WES cancels debut show again, blames ‘talent not showing up’

WES announced the cancellation of its debut Nottingham show, suggesting that talent backing out was to blame.

Maybe Alistair Overeem is fated never to make his pro wrestling debut after all.

The former UFC heavyweight was slated to participate in the main event of the debut Wrestling Entertainment Series (WES) show in Nottingham, England. The original date was June 4, but the fledgling promotion called it off just days prior and announced a new date of July 9.

Now that’s off as well. WES tweeted today that despite being “disappointed in the news,” it was canceling the show. It pointed to “so many talent not showing up” as the main cause.

The only wrestler called out by name in the cancellation post is Lina Fanene, the former Nia Jax during her time in WWE. Fanene had been adamant on her own social media as far back as June 23 that she would not be participating.

Adam Scherr, formerly WWE’s Braun Strowman, was advertised as Overeem’s opponent for the original June date, and he expressed his skepticism as well in response to a tweet from Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp.

It remains to be seen if WES, which was founded by Gzim Selmani and Sunny Dhinsa (known as Rezar and Akam in WWE), can recover from such an inauspicious start. But getting off on the wrong foot with the very talent the company is trying to court only adds to the hurdles any new promotion faces, ones that now seem too high to clear in the short term.