AWA are now in association with the world famous GWF brand The Global Wrestling Federation was originally started by Max Andrews and Joe Pedicino with Bill Eadie(Ax from Demolition, The Masked Superstar, Super Machine and Axis the Demolisher in GWF) as head of creative. The organization was a mix of established names and newcomers, many of whom would launch their national careers after appearances on the daily ESPN show. The original stars included the Patriot (Del Wilkes), Scott Levy (Raven of ECW, WCW, WWE and TNA), the Handsome Stranger (Marcus Bagwell of WCW) and Cactus Jack. In late 1991, "Hot Stuff" Eddie Gilbert entered the promotion and took over much of the creative direction of the show introducing The Dark Patriot (an evil version of the Patriot played by his brother, Doug Gilbert), John Hawk (John Bradshaw Layfield), Jerry Lynn, and the Winner Barry Horowitz (a character created by Gilbert and announcer Craig Johnson.) Booker T and Stevie Ray also wrestled in the promotion as did the Lightning Kid (later known as the 1-2-3 Kid, Syxx, and X-Pac in WCW and WWE). The GWF began airing weekly shows in the local Dallas and Fort Worth metroplex television market from the Dallas Sportatorium, which was billed for a short time as The GlobalDome. The promotion's announcers were Jon Horton (as Craig Johnson), Scott Hudson, Steven Prazak (as "Steven DeTruth"), and Joe Pedicino, with Boni Blackstone as ringside interviewer. Scott Hudson left the announcer's table and in his place was "The Expert" Bruce Prichard (Brother Love of WWF/WWE). In the wake of this temporary fold, the promotional rights to the GWF were purchased by Northstar Promotions, which was formed by Grey Pierson, Robert Keeler, and Wayne Whitworth. Soon after, many former World Class Championship Wrestling stars began appearing, including Chris Adams, Kerry Von Erich and Iceman Parsons, among others. Doyle King, David Webb, and other guest announcers (including former World Class announcers Bill Mercer and Marc Lowrance) were brought in as the show became more of a theatrical presentation. Mercer, a veteran of Sportatorium wrestling since the 1950s, hosted a weekly segment on many memorable events that took place in the venerable Dallas arena. In late 1991, shortly after the Bungee Match, Keeler and Whitworth left Northstar and Pierson took the reins. The GWF was shown weekdays on ESPN as well as a one-hour weekly syndicated show presented in 130 markets. One of the main reasons Northstar was successful was the separately edited and broadcast weekly syndicated show for the Dallas market which eliminated the two-week lag time between taping and airing. This allowed the Dallas audience to see the matches live on Friday night and view them 24 hours later on the local Dallas station. The local attendance rose from a low of 94 people to a packed house of over 5,000 within 6 weeks. In 1994, however, the company would fold. Their last show aired on September 25. In 2008-2009 a promotion called NTWA ran regular events on Saturday nights in Kemp, Texas(about an hour outside of Dallas). Early 2009 they started a new show on Friday nights called Friday Night Onslaught. After running about 5 months of running the creative had a falling out with NTWA and left NTWA and became Pro Wrestling Onslaught. The First official card of Pro Wrestling Onslaught was Halloween Night 2009 in Graham, Texas called Empire Ryzing. They ran events all over North Texas occasionally bringing in independent names and a few former WWE stars. Onslaught was also the first promotion in Texas to have an internet Pay-Per-View event and it aired on the GoFightLive streaming site which also had events from Chikara and Ring of Honor. Pro Wrestling Onslaught slowed down operations for a while and ended up coming to an agreement with Northstar Promotions in 2015 to become GWF Onslaught. On November 22, 2015 in Mineral Wells, Texas on a card co-promoted with TOP(Texas Outlaw Promotion) 2 new GWF champions were crowned when Zero because the new Light Heavyweight Champion and Jacob Kilgore became the GWF Heavyweight Champion. In 2017 GWF Onslaught has decided to partner with international promotions starting with the long running AWA in England. AWA holds the GWF Commonwealth Champion, previously held by was Axl Rotten but was retired in 1991.
