The Internet Wrestling League was originally started as a part of the just launched Geeksoft.Net G-Fed site in December of 2000. Over the past few years the IWL has grown from having eight people cards to a full blown roster of about 50 people! There have been well over 200 wrestlers that have been a part of the IWL and that by no means is a small feat. Here’s a look back at the beginnings and the background of the IWL.

IWL was first started as league number 114 under G-Fed 2.0, a series of scripts that would make fed heading an e-fed a lot simpler than it was at the time. When the IWL opened it’s doors on December 1, 2000, things were… stagnant. Only six people on the card, roleplays that made a six year old look as if he can write like a 30-year old college professor, and not much going on in terms of design and aesthetics. Most promotions that were in the IWL’s state, whether and e-fed or a g-fed, would’ve likely board up shop and called it a day. That wasn’t the case for the IWL as the IWL even hosted it’s first PPV while having just eight people on it’s roster.

IWL Unleashed, much like many of it’s events were named of a spin in an actual wrestling promotion… in this case a spin off the WOW Unleashed PPV name, was the first PPV under the IWL banner. At that pay-per-view, IWL crowned it’s first two champions. The Punisher, later on would be named a hall of famer, won the IWL’s World Heavyweight Championship title and Brad Kamikaze, wound up winning the IWL Intercontinental Championship. It would be these two matches that would set the IWL on it’s way to becoming what it is today.

After the PPV, the IWL initally starting taking shape. Paul Williams, the founder of the IWL and it’s first (and only) president, started managing to make use of his (limited) HTML skills and made the first IWL template. Ok so it looked bad, but hey given what Geeksoft had available at the time… it was pretty damn good. Jonathan Rodriguez, the first-ever Vice President of the IWL, came along shortly afterward and help pushed IWL forward. He came up with crazy ideas, weird matches, and basically some of the more better storylines that were done at the time. While the IWL was operating on the G-Fed 2.0 banner, several hundred feds would surpass what Paul and Jonathan were doing in the IWL. But this didn’t stop them from continually pushing forward in posting shows, grading RP’s, and signing roster members.

The defining moment for the IWL came during the later portion of 2003 when Geeksoft would start ranking their feds based on a member voted rating system. Paul and Jonathan though this was it… This was their chance to push their fed up and finally get some attention. Then the rankings came in. 1209. The IWL was ranked at downright towards the upper middle of what was counted to be thousands of other promotions. Even though the IWL was no TUF or DWCW, they still continued on. A turning point in the IWL came in the notion that they managed to sign… a grand total of 50 wrestlers to it’s roster. The roster was large that they had to split the roster between two shows via an expansion draft similarly done in the World Wrestling Entertainment today. (Editor’s Note: Ok we copied them in the aspect.)

With more and more people, and sooner than later IWL started celebrating milestones. Tenth Pay-Per-View. First Internet Champion. Ranked #7 on the G-Fed Best Federation’s List.

All was looking up for the IWL when all of a sudden, the home offices of Geeksoft.Net caught fire. And with that came the unexpected end of the IWL and G-Fed as we knew.

Or so people thought.

Paul managed to collect as many email address and AIM screen names as he could, he bought the domain ‘iwle.com’ and ‘iwl-entertainment.com’ and managed to convert IWL from a g-fed to an e-fed with success.

Then came the downfalls… after a while, people started having ‘net problems’ and wasn’t able to access the IWL to fuel the engine with roleplays, chats on the OOC board… Paul wasn’t able to sign on as often as he did to keep the place together. Then 30 members became 15 members, then 10, then the IWL closed it doors for good.

Or, once again, so people thought.

With some help from some of the newer people that he met, IWL managed to reopen it’s doors several times and each time with welcome arms. This time, not just to stay around for six months. This time, to stay around for even longer.