For nearly 30 years, Juggalo Championship Wrestling (JCW) has brought wrestling action to wrestling fans across the United States and Canada. JCW was created in 1999 by the popular hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse (ICP). The duo, passionate about professional wrestling since their youth, are also eager to deliver JCW to more wrestling fans.
“We did independent wrestling right up till ’95,” said Violent J of ICP/JCW. “At that point, fans of our music were showing up to the wrestling shows to see us without the face paint and back then just before the internet and all that. So back then, we had to stop wrestling. And the next time we wrestled it was in face paint.”
The passion for professional wrestling and entertaining led the musical duo to found JCW in 1999. Curiosity about a death match wrestling led to the group to the start of the promotion.
“When ICP took off there was like literally no affiliation nobody knew we had anything to do with wrestling at all it was just music,” said Violent J. “We put out this DVD called Strangle Mania Live and what it was, was death matches from Japan. I was flipping through a magazine and I saw a tiny ad in a corner page of a magazine and it said ‘Death Match with exploding rings, thumbtack, broken glass, barbed wire, broken glass’. I saw that little ad, that little black and white ad, and I was like, ‘this can’t be real.’”
Since then, JCW has been touring across the United States and Canada. Violent J says that the promotion is poised to continue to elevate its product, adding staff and a production team, continuing touring and streaming their weekly show, “Lunacy”, on YouTube and streaming pay per views.
“I think our show is really good,” says Violent J. “Our new show, Lunacy, comes out every week. It’s 45 minutes. And after all eight episodes come out, our tour starts on October 21st. And we’re live streaming every event, every wrestling show on that whole tour. And then on October 30th is our pay-per-view. And beginning in November, we’re doing a Tuesday night pay-per-view every Tuesday for a year.”
JCW has featured well-known talent in professional wrestling.
“We’ve got Caleb Conley as our brand-new American champion,” said Violent J. “That belt is brand-new and he won it in a battle royal at The Gathering. Our world champion is Matt Cross. And Matt Cross, he’s been on a quest for that title for 24 years, and he just beat Willie Mack for it.”
While the legendary rap artist says the ICP fans, better known as Juggalos, have certainly supported the promotion and have been vital to spreading the word about it, JCW is a promotion where all fans can enjoy the upcoming promotion.
“They’re very supportive, Juggalos are very supportive,” said Violent J. “, I think our stuff is creative. There’s a lot of humor in our shit and there’s a lot of fantastic wrestling. We’re big on storylines. Like, it’s my greatest joy, brother, to sit with the other guys and come up with these matches and these storylines. It’s something that provides me relief from anxiety and shit. We would get so busy with the music, we wouldn’t be able to give the wrestling attention we wanted, you know? But all that’s changed now, and the difference is, we want this show to appeal to everybody, not just juggalos, you know? A juggalo is just a word for a type of human being, you know? They’re human beings, they’re people. And it’s no different than if we were to call ourselves, you know, Generation X Wrestling, you know, or Rebellion Wrestling or something, you know? It’s just another word for people. But it’s not just for juggalos. That’s our goal right now is to appeal to everybody. Juggalos and non-juggalos, you know?”
Becoming a wrestling fan at the age of 11, Violent J of ICP, says his fandom began at a time when wrestling was becoming more mainstream.
“When I first got into wrestling, they were hyping up WrestleMania one,” said Violent J. “Yeah, like literally two weeks before I discovered wrestling, they were just hyping WrestleMania One.”
His passion for wrestling, which was shared by many of his friends, led many of them to enter the wrestling world themselves; his first experience of being an in-ring performer.
“Oh man, we were backyard wrestlers, you know, and we did it big time, said Violent J. “I mean, we fucking did it big time! We made a ring in the backyard; it was actually a good ring you could go off the ropes and everything, you could stand on the first, second, third rope, whatever. And we would pass out flyers in the neighborhood and my mom worked as a janitor at a church and she would get hot dogs out of there and we would put on the flyer: ‘Free hot dogs’ and pop!”
Violent J and JCW are working towards a successful end to 2024 and an even bigger splash on the wrestling scene in 2025.
Check out Juggalo Championship Wrestling at the links below:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juggalochampionshipwrestling/?hl=en
