Sam Shields enters the 2023 ECWA Super 8 Tournament

The next entrant for the ECWA Super 8 has been announced!

“The Super 8 is one of the biggest tournaments in wrestling. Some of the biggest names in wrestling have participated in it. Since I started in professional wrestling I’ve always wanted to be a part of it,” Shields told us earlier this week.

In the last few years he became a two time ECWA champion as well as the ECWA Legacy champion. He previously won the ECWA K-Cup (since renamed the ECWA Tag Team Super 8).

“The extraterrestrial cyborg from the future is coming to take home the trophy. This is a must win situation for me,” Shields told us before getting emotional.

The 27th edition of the one-night tournament takes place March 25th at The Jersey Dugout in Marlboro, NJ.

For a quarter century, the ECWA Super 8 Tournament has become a launching pad for undiscovered, up-and-coming talents to get noticed throughout the industry. Previous winners include former NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa, former MLW World Heavyweight Champion Low Ki, former ROH World Champion Christopher Daniels, seven-time WWE Tag Team Champion Xavier Woods and many other notable names.

In recent years, the Super 8 has propelled participants into MLW. Richard Holliday won the 2018 tourney and the Von Erichs competed in the Legacy tourney, which featured all second and third-generation wrestler. Even if you don’t take home the trophy, an impressive showing in the tournament can raise your stock. A who’s who of wrestling luminaries have competed in the event, such as Daniel Bryan, AJ Styles, the Hardy Boyz, Sami Callihan, Crowbar, Ricky Morton and recent winners Killian McMurphy and Darius Carter.

“Long before I took over ECWA, the Super 8 has always been the premier tournament in independent professional wrestling. It’s not lost on me that I’m in charge of a piece of history and it’s a true honor to be a part of the team that selects the talent each year,” says ECWA figurehead Ryan Kavanagh. “It’s the oldest and longest-running tournament in pro wrestling in the United States, period. Times have changed and I like to think we have been able to update the tournament to include a more diverse class each year, not only in race or sex, but styles of professional wrestling. In the end, a great wrestler is a great wrestler.”

Now it’s about history and tradition. Current talent grew up on the tournament, reading about it in the pages of Pro Wrestling Illustrated, hoping one day to compete in it. The Super 8 didn’t invent the pro wrestling tournament, but it’s safe to say it popularized it and set the standard. The greatest compliment is that other wrestling promotions across the country have hosted and patterned their own tournaments after the Super 8. It’s this impact that is the ultimate legacy of the Super 8 in the wrestling business.”

The Wrestling Estate has been the go-to media source for ECWA Super 8 coverage for the past four years. In addition to live event reports, we’ve broken the news on the participants, as we will this year, too. In 2021, we published a comprehensive history of the tournament, featuring comments and memories from many past participants and ECWA founder Jim Kettner.

Tickets are on sale right now at www.ecwawrestling.com for this bucket list event!