Florida’s Treasure: Coastal Championship Wrestling
Gangrel faces Jacob Fatu this Saturday in Port St. Lucie.
Independent wrestling promotions often call themselves the “best kept secret” in the business. Considering its growing popularity, Coastal Championship Wrestling can’t make this claim much longer.
Based in Pompano Beach, FL, the 18-year-old promotion has emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic with momentum rarely seen on the indie scene. Searching for a new home post-lockdown, the promotion partnered with Unbranded Brewing Company in Hialeah, FL. A few years back, WrestlePro found success teaming with a brewery in Pennsylvania, and Coastal Championship Wrestling has followed suit. The first show at the venue drew about 100 people, blowing away the brewery’s expectations.
It’s been a mutually beneficial partnership ever since, with shows on the first Saturday each month drawing 400-500 fans. The success has inspired other breweries throughout South Florida to work with the promotion, which is running about 60-70 shows annually. “We’re firing on all cylinders right now,” Dan Ackerman, co-founder and co-owner of Coastal Championship Wrestling, told The Wrestling Estate. “We probably have more business than we have any business having.”
After broadcasting shows solely through YouTube, now the promotion has landed a deal with an affiliate of Mega TV, a free-to-air network based in Puerto Rico and owned by the Spanish Broadcasting System (SBS). Ackerman’s partner Nelio Costa, a former student of the Coastal Championship Wrestling training facility, has been retrofitting the YouTube shows into half-hour broadcasts for Mega TV. Ackerman says there will be three seven-minute segments so the station can sell commercials during the remaining time.
“It was never my goal to be nationally known,” Ackerman says. “I was fine running one show a month because my full-time job takes about 70 hours a week. But Nelio is an ambitious businessman who took the bull by the horns and has taken the company to the next level.”
Ackerman broke into pro wrestling at 19 years old, competing as Dan Evans along with Bruno Sassi. They formed Phi Delta Slam, touring the indie circuit and even appearing on a handful of ECW events. (Another version of the team, Sassi and Big Tilly, had a spell in the early days of TNA.) In 2004, Ackerman and Sassi decided to start their own wrestling school to fill the void left by Future of Wrestling, a top indie promotion in South Florida. Its owner, Mike Rapuano (aka Bobby Rogers), was sentenced to three and a half years in federal prison after defrauding several companies out of thousands of dollars, The Sun Sentinel reported.
Live crowds were needed for the students to truly learn the art, so Ackerman and Sassi began promoting shows, and Coastal Championship Wrestling was born. Coral Springs served as the home base, and Ackerman says the shows drew close to 700-800 people a month. “We could rent the building as far as we wanted into the future, but if they got a three-day rental for volleyball or cheerleading or some other tournament, we’d get bumped,” Ackerman says.
After a horrible car accident, he was forced to hang up the tights. However, a jack of all trades, he did ring announcing, commentary, refereeing and anything else that was needed to keep the promotion running. By the early 2010s, Sassi moved to the Orlando area, so continuing to run the company was geographically undesirable.
Unable to rely on the Coral Springs venue, the promotion moved to a charter school and rebuilt its audience. Starting with 150 fans, Ackerman says crowds grew to anywhere between 500-800. And then the COVID-19 pandemic brought the momentum to a screeching halt. By this point, Costa was not only co-owner, but also running a granite business in Nashville. So, the promotion went on the road and held events in half of his 20,000 sq. ft. warehouse. Last year, the brewery era began, which leads us to this Saturday.
Gangrel, head trainer at Coastal Championship Wrestling, will battle a former student: Jacob Fatu of MLW fame. Also on the card, the beloved Cha Cha Charlie will defend the promotion’s heavyweight title against Romeo Quevedo.
Coastal Championship Wrestling presents: Secret Treasure takes place Feb. 12 at the MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Event Center in Port St. Lucie, FL.
For tickets and more information, visit www.coastalchampionshipwrestlingfl.com
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