Welcome back to The Backyard Wrestling Link

Most of us started the same way: as kids messing around in a backyard, trying the moves we saw on television and it was the most fun we had ever experienced. A trampoline became a ring. A camcorder gave us something we could watch back. Homemade entrances, improvised weapons, hand-built rings, and real bumps transformed an afternoon with friends into something that quietly became one of the most important parts of our lives.

At first, many of us thought we were the only ones doing it.

Then we found The Backyard Wrestling Link.

Founded in Australia in 1997, long before social media, YouTube, streaming platforms, or widespread online forums connected people across the world, the Link began as a directory designed to help backyard wrestling promotions find one another. What started as a collection of websites soon evolved into the central gathering place for a growing worldwide movement.

Suddenly, there was proof that we were not alone. Kids and crews across the world were building their own rings, creating characters, filming shows, making music videos, and chasing the same feeling in their own backyards. It was hard not to form a connection after realizing that we had all been doing the same strange, dangerous, creative, and beautiful thing in isolation.

The Link became the place where those isolated scenes finally came together.

The Community That Connected Us

The Backyard Wrestling Link was the gateway into an entire world.

Hundreds of federations established a presence through the site, while thousands of wrestlers, promoters, editors, videographers, and fans used it to meet others who shared their passion. Long before Facebook groups, Discord servers, and Reddit communities, the Link provided the infrastructure that transformed backyard wrestling from scattered local groups into an international community.

We woke up and checked the boards. We posted matches, traded footage, promoted shows, reviewed federations, debated rankings, exchanged ideas, started rivalries, and hyped each other up. A list of usernames gradually became opponents, tag-team partners, travel companions, and some of the most important people in our lives.

The Link developed an unmistakable culture. Established federations and respected veterans set a high standard, and earning the community’s approval could mean everything to a young wrestler. That environment pushed many people to improve, but it could also be unforgiving. New or inexperienced groups were sometimes met with ridicule or dismissed before they had an opportunity to grow.

The same tight-knit culture that gave the community its identity eventually made it more difficult for a new generation to enter it. As longtime members grew older and traditional message boards declined, fewer newcomers remained to carry its lineage forward.

That history should be remembered honestly, not rewritten or romanticized. The Link connected a generation and helped its members accomplish things they never could have achieved alone. It also showed us what a revived community must do better.

From Usernames to Lifelong Friends

The boards introduced us. Supershows made those relationships real.

People spent their own money to drive across states and countries for the opportunity to wrestle alongside someone they had previously known only by a screen name. We traveled to Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, New York, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and anywhere else someone was willing to host.

We slept on couches and floors. We shared cameras, traded tapes, and trusted one another with our bodies. We wrestled without sponsors, contracts, or large crowds, simply because we cared enough to make it happen.

Within minutes of meeting, it often felt as though we had known each other for years.

Those weekends created friendships that survived long after the cameras stopped recording. Members of this community learned that they could break down almost anywhere in the country and find someone willing to answer the phone and say, “I’ve got you.” People from completely different backgrounds became family through something very few outside the community could understand.

The Link did not merely document backyard wrestling. It helped create the relationships, traditions, and collaborations that defined it.

Preserving Where We Came From

Over its original lifespan, the Link was maintained by several important caretakers. Daz was followed by Wild T and then Travis Alley of OTEW and MAWA, although there may have been other brief transitions during that period. Its stewardship later passed to Matt Given of HCW Port Elgin, Kevin S2K of VCW, Dave Sandstorm of MWF, Yakuza J of VCW, and finally Scott Henson of VCW. Each helped guide and preserve the community through a different period of its development.

The site’s influence stretched far beyond its own boards. Music videos, federation reviews, talent rankings, online feuds, supershow planning, and inter-promotional collaboration all flourished within its community. Nearly every major backyard wrestling federation, alliance, forum, and supershow culture that followed, including WrestleFigs and GBYWN, can trace part of its lineage to relationships formed through the Link.

Its impact even reached professional wrestling. Numerous professional wrestlers began in federations connected through the site, while others reportedly browsed its boards looking for innovative moves and ideas. That relationship was not always comfortable, especially during a time when wrestlers often tried to hide their backyard origins, but the influence was undeniable.

Building the Link Again

More than a decade later, many of us found one another again.

Old footage resurfaced. Retrospective videos reminded people what the scene had meant to them. Conversations began. Grudges were settled, friendships were renewed, and wrestlers who thought they had left this part of their lives behind felt the same spark the moment they returned.

When we finally gathered again, the inside jokes came back immediately. People who had not seen one another in fifteen years fell into conversation as though no time had passed. It became clear that these were not simply people we used to know or something we did when we were young.

This community was still part of us.

The new Backyard Wrestling Link is being built in that spirit, but it cannot exist only as a monument to the past.

It is once again intended to be a gathering place: somewhere backyard wrestlers from every region and generation can find one another, share their media, preserve their histories, promote their federations, organize shows, exchange ideas, and become part of something larger than their own backyard.

Veterans should have a place to reconnect and pass down what they learned. Today’s active wrestlers should have the tools to build relationships beyond their local groups. Newcomers should have an opportunity to participate, learn, improve, and establish themselves without feeling that they must already know the right people to belong.

The goal is not to recreate the internet of 1997 or pretend the community never changed. It is to carry forward what made the original Link important while building something more accessible, welcoming, and sustainable for the future.

The Backyard Wrestling Link began by connecting people who thought they were alone.

That remains its purpose today.

Find your community. Share what you created. Preserve where you came from. Help build what comes next.