Canadian Wrestling's Elite comes back with a bang as tour looks to rebound from COVID-19

If a recent show in Thunder Bay, Ont., is any indication, it won't take long for Winnipeg-based professional wrestling company Canadian Wrestling's Elite (CWE) to regain the momentum it lost during the COVID-19 pandemic.

CWE was on the cusp of a 38-day tour — it would have been the longest tour in CWE history, in fact — when everything ground to a halt because of COVID-19, said owner Danny Warren, who also wrestles under the name "Hotshot" Danny Duggan.

Since touring resumed earlier this year, CWE has run two shows in Thunder Bay — one in July, and one last Friday night, both at West Thunder Community Centre.

And they showed Thunder Bay wrestling fans have not missed a beat, with Friday seeing hundreds of fans at West Thunder, cheering, booing, and chanting their way through every match on the card.

"We came back here a few months ago and we did not know what to expect," Warren said prior to Friday's show. "[Thunder Bay] was always a red-hot wrestling town for us, and coming back, we weren't sure if we were gonna be starting from scratch.

"But you brought us right back to where we are, and we're going to keep on building, bringing you great professional wrestling."

Warren said, however, the pandemic is still affecting how CWE does business.

"We were doing major markets, and every small market in between, because everything was so red hot that you can take a chance on a smaller market," he said. "If it did well, you kept it. If it didn't, you were able to kind of put it to the side for the time being and keep on moving forward."

"With the economics of the business changing so much, not only from two years of not generating revenue, but ... in terms of the operating expenses being at an all time-high, you can't afford to