ACW Returns to Poughkeepsie for Star-Studded Reckoning Event Saturday

Awesome Championship Wrestling returns to the MJN Center in Poughkeepsie, New York, on Saturday night for its Reckoning event, which features several prominent wrestlers.

IWGP global heavyweight champion Andrade, NWA world historic middleweight champion Flip Gordon, ACW women’s champion Steph De Lander, TNA star Indi Hartwell, MLW’s Lady Frost, and independent scene standouts Richard Holliday and Ben Bishop appear on the card. The ACW tag team champions, Vik Dalishus and Hale Collins of The Now, defend their titles in a steel cage match against Sent 2 Slaughter, the team of Danny Maff and Shawn Donovan.

Dalishus and Collins aim to end their long-running feud with Sent 2 Slaughter. "Guys we’ve had to deal with in the last year and a half and our feud has actually extended outside of ACW," Dalishus said. "We’ve feuded in several different promotions all throughout the Northeast."

Dalishus said Maff and Donovan crashed his wedding, which escalated the rivalry. "And they’re all bitter because we stole, well, we won their tag titles at WrestlePro," Collins said. Their opponents also crashed his Hall of Fame ceremony at Johnny Rodz’s wrestling school.

"It’s a very personal rivalry. They actually crashed my wedding," Dalishus said. "They showed up unannounced. They’ve made it very personal and we’ve responded accordingly. The very first time we were in a steel cage with them, they had our manager (Josh Shernoff) in their back pocket. He actually turned on us. What this steel cage is really all about is redemption to right the wrong that happened to us last time we were in a cage. We’ve said this was going to be the final chapter – whoever wins, wins, and whoever loses, that’s it."

Dalishus and Collins promote ACW, which wrestlers have praised. They said the MJN Center plays a key role in the promotion’s success. Dalishus remembered attending WWE Monday Night Raw tapings there in the 1990s, where he saw Sensational Sherry and Luna Vachon wrestle, and later Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore events.

"That building and our careers and our lives have really intertwined in the craziest way and we’re very fortunate that Awesome Championship Wrestling has been this thing that has kinda caught on in this area and really been the next wave of professional wrestling," Dalishus said. "The WWF and the WWE coming here in the 70s, 80s and 90s and then ECW and then there was some local independent wrestling that was running the building trying to do a good job with providing big stars in the area but there was a real big gap in the last few years with pro wrestling and bringing TV stars into this area. NXT had run the building, TNA had run the building a few times and the crowds were a little bit underwhelming and we knew when we were going to start Awesome Championship Wrestling that we wanted to do something a little bit different but also cater to all of the wrestling fans – provide something for everyone."

ACW stands out from typical independent shows with its lighting, camera work and backstage professionalism. Collins and Dalishus noted growth since their first event in January 2025. "The first show, we almost lost our butts, and then we had a great walk up," Collins told Fox News Digital. "It was almost like the movie ‘Field of Dreams’ – ‘if you build it, it will come.’ All of a sudden, 2, 3, 400 people walked up and it was awesome. Ever since then, we’re going day-by-day, but we have goals in mind."

Dalishus said they have taken smart steps to attract more fans, including a YouTube show with past matches and event previews. "Who knows where it can really go? The idea for us is to ride this roller coaster for as long as we can and see what happens," Dalishus said. "Does it become a brand that starts to tour around the country? We hope so. We hope that it’s something that we’re able to do and we’re able to take ACW to different markets. Right now, the thing we’ve been able to leverage is that the building here, the MJN Center, is in partnership with us and that we’ve been able to really grow with a partner that’s wanting to see us succeed just as much as they want to see success. So, it becomes a big risk to start traveling outside of this home area because of the things we’ve been able to leverage with our friends and our business connections and our partnerships that we have. We spent a lot of time in the last year surrounding ourselves with some of the people that we’ve known throughout our time in wrestling that we trust, that are really great minds for pro wrestling and that they’re guys who bring something to the table that will help us grow at a big rate. Being able to take this thing on the road would be something that I’d really like to see us do."

Collins said touring is definitely a goal. "Everything we do, even if it’s something simple like getting the apron branded, that’s the goal," he said. "The branding is pretty good right now so let’s go to the next goal. Now, we can take the show, put it in another building, but it’ll still look like ACW. We’re thinking of every aspect and being careful as we do. As of right now, I think we’re on to something really cool and whatever we take, we put it back into the company."

Reckoning includes inductions of "Macho Man" Randy Savage and Mike Bell into the MJN Center’s Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame.