ACTION Wrestling We Gambled Away the Graphix Budget -- Las Vegas on April 17

Wednesday, April 22, 2026 Edit this post

From Noah Khalaf:

Action Wrestling without a doubt stole the entire weekend getting a packed room at the Bizarre bar in Las Vegas and giving the crowd some of the best independent wrestling of the entire weekend. Several big names make their Action Wrestling debut in the ring with former IWGP World Heavyweight Champion Zack Sabre Jr., former AJPW Triple Crown Champion Minoru Suzuki and Fuminori Abe, a wrestler known the world over for being a hard hitting striker and an incredible technician.

Below are results from the event and a Q & A with ACTION Wrestling CEO Matt Griffin.

-- The Good Hand (Suge D & Kasey Owens) (w/ Tyler Stevens) def. Unsigned And Don’t Care (Gary Jay & Aaron Williams)

-- IWTV Independent Wrestling World Championship: Mance Warner def. Krule (c) to win the IWTV Independent Wrestling World Championship

-- Tyler Stevens def. Bobby Flaco, Alexander Lev, OXP, Big Dave Weaver, & Landon Hale

-- ACTION World Championship: Darian Bengston (c) def. Timothy Thatcher to retain the ACTION World Championship

-- Minoru Suzuki, Adam Priest, & Fuminori Abe def. Jonathan Gresham, Zack Sabre Jr., & Erick Stevens

-- Jamesen Shook def. Grayson Pierce

-- Tim Bosby def. Danny Jones

-- ACTION Wrestling Tag Team Championships: Top Team (Jay Lucas & Terry Yaki) (c) def. New Fever (Danny Orion & Shimbashi)

-- 1 Called Manders def. Paul Walter Hauser Karl Greco-Malenko def. Mad Dog Connelly

GWH: What was it like working with Produce to work on the six man tag match and what is the ongoing relationship with Produce.

Griffin: It's a great beginning to a relationship. Orange Crush aka Adam, The man behind PRODUCE is a big fan of a lot of our talents. Our Champions Darian Bengston, Terry Yaki & Jay Lucas have already been announced as PRODUCE talent. It's unfortunate that an injury to Ryan Clancy was the catalyst, but we are happy to work with other promotions and have PRODUCE talk about future events on our livestreamed show. And the 6 man was phenomenal, it made a lot of favorite match of the weekend lists we saw on social media. We are going to work with PRODUCE on one of our ACTION Dean~!!! Styled events along with our partners at Segunda Caida for Sept. Orange Crush really wants to highlight wrestling in a unique way, and we are definitely here for it and can't wait for the future.

GWH: Many notable names had matches at Action Wrestling We Gambled The Graphics Away. What was that like having those names at your event?

Griffin: It's always great to work with a thoughtful wrestler like Tim Thatcher, a very hard worker and so smart in the ring to always bring something new to the table and get the best out of his opponent. And it's great to have legends like Minoru Suzuki, Zack Sabre Jr, Fuminori Abe & Jonathan Gresham appear with us for the first time. Mania week is always interesting as there are so many shows, and it's essentially a several day fever dream trying to make everything happen. All the talents were great to have, gave a killer effort and had a fun exciting match with twists and turns. It's still surreal to me to think back that it actually happened. We've had Erick Stevens in before, always great to have him around as he's like a player/coach to so many young aspiring wrestlers online. And Adam Priest, well he's Adam Priest. He is his own entity entirely and has been one of the ones to put ACTION on the map

GWH: What can we expect from Action Wrestling after their 8th year anniversary?

Griffin: We are based in Georgia, but not a Georgia promotion. I consider ACTION a nationwide promotion having run events now in Nevada, Florida, New Jersey, Tennessee plus had title defenses in many other states and in multiple countries. Our Championship really is a World Championship. We will continue to find new talents, make interesting match ups, honor southern wrestling heritage and continue to push the envelope as best we can.

GWH: What match on the card do you feel best represents what ACTION Wrestling is all about right now?

Griffin: From our Las Vegas show, our ACTION World Champion Darian Bengston v Timothy Thatcher. Our talent can hang with the best in the world and does. This was the first match I thought of when we had the agreement in place to run a show in Vegas.

GWH: After a show like this, what’s the next step—do you build off moments from tonight or pivot completely to something new?

Griffin: It never stops. Vegas isn't a highlight or defining moment, what it does for us is it shows what we can do at any time. We blend nationwide and worldwide talent, work with other promotions in The New Initiative, we highlight our local talent that is in Vegas and put on the best variety show we can. There isn't a pivot off of Las Vegas, we had a show last night (Monday, 4.20) and our anniversary is Friday (4.24 in Tyrone). The work doesn't stop, I'm always having new conversations and exploring different ideas, talking to new talent about coming in, new promotions interested in partnering, trying to arrange our talent to appear elsewhere ... there isn't time to rest or feel accomplished, we just keep working.