1PW Founder Accused Of Fraud, Ticket Sales Paused For Upcoming Show

Serious allegations have been made against 1PW founder Steven Gauntley, including embezzlement and fraud. The original 1PW ceased operations in 2011 but Gauntley was behind the relaunch of the British independent wrestling promotion in 2022. 

The promotion has been somewhat in chaos for the past several months, with several wrestlers claiming they have not been paid by 1PW for working previous shows. Despite this, 1PW booked their 'Know Your Enemy' show for October 28 at the Doncaster Dome with a main event of Matt Cardona vs. James Storm. 

Since the serious allegations have been made, the venue has paused ticket sales for 'Know Your Enemy'. 1PW have also deleted their Twitter account. 

A spokesperson for Doncaster Culture and Leisure Trust told the Doncaster Free Press: "We are looking into the issues raised around the 1PW event so have decided to pause ticket sales for the time being. We will provide an update to customers as soon as we have more information."

The allegations of fraud and embezzlement against Steve Gauntley were made by commentator Joe Dombrowski. The full list of allegations against Gauntley are as follows:

• "Lied about paying everyone when multiple are owed a total of thousands (+ owes many fan merch/refunds)
• "Embezzled 1PW income to his personal acct while lying to rest of mgmt
• "Tried to fraudulently sell 10% 1PW stock by claiming assets he didn't own.
• 'Manipulated wrestler(s) on his roster to facilitate loans from those close to them not in wrestling. Only a small % was paid back.
• "Owes someone formerly close to him 10,000 GBP used to re-start 1PW. 
• "Lied to those waiting on June money that he wasn't paying Oct deposits
• "Claimed he was resigning from the company only because he "fell down the stairs" 
• "Has blocked countless people who have been pursuing their money
• 'Has resigned as director without appointing a replacement (also illegal)"

Matt Cardona has also stated the Know Your Enemy has been cancelled, tweeting, in part: "ATTENTION PROMOTERS WHO WANT THE INDY GOD IN 2023, This @1ProWrestling show isn’t happening and the promoter, Steven Gauntley, didn’t have the balls to tell me himself or respond to my messages. I should have learned my lesson after I had to tweet to get paid my deposit for the last show. Lol."