UBW

Ultimate Battleground Wrestling (or UBW) is a professional wrestling promotion that was formed in September 2009 by Paul Heyman. The first incarnation of UBW lasted from September 2009 until April 2010. In August 2012, UBW returned for a second time through the efforts of wrestling mega star Jason Calaway. This second run for UBW lasted until March 2013. With Heyman in WWE, and Calaway in WWT, and WWT owning all the rights to UBW, a return seemed impossible. However, the impossible occurred in January 2014, when Stinger8 stepped down as CEO of WWT. Billionaire investor Walter Worthington purchased the rights to UBW from new WWT CEO Matt Gargan for over 500 million dollars. And with this purchase, UBW returned to the world of pro wrestling for a third time.

Creation and Paul Heyman (July 2009 - August 2009)
Following the creation and ultimate success of WWT, WWT founder Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was stepping down as CEO and his replacement Kurt Angle only wanted to be GM. This left the CEO position open and many rushed forward for the opportunity. This included former ECW chairman Paul Heyman and former WCW president and head of booking Eric Bischoff. After numerous interviews, Midway Games decided to hire Bischoff. Heyman was furious about the decision and vowed to ruin Bischoff and WWT. Heyman set out to aquire the funds necessary to start a company. He immediately found a few sponsors. He used three of them. This meant that each company would only have to pay a third of what Midway Games had to pay for WWT and also meant that they would not get exclusive powers such as merchandise sales, championships, and booking control. Heyman could sell these rights to yet more companies and increase his company's revenue more than WWT could.

With his funds secure, Heyman purchased his championships and named his new promotion Ultimate Battleground Wrestling. UBW immediately got a television deal from TBS. This infuriated WWT, whose Recoil! show was aired on TNT. Since TNT and TBS are both run by Ted Turner, WWT saw this as an insult from Turner and demanded that UBW be removed from TBS. When Turner refused, WWT scrapped the contract and the Recoil brand altogether. Turner then moved UBW to TNT in retaliation. Heyman loved every minute of the feud, because his promotion was getting media attention before it had even signed a single wrestler. Heyman added fuel to the fire by announcing the signing of Rico Contreras, former jobber and tag-team specialist of WWT.

Signing of the Calaways and early success (September 2009 - December 2009)
Despite the signing of Contreras, Heyman knew that he would need more that a former jobber to create some controversy. Contreras had potential, but he wasnt a well known name. Then Heyman's dream came true when Kurt Angle announced that at Agony, the loser between Element X (Jason Calaway) and D3m3nt3d F0x (Chad Calaway) would be fired from WWT. Heyman immediately announced that he would sign the loser to a UBW contract. Despite pressure from Midway to reverse the decision, Angle refused, stating that "Only a loser belongs in UBW anyway". The match took place and Chad lost. Heyman had already called Chad's agent when he saw Wolfpac come out and cash in his money in the bank on Jason, and then saw Angle fire him aswell. Heyman sat stunned for a moment like everyone else, he had never thought in a million years that WWT would allow their poster boy to go. When it had sunk in, Heyman almost cried with joy and contacted Jason's agent aswell. The next day, a huge press conference was held where both Calaways (eyeing each other with hatred) were introduced as UBW wrestlers. It was here that Jason famously stated: "The first shots have been fired, and nobody from UBW was hit."

The next week, UBW held its first weekly show. It drew a 1.4 cable rating (as opposed to WWT's 4.7). This was a stunning success for a first week, and it showed how much the media could influence an audience. The following week, the rating dipped to a 0.9, and this would be the last time ratings fell until 5 months later. At the inaugural PPV, everyone expected Jason Calway vs. Chad Calaway pt. 2 for the new UBW Heavyweight Championship. However, Heyman announced that a tournament would be held to determine the two opponents at the PPV. The tournament went as everyone expected at first, with the final four being Jason vs. Phyique and Chad vs. Rico. Jason defeated Physique with ease, and it seemed that the sequal would indeed be happening. Then the audience was stunned when Rico defeated Chad. The crowd saw this as a fluke, and were fully expecting a squash at the PPV. Much to their utter disbelief, Rico Contreras went 20 minutes with Jason Calaway and at the end of the night was holding the UBW Heavyweight Championship.

Meanwhile, the feud with WWT was getting personal. UBW was signing away numerous people from WWT, and WWT had no way to respond. WWT was forced to watch Mike go over to UBW and throw the WWT Hardcore Championship in the trash. While WWT sued and was given back the title and some cash, UBW had won the battle in the eyes of the fans. Then Hassan went to UBW with the WWT Midway Championship, and instead of throwing it away, he kept it and changed the name to UBW Global Championship. UBW was wininng battle after battle and the fans responded as such. On December 12th, 2009, the day after Jason Calaway defeated Rico Contreras for the UBW Heavyweight Championship, UBW defeated WWT in ratings. UBW received a 4.1 rating, while WWT had a 3.8, making this the first time WWT had been defeated by a company outside of TNA (who they had started beating on a continued basis by then) and WWE (who they had been beating most of the time since August). UBW celebrating being the #1 wrestling promotion, and WWT knew it needed to put a stop to this competitor.

WWT Retaliation, and beginings of decline (December 2009 - March 2010)
The week following their defeat of WWT in the ratings, UBW announced a new concept in order to spark interest in the tag-team championships. UBW Tag-Team Champions Bobby Benjamin$$$ and Lance Peterson would challenge a new team each week with their championships on the line. The challengers could be from anywhere, and didnt have to be signed to a UBW contract. For 6 straight weeks The Pimp and Pretty Boy denied all challengers, includung 3 UBW teams, 1 Indy team, 1 TNA team, and 1 WWE team. They were pretty confident by the time the 7th week came around. To their (and Paul Heyman's) horror, WWT Tag-Team Champions T&E appeared. The two behemoths were too much for the champs, and T&E went back to WWT with the UBW Tag-Team Championships. Multiple efforts were led by UBW to get the titles back.Because of Heyman's open challenge, UBW could not sue WWT, and the only way to get the titles back were to defeat T&E on WWT turf. This proved to be impossible. UBW had just about given up hope when in March Paul Heyman got a package in the mail. It was 2 solid gold W's and one solid gold T. It took heyman a few minutes to realize that he was looking at the remains of the UBW Tag-Team Championships.

Word spread quickly as to what happened to the titles, and the fans loved it. WWT reclaimed the ratings lead after 5 weeks of being behind UBW. UBW was still keeping up until Heyman's package was reveiled to the public. Heyman released the knowlege hoping that the fans would be outraged over WWT destroying UBW titles, but the opposite occured. WWT ratings soared while UBW floundered. Ratings improved when Hassan won the title and started feuding with various members of the roster, but ultimately it was not enough to ever re-take the lead.

The Final Battle and Legacy
After 7 long months of war, both sides had had enough. UBW had lost almost all of its sponsors, and Ted Turner now owned all of UBW himself. Turner/Heyman and Midway/Bischoff met in April 2010 to discuss the end to the war. Both sides understood that as long as both companies lived, the war would never end. There was too much bad blood between the two. A final agreement was reached: There would be an 8 on 8 elimination chamber match between WWT and UBW. The winner would absorb all of the losers talent, and the loser would be forced to cease opporations.

In the weeks headign up to the PPV, UBW held matches to determing who would be their "warriors". The championships were almost completely ignored as the entire UBW roster prepared for its final showdown with WWT. After 3 weeks, the 8 men were chosen. Neither the fans, nor WWT knew who these men were because even though the matches were held, it wasnt a "winner gets on the team" kind of deal. Heyman very closely watched the matches to assemble his team. When the match finally started, the UBW team of Jason Calaway, Chad Calaway, Rico Contreras, Hassan, Physique, Bobby Benjamin$$$, Lance Peterson, and Brandon Robertson took on the WWT team of Stinger8, Wolfpac, The Truth, Brian Christophers, Super Psycho, K-Killa, Tank, and Enforcer. The match ended when Stinger forced Jason to tap out with his Dragon Sleeper. As the ref called for the bell, Heyman sat stunned. Once again he had been beaten by Eric Bischoff.

During its 8 month existence, UBW set a new standard in wrestling. It focussed on its fans rather than politics. However, its obsession with WWT ultimately became its downfall. After UBW shut down, Eric Bischoff fired all UBW wrestlers with the exception of Hassan (who still held the WWT Midway Championship) and even fired two thirds of his own roster. This helped lead to the demise of WWT as a force in the wrestling business. Ultimately, UBW will always be remembered for the way it attacked WWT, and the UBW/WWT war will be remembered by fans for many years.