Awesome Championship Wrestling (ACW) will return to the MJN Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, for its Reckoning event on Saturday night in what’s expected to be a star-studded affair.
Recognizable names in pro wrestling like IWGP global heavyweight champion Andrade, NWA world historic middleweight champion Flip Gordon, ACW women’s champion Steph De Lander, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) star Indi Hartwell, Major League Wrestling (MLW) Lady Frost as well as top names on the independent scene like Richard Holliday and Ben Bishop will all be featured on the card.
The ACW tag team champions will also be among those competing at the event. Vik Dalishus and Hale Collins, the duo known as The Now, will defend the titles in a steel cage match against Sent 2 Slaughter – the team made up of Danny Maff and Shawn Donovan.
Dalishus and Collins hope to end their feud with Sent 2 Slaughter.
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“Guys we’ve had to deal with in the last year and a half and our feud has actually extended outside of ACW,” Dalishus said. “We’ve feuded in several different promotions all throughout the Northeast.”
Dalishus added that Maff and Donovan crashed his wedding, turning up the temperature on the feud.
“And they’re all bitter because we stole, well, we won their tag titles at WrestlePro,” Collins said, adding that their tag team opponents even crashed his Hall of Fame ceremony at Johnny Rodz’s wrestling school.
“It’s a very personal rivalry. They actually crashed my wedding,” Dalishus continued. “They showed up unannounced. They’ve made it very personal and we’ve responded accordingly. The very first time we were in a steel cage with them, they had our manager (Josh Shernoff) in their back pocket.
“He actually turned on us … What this steel cage is really all about is redemption to right the wrong that happened to us last time we were in a cage. We’ve said this was going to be the final chapter – whoever wins, wins, and whoever loses, that’s it.”
Dalishus and Collins are the promoters behind ACW, which has drawn high praise from wrestlers who competed in their events. They stressed why having a spot like the MJN Center is a critical component of the promotion’s success.
Dalishus recalled going to tapings of WWE’s “Monday Night Raw” in the 1990s and watching a Sensational Sherry and Luna Vachon go at each other as well as Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore getting started in the building.
“That building and our careers and our lives have really intertwined in the craziest way and we’re very fortunate that Awesome Championship Wrestling has been this thing that has kinda caught on in this area and really been the next wave of professional wrestling. The WWF and the WWE coming here in the 70s, 80s and 90s and then ECW and then there was some local independent wrestling that was running the building trying to do a good job with providing big stars in the area but there was a real big gap in the last few years with pro wrestling and bringing TV stars into this area.
“NXT had run the building, TNA had run the building a few times and the crowds were a little bit underwhelming and we knew when we were going to start Awesome Championship Wrestling that we wanted to do something a little bit different but also cater to all of the wrestling fans – provide something for everyone.”
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As ACW has been credited with being just above a regular independent promotion with its lighting, camera work and professionalism backstage, Collins and Dalishus highlighted the impressive growth they’ve made since their first show in January 2025.
“The first show, we almost lost our butts, and then we had a great walk up,” Collins told Fox News Digital. “It was almost like the movie ‘Field of Dreams’ – ‘if you build it, it will come.’ All of a sudden, 2, 3, 400 people walked up and it was awesome. Ever since then, we’re going day-by-day, but we have goals in mind.”
Dalishus said they’ve been “really smart” with how they’ve taken the necessary steps to get more eyes on their shows, including with a YouTube show that showcases its past matches and highlights upcoming events.
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“Who knows where it can really go? The idea for us is to ride this roller coaster for as long as we can and see what happens,” Dalishus said. “Does it become a brand that starts to tour around the country? We hope so. We hope that it’s something that we’re able to do and we’re able to take ACW to different markets. Right now, the thing we’ve been able to leverage is that the building here, the MJN Center, is in partnership with us and that we’ve been able to really grow with a partner that’s wanting to see us succeed just as much as they want to see success. So, it becomes a big risk to start traveling outside of this home area because of the things we’ve been able to leverage with our friends and our business connections and our partnerships that we have.
“We spent a lot of time in the last year surrounding ourselves with some of the people that we’ve known throughout our time in wrestling that we trust, that are really great minds for pro wrestling and that they’re guys who bring something to the table that will help us grow at a big rate. Being able to take this thing on the road would be something that I’d really like to see us do.”
Collins added that going on the road was “definitely a goal.”
“Everything we do, even if it’s something simple like getting the apron branded, that’s the goal. The branding is pretty good right now so let’s go to the next goal. Now, we can take the show, put it in another building, but it’ll still look like ACW. We’re thinking of every aspect and being careful as we do. As of right now, I think we’re on to something really cool and whatever we take, we put it back into the company.”
Reckoning will take place Saturday night and will include “Macho Man” Randy Savage and Mike Bell’s inductions into the MJN Center’s Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame.
The final card looks like this:
