OTT Wrestling announced on April 17 that they lost their wrestling school. Joey Cabray wrote on social media that the landlord was unwilling to work with the promotion.
Today we lost our school, a landlord unwilling to work with us in any form. This school meant so much to the scene, trainees and trainers. We will be back with a new and better location soon ???? pic.twitter.com/T1aJ5UIpRZ
— Cabray (@Joey_Cabray) April 17, 2020
He explained on Facebook, “Yesterday I had to close down our wrestling school based in Dublin, our landlord Alan Holmes of PaintWorld Ltd Dublin evicted us. Our training ceased on March 11th due to COVID 19, we reached out to try come to a resolution and offered to pay over 50% of the rent during these downtimes, even though our school can’t generate any income, but ultimately he decided to evict us instead. Our school is important to the young people who train there, we receive zero funding. On April 15th at 23:40 I received an email stating that I had until April 17th to remove our equipment or it would be put into storage of his choosing and I would be billed. Yesterday some friends and I risked our health during a pandemic to remove equipment and have it stored. People like Alan Holmes need to be remembered when this is over, landlords like this need to be held accountable.”
NXT UK star and first OTT World Champion Jordan Devlin reacted on social media and also explained about the situation. NXT UK stars Killer Kelly and Flash Morgan Webster also replied to the news, both stating how heartbreaking the situation is.
Landlord refused to accept anything less than 100% of the rent we usually pay. In a time he knows it's impossible to earn that rent. I'm glad we're moving, glad we're not giving a man like that any more money. The building isn't the school, it's the people in it. We'll go again. https://t.co/wfu7f0FVyi
— Jordan Devlin (@Jordan_Devlin1) April 17, 2020
The School of Irish Wrestling was created last year. Ireland’s premier Wrestling School was accepting students to train and learn about professional wrestling from Ireland’s top coaches, Jordan Devlin, Joe Cabray, Paul Tracey and Paddy Morrow. OTT had to cancel their Scrappermania 6 event due to the coronavirus pandemic. The main event that was scheduled was AEW World Champion Jon Moxley vs. OTT Champion David Starr.
All pics courtesy of OTT Wrestling and The School of Irish Wrestling