasn’t been around all year, and it’s unclear if he’s on a hiatus or gone for good.
One thing has become perfectly clear: Los Suavecitos aren’t Los Suavecitos without Danny.
Adrian Quest and Ricky Gee just don’t have the charisma to pull off the act, even with the Dodgers gear cheat code, which will get anybody heat in NorCal. Quest is a pretty good worker and a great veteran to have on the roster, but I don’t see a super high ceiling with him.
With Ricky, I see a lot more potential to move up the card, and I think he might make a really good babyface. I’ve really enjoyed the few singles matches he’s had, and he has sneakily cool-looking offense. He is a better worker than Danny, but he doesn’t have the “get-under-your-skin” energy that his partner does.
The best Suavecitos match I’ve ever seen was against Sinner and Saint in DEFY, where they worked face. I think there is probably more upside for face Ricky than for Suavecitos’ B-team without Danny’s charisma. Even if it’s not immediate, I think a turn would be a cool story for a wrestler who has more tenure than you might expect.
The tag scene got kinda deep out of nowhere.
Even with the Los Suavecitos A-team not around, the tag scene is really exciting right now.
The biggest factor is the addition of three new teams to the division. I’d be lying if I said I was thrilled when Alan Angels and Aaron Solo won the belts a few weeks ago, but they had a really fun match in Vegas. Speaking of which, their opponents on that night were Cajun Catch Revival—whoever came up with CCR, big thumbs up—who looked great.
Jiah Jewell played the Ricky Morton role by getting his ass kicked and selling, while Seabass Finn appears to be the Robert Gibson, the hot tag guy. Finn is someone I’ve been high on for a while, and it looks like he might have finally secured his spot on the roster with that really strong performance. The New Fever team of Shimbashi and Danny Orion had a huge weekend in Vegas and got a ton of buzz after several strong showings. Shimbashi has seemingly unlocked a treasure trove of charisma since switching from a bland babyface to a shitbag heel a few months ago. You also have a pair of former champs in the Crush Boys and Cowboy Way still hanging around.
Friends in high places
West Coast Pro has had different partnerships over the years, to varying degrees of success. Marvelous is WCP’s closest ally, and has been for a long time. They actually refer to each other as brother and sister, and both sides have benefited. Several roster members have taken the trip to Japan to tour with Marvelous and even gotten booked on Pro Wrestling NOAH. We have also seen pretty much the entire Marvelous roster come to the US, and even win WCP gold. Even the Marvelous tryouts have been a huge success, as Danny Orion, Shimbashi, and Ryan Clancy were discovered by WCP there.
There are other new friends, too.
New Texas is probably the most interesting of WCP’s newest partnerships. We’ve seen talent exchanged on both sides. Charlie, Cass, and Jiah have wrestled on New Texas shows. Bryan Keith, Danny Orion, Shimabshi, and Maya World have all been regulars at West Coast. Guys like Prince Kxriuki and Travis Cudi made huge impressions in Las Vegas, and are two of the guys I most want to see in a West Coast ring.
They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend, well, for me, it’s shiny spandex. The quality of gear the New Texas wrestlers really stood out; they smoked every other indie in that department, including West Coast Pro. Perhaps instead of bringing in New Texas wrestlers, they can bring in whoever makes their gear?
A while back, WCP and wXw announced a working relationship. There hasn’t been a lot to come from that so far, besides the 16 Carat Gold weekend, where six WCP roster members made their way to Germany. I’m losing confidence that we will see European talent on shows.
New School
When JT Thorne debuted a few years ago as half of the first WCP dojo’s graduation class, he was given the gimmick of “guy who graduated from wrestling school who wears black.” As we all know, that worked exceptionally well for ROH a generation ago—it didn’t. JT was pushed immediately and began winning matches right out of the gate. Jiah, on the other hand, was originally trained by Reno Scum, spared the student gimmick, and positioned exactly where he should have been, the very bottom. JT was given the Erik Watts push until he suffered a serious leg injury really early into his career, which might have saved him. Since returning, he’s turned heel, improved his look, figured out how to emote, gotten a lot better as a worker, and most importantly… is deep on the undercard. JT is a guy who could have easily fizzled out, but he’s done a really nice job and gone a lot further than I ever thought he could. I did not have high hopes for him.
I’ve already talked about Miko Alana, Caroline, and Andrew Cass—who was originally an East Bay Pro Wrestling trainee—all doing really well on the main roster.
Vishnu Akali, Ethan “Tails” Kendo, and Michael Mori all graduated last year and formed a trio called the Young Dead, later the Young Men Dead (which is a terrible name). It didn’t really work since all three have different styles and didn’t mesh. Vish has done a tour of Marvelous as a young boy, which is why he was in the eight-man tag in Vegas. He has a lot of Thatcher in him, but isn’t as married to the groundwork and does more suplexes and will actually run the ropes. Kendo is someone who looked impressive right out of the gate and is basically Filipino Mark Haskins. He is currently injured and will be out for a while. Mori is the least polished of the three, but he sells well and has the potential to fill out his lanky frame.
Lou Molinari looks really impressive at times, but he doesn’t know what he wants to be. His character is a bully with Napoleon Syndrome who hits really hard, and he’s at his best when he works aggressively. A lot of times, he tries to be funny(he is not) and works more like a “television wrestler,” which takes away from what he is capable of. Fundamentally, Lou is as solid as anyone from the school, but he just needs to figure out how he wants to present himself and how he wants to wrestle.
Can you work Mondays?
One of my favorite things that WCP has done this year is their “Iron Sharpens Iron” series, which is an episodic weekly series that ran on Mondays earlier this year.
The purpose was to discover new talent and give reps to students, with the winners of the “Forge Match” earning a spot on a main show. They were able to pack quite a lot into just a single hour. The two breakout wrestlers were “Youngblood” Gabe Roka from the underrated Phoenix scene and Allen Breeze, whom I’d never heard of before. If you don’t know the name Gabe Roka, get to know it. He is still very green, but someone I can see being a star on the indies in a year or two. Allen Breeze was the biggest surprise of the series, and impressed both as a heel and with his solid in-ring work, and has trained at the New Japan LA dojo. Both guys ended up working main shows, with Roka winning the forge and working an LA show, and Breeze impressing so much that he was put on their Thrive City show at the Chase Center.
Iron Sharpens Iron returns for a second season on May 4th. Because the shows are Mystery Vortex style, we don’t know who will actually show up, but this could be a chance for Roka and Breeze to earn full-time spots on the main roster.
Another story to watch for is All Day Krüe’s Kairo Léon, who won a forge match in season one and has been working a lot more singles matches as of late.
One last guy to watch for is OC Hayes, who was Andrew Cass’s former tag partner in Cass’s pre-WCP days. Hayes is a big dude with a cool look and has been steadily improving over the past couple of years, and has had strong showings in the first season.
