Combat Zone Wrestling

Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW) is an American independent wrestling promotion founded in 1999, mostly commonly associated in the 2000s with the hardcore wrestling genre. Early CZW shows showcased a brand of hardcore wrestling dubbed as "Ultraviolence" which featured elements such as Ladders, tables, steel folding chairs, thumbtacks, barbed wire, weed whackers, light tubes, panes of glass, exploding barbed wire baseball bats, and fire. The company filled a niche for hardcore wrestling fans that had been left open by the folding of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) in 2001.

In the mid-2000s CZW diversified its image by mixing its roster of homegrown stars with international talent in a move that helped propel the promotion to greater prominence. At that time CZW's annual Tournament of Death show emphasized the Ultraviolent style while their annual Best of the Best emphasized wrestlers performing technical and aerial styles.

In 2009 CZW founder John Zandig sold the company to D. J. Hyde. Although hardcore wrestling continued to be a prominent part of CZW shows, under Hyde the frequency of hardcore matches would gradually decrease. Nonetheless, In 2016 CZW was covered by Vice Media in the documentary Bloodlust: Tournament of Death, which covered CZW's annual "Tournament of Death", based around Deathmatch wrestling.