Ever since parting ways with WWE in 2020, Erick Redbeard, formally known as Erick Rowan, has largely stayed away from the pro wrestling spotlight. He did make an appearance at AEW’s emotional Brodie Lee tribute episode of Dynamite, showing love for his former The Wyatt Family and Bludgeon Brothers partner, and returned to AEW in 2022 for an AEW Revolution Buy-In match. Outside of that, he has kept his talents reserved for the independent pro wrestling scene.
Earlier today, Redwood took to social media with unfortunate news about one of his upcoming appearances in Indiana.
“Due to unprofessional conduct my appearance August 12 with WCWO in Mooresville, IN has been canceled on me,” he wrote. “If you pride yourself on being professional and want to inquire on a booking/appearance please email Bookredbeard@gmail.com.”
Haus of Wrestling reached out to Redbeard to find out what exactly had happened that was unprofessional and was put in touch with his booking agent. As it was explained to us, Redbeard had been in contact with WCWO about the booking and repeatedly reached out to WCWO over the past week regarding travel information. Having not heard from the promotion, Redbeard was surprised to find this message on the WCWO Facebook page earlier this morning.
“Do to circumstances out of our control Erick Redbeard will not be appearing at the show August 12th in Mooresville, IN,” the wrote. “We wish him the best of luck and hope to book him on a future show.”
Redbeard’s camp felt it was unprofessional for the promotion to post his removal from the event before telling him first, and worse, making it appear he had backed out of his own volition. Redbeard was then advised to post on social media that he would no longer be appearing as to make it clear it was not his decision.
After hearing Redbeard’s side of the story, Haus of Wrestling reached out to WCWO regarding what we had been told, and received the following response.
“We were asked to come to Mooresville to do a show,” the began. “We were then told they had a sponsor that would pay to book him and wanted others as well. We never booked him, and were told he was booked so we put him on the flyer. That’s all it is. Another person wanting to be in the wrestling business but has no clue what they are doing and getting others caught up in their crap.
“We did advertise him but also let fans know he wouldn’t be there as soon as we found out the issue. We are still doing the show since everything else was in motion. Just sucks this happened and we are being blamed for it since the actual promoter hasn’t made a name for themselves yet it’s easy to blame us.. when essentially we were just booked to put on a show like he was booked to perform.”
Their response did not make clear who was actually on the hook for the miscommunication or whether they were aware Redbeard only found out about his removal from their social media post and not them personally. I pressed them regarding both those issues and received the following shorter response.
“We weren’t the ones who told him,” they said. “We put out our statement when we were informed by the people who were supposed to be booking him.”
My response to them was simple, “Who is that person?”
At this time, two hours after asking, Haus of Wrestling has not received a response from WCWO revealing who they claim is actually responsible for the issue. It is unfortunate when things like this happen on the independent pro wrestling scene, and this is a situation we wanted to make other pro wrestling fans and wrestlers aware of, with as much context as we could provide. If we receive an update from WCWO, we will be sure to update this post.