Show: Wrestling Epicenter
Guests: Preston Quinn and Todd Myers
Date: 04/29/2025
Your Host: James Walsh

If your childhood was in the early 1990's or before, chances are you grew up with territory wrestling. No matter if that territory was in your backyard broadcast on your local TV network or if you were lucky and lived in a major city that broadcast various territories from throughout the country, you likely were raised experiencing different styles of pro wrestling. With the global expansion of the WWE and the demise of WCW, only one style has really stayed alive. And, without those different styles and with a lack of alternatives, the majority of pro wrestling fans that watched in the 1990's and before have tuned out for good...

Until now!

Mid Atlantic Territory Wrestling is a new promotion that has thrived in the old region that used to run Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling. Featuring a style of wrestling that feels and looks a lot like the late era of the Crockett promotion into the early Turner era of WCW, think Pre-Nitro, and wrestling that makes sense and doesn't insult your intelligence, MATW is an experience that reminds you why you fell in love with pro wrestling in the first place. Through tireless work to get it right, Preston Quinn and his team have gotten MATW to the point where it is ready to be seen by the masses. Now, it can be! 

Every Tuesday and Thursday night at 8 p.m. on Right Now Television, MATW will air delivering the territorys tyle goodness we've been missing for far too long. Right Now TV can be found at www.RightNowTelevision.com as well as can be found over the air in most major markets. Check your local listings to find what station it is on, free of charge, on your TV! 

To celebrate, we spoke to promoter and TV Champion Preston Quinn and his senior referee Todd Myers discussing all things modern wrestling and how MATW fits in to a crowded field. 

Check out Mid Altnatic Territory Wrestling's official Facebook page!! https://www.facebook.com/MATWrestling/

Check out www.WrestlingEpicenter.com for more great interviews like this! 

PRESTON QUINN & TODD MYES: 

On what it means for MATW to make it to TV:
Preston Quinn: "When we decided to make Mid Atlantic Territory Wrestling, this is exactly what we had in mind. We didn't just want to be an indy that ran once or twice a month or run once every few months. We wanted to run regularly in multiple states throughout the region and we wanted to be on TV."

On the idea behind MATW;
Preston Quinn: "You can't compete with what is already on TV. They're established. You can't be better than that, you've got to be different. We wanted to be different. The nucleus of Mid Atlantic Territory Wrestling, the office so to speak, are a group of people who do not or rarely watch modern wrestling. We don't watch modern wrestling because it does not compare to the territory wrestling of the 80's and early 90's. And, to be honest with you... Where did all the fans go that were watching the Monday Night Wars? Only a fraction of those people watch wrestling. Where did those people go?> There are so many people who were turned off to pro wrestling and we want to try to present a product that can bring some of those people bac."

On MATW having the look and vibe of  classic WCW/NWA wrestling on TBS:
Preston Quinn: "A lot of the fans that grew up watching that stuff, that grew up going to territory wrestling in the late 70's and 80's are grandparents now, I hate to say it. But, we want that. We want grandparents at the show. We want parents to bring their kids, older parents to bring their teenagers. We want to present family friendly wrestling at a family friendly price. We're not charging people a light bill to get in. We want them to come every time we're around and for it not to be a burden on them."
Todd Myers: "There is no "almost" about it. We absolutely intentionally have our ring, our colors resemble the look of the pre-Hulk Hogan WCW. That was a nuance that we intentionally brought to our presentation because it is part of the style we aim to present."
Preston Quinn: "That is part of the experience we want to bring back to people. Looking at the blue and yellow WCW style colors and looking forward to what is about to take place. That is the experience we want to bring back to people and bring to others who may not have had that experience before."

On Preston Quinn's ties to the Anderson family:
Preston Quinn: "My trainer was Pat Anderson. He was a former marine. He passed away recently. His trainer, ironically, was Ivan Koloff. Koloff trained him, he then became CW Anderson's first tag team partner. Pat saw this kid, CW, in the lcocker room and said "That looks like an ANderson!" So, they teamed for years. Then of course, CW and myself teamed up together for 7 or 8 years up until Arn asked CW if he would help Brock Anderson come along."

On his recent reign of terror dropping people on their head:
Preston Quinn: "Well, at the recent TV tapings, Bob Evans made his return after his 2 month hiatus from me stuffing him on a chair. He came after me with a baseball bat. Bob is going to be the thorn in my side. I will be defending the TV Title against him at Scars and Stripes on June 14th. So, we will see how that goes."

On how MATW will present pro wrestling in the old school style when both AEW and WWE have gone more hardcore and feature multiple finishing moves per match:
Preston Quinn: "That is something that people wondered if we could do. I have found that people are willing to accept what a finish is to wrestling however you present it. I knew that going in because I saw John Cena finishing people with a standing Fireman's Carry and a Five Knuckle Shuffle... Or, the People's Elbow. Anything can be a finish as long as you finish people with it. So, my rules are this. Each guy has a finisher. If he uses that finish, they do not kick out unless there are extenuating circumstances and that has to be once in a blue moon. Not like nowasdays where every special event, everybody kicks out of everybody's finish constantly. If this guy's finish is a DDT and he hits it, it is not a cut off. It is over! And, if anybody else uses a DDT and it is just a cut off, I can say that for them it is just a cut off but for me, I hit it than anybody else and nobody kicks out of it. That is the logic.For me, it is the piledriver. Now, the piledriver hasn't been diminished the way the DDT has over the years. But, I use the piledriver and I do it the way Paul Orndorff used to do it."

On how Right Now Television has been as a partner thus far:
Preston Quinn: "Before Mid Atlantic Territory Wrestling ever was, the head of Right Now Television and I were having a discussion about what pro wrestling was versus what it is right now. He said, "If you ever have a product that looks like a territory, is run like a territory, and, and this is something we haven't hit on yet. For a smaller company, we have a lot of heavyweight real men. That is something that a lot of the territories don't have. Hell, a lot of the bigger companies don't have that anymore, right? That is part of the "wrestling is for everybody" mentality that I don't subscribe to. Anyway, he said if I ever were to come up with a product like this, he would put it on his network because that is what he wants to see and he would give it a prime spot. Well, COVID hit. I was running a smaller company called Fusion Wrestling. We had run a few shows and when COVID hit, I had decided it was time that I did something different. So, I called the head of Right Now Television and I told him I was going to do it. But, he was going to have to give us time to get it right because none of us had ever done this type of production before. It was going to be a learning curve. And, boy, what a learning curve! The wrestling, the booking side? That all came naturally. But, the production side? We were scrambling until we got it right. Now, it is there. We've got a baseline now that is good enough. We'll only continue to grow from here. But, once we did get there, we sent him the footage and his reaction was, "You did it! You FN did it! Start cranking these out!""

On the goal for MATW:
Preston Quinn: "Some people say, "Early 90's WCW? Why on Earth would you model yourself after that?" I'll tell you why. The Dangerous Alliance. The Steiner Brothers versus "Dr. Death" Steve Williams and Terry Gordy. Anything Rick Rude did! Dustin Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat, Barry Windham, Brian Pillman, Steve Austin... Why wouldn't I model myself after early 90's WCW? I'm not modeling myself after Norman the Lunatic! Or, Big Josh! Those are their mistakes. But, the things they did right they did better than anybody else. The International Tag Team TOurnament! The press conference between Sting and Rick Rude. These are things that get overlooked because of the Ding Dongs... Because of Norman the Lunatic. Those are the things we are trying to avoid but keep the god stuff. That is what we're trying to do."
Todd Myers: "Jim Cornette once said about Smoky Mountain Wrestling that it was a good idea but bad timing. Well, I think this is a good idea and the timing might also be right."