Beloved Indie Wrestling Promotion Announces Closure After Five-Year Run
The influential Pittsburgh promotion will close on its own terms, leaving behind a legacy that remains deeply connected to ASÉ Wrestling.
Enjoy Wrestling is preparing to take its final bow.
The Pittsburgh-based independent wrestling promotion announced on Aug. 26 that it will close following one last run of events. The decision brings an end to a five-year experiment built around inclusive wrestling, cinematic presentation, and the freedom to tell stories that often stretched beyond the confines of one promotion.
Enjoy will present its final outdoor show at the Hilltop County Fair on Aug. 30. The promotion will then return to Mr. Smalls Theatre on Sept. 5 for its “Five Years” celebration, featuring names including The Amazing Red, Butcher and The Blade, Lee Moriarty and Dark Sheik.
Its final scheduled event will take place Oct. 4.
The announcement carries particular significance for ASÉ Wrestling. Darius Lockhart helped shape Enjoy’s earliest in-ring identity. Darius Carter currently stands as its champion. Billy Dixon created one of the promotion’s most memorable stories before turning his attention toward the final match of his career.
Together, their paths tell the story of two independent wrestling companies connected by talent, philosophy, and a belief that wrestling can represent more than audiences have traditionally seen.
Enjoy Wrestling chooses its own ending
According to the promotion’s farewell statement, Enjoy is not closing because of one sudden financial emergency or internal collapse.
The lives of the people behind the company have changed since the journey began. Families have grown, children have gotten older, and the time required to operate an independent wrestling promotion has become more difficult to justify.
While producing the shows remained exhilarating, Enjoy’s ownership acknowledged that the logistics were stressful and increasingly time-consuming. Rather than wait for the promotion to become an unwanted obligation, the group elected to end it while the company remained financially stable.
“We want to pull the plug on this while we have money in the bank,” the promotion explained in its statement.
It is a remarkably deliberate conclusion in an industry where smaller promotions frequently disappear through canceled events, unpaid expenses, or prolonged periods of inactivity.
Enjoy is choosing to finish the story itself.
The announcement also arrives during an uncertain period for independent wrestling. Fellow Ohio-based promotion Absolute Intense Wrestling reacted to the news by pointing to the rising venue, travel, and production costs challenging companies throughout the circuit.
Enjoy may be ending from a position of relative stability, but its closure still illustrates how difficult it has become to sustain ambitious independent wrestling outside the industry’s largest platforms.
Building something different in Pittsburgh
Enjoy Wrestling was founded in 2020 by Kurt Hackimer, Maxx Gregg, Taylor Gregg and Scotty Swemba. Their goal was to create an inclusive Pittsburgh wrestling promotion with a distinct visual identity and meaningful opportunities for LGBTQ+, women, and other wrestlers historically pushed to the margins.
The timing immediately tested that vision.
Unable to begin with traditional live events because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Enjoy debuted on Feb. 25, 2021, with Canned Heat. The taped studio series featured a tournament for the inaugural Enjoy Cup and introduced the seasonal, production-forward format that became one of the promotion’s defining characteristics.
Instead of treating YouTube as a collection of isolated match uploads, Enjoy presented wrestling as a serialized show. Its seasons were distributed for free through the Enjoy Wrestling YouTube channel, pairing independent wrestling with stylized visuals, character-driven stories, and a strong sense of place.
Once live audiences returned, Enjoy established Mr. Smalls Theatre in Millvale as its home. The former church-turned-concert venue matched the company’s unconventional energy, allowing Enjoy to sit comfortably between wrestling, music, fashion, and Pittsburgh’s larger arts community.
The promotion eventually expanded into venues such as Stage AE for major events including Immaculate.
Shows like Gay WrestleMania further established Enjoy as a welcoming space for queer wrestlers and fans. That identity was not treated as a special attraction or occasional marketing theme. It was embedded within the company’s roster, creative direction, and championship stories.
Two Dariuses, two eras of Enjoy Wrestling
Darius Lockhart and Darius Carter left almost completely opposite footprints on Enjoy.
Lockhart represented the pure-wrestling foundation of its early years. At Enjoy’s first live event, Night Moves, “The Revolutionary” faced Lee Moriarty in a technical showcase that helped establish the company as a destination for elite in-ring wrestling.
Lockhart later teamed with Suge D as A Tribe Called Catch. The partnership brought cultural storytelling, historical awareness, and fluid tag-team wrestling to early Enjoy seasons like Striking Distance.
His time in Pittsburgh preceded the launch of ASÉ Wrestling, the Charlotte-based promotion Lockhart founded to place Black wrestling, culture and community at the center of the presentation.
If Lockhart helped establish the foundation of Enjoy, Carter arrived to conquer what it had become.
“The All-Father” positioned himself in opposition to Enjoy’s established identity, leading the Best Business Bureau in its mission to remind audiences “how pro wrestling is supposed to be.” His rigid, old-school presentation collided naturally with a company celebrated for experimentation and inclusivity.
Lockhart helped define the beginning. Carter now rules over the end.
Their paths also collided in Charlotte, where Carter defeated Lockhart in December 2024 to become the inaugural ASÉ Men’s Champion. Carter held the promotion’s top prize for 603 days, tormenting Lockhart and his allies before Yahya finally ended his reign at Black August.
The story of the “Two Dariuses” traveled between promotions, but another Enjoy connection will take center stage at ASÉ’s next event.
Billy Dixon and Darius Carter represented two visions of “business”
Billy Dixon and Darius Carter did not conduct their seven-year rivalry through a traditional series of Enjoy Wrestling matches. Instead, their time in Pittsburgh placed them on parallel paths as two powerful personalities attempting to reshape the promotion around their respective visions.
Dixon became one of the central figures in Enjoy’s most ambitious storytelling. Alongside Sonny Kiss, he formed “The Business” and helped drive an unconventional championship story that blended romance, corporate maneuvering and personal betrayal.
Carter’s arrival represented a darker evolution of that corporate theme.
Where Dixon’s version of The Business was flamboyant, chaotic and deeply personal, Carter created the Best Business Bureau as an instrument of control. “The All-Father” positioned himself in opposition to Enjoy’s established identity, insisting that his group would remind audiences “how pro wrestling is supposed to be.”
At Enjoy Odyssey 2026, Carter won the promotion’s signature briefcase before cashing it in against an exhausted Mikey Montgomery later that night. With assistance from TME, Carter captured the Enjoy Championship and placed the promotion under the control of the Best Business Bureau.
By the summer of 2026, Carter had become the reigning champion of a company in which Dixon had already left an unmistakable mark. Dixon wrestled his final Enjoy match in July, facing Nick Gage in a deathmatch.
Their Pittsburgh stories largely unfolded beside one another. In Charlotte, however, the conflict became direct.
A seven-year rivalry reaches its final destination
On Sept. 6, one day after Enjoy celebrates its fifth anniversary in Pittsburgh, Billy Dixon and Darius Carter will meet one final time at ASÉ Wrestling: This Is It.
The rivalry began in 2020 at Paris Is Bumping, Dixon’s groundbreaking combination of professional wrestling, drag, and ballroom culture.
Carter crashed the event and condemned its presentation as an insult to professional wrestling. His confrontation with Dixon ignited a conflict between two performers with opposing visions of what the industry could become.
Dixon represented innovation, inclusion, and the rejection of wrestling’s traditional limits. Carter fashioned himself as an elitist defender of the old order.
Their hatred followed them through multiple promotions and phases of their careers.
At ASÉ, their conflict became direct.
Carter defeated Dixon by disqualification at ASÉ wrestling in June 2024. When Dixon challenged for Carter’s ASÉ Men’s Championship in October 2025, outside interference once again prevented a definitive conclusion.
Now, there will be nowhere to run and no championship reign left to protect.
Billy Dixon will wrestle the final match of his career against Darius Carter inside a steel cage. Escape will not be permitted. Victory can only be secured by pinfall or submission.
After seven years, someone must win.
Enjoy’s stories will continue beyond its final show
Enjoy Wrestling’s closure will remove one of the most distinctive voices from the independent landscape.
Its five-year history is relatively brief, but influence is not measured exclusively by longevity. Enjoy created a recognizable world, elevated wrestlers who reflected its values, and proved that inclusive wrestling could be presented with ambition rather than apology.
The promotion also contributed to a larger ecosystem in which stories could move between cities and companies.
Darius Lockhart carried part of Enjoy’s early spirit into the creation of ASÉ. Darius Carter became a defining villain and champion in both places. Billy Dixon developed one of Enjoy’s most memorable stories before bringing the final chapter of his career to Charlotte.
Enjoy will present its last scheduled event on Oct. 4.
But before the doors close in Pittsburgh, two men shaped by the worlds surrounding Enjoy and ASÉ will enter a cage in Charlotte.
One promotion is preparing to end. One career is preparing to end. And a story that crossed both worlds will finally have its ending.