QT Marshall Hopes 1FW Can Run A Show At Center Stage Annually

QT Marshall discusses his promotion, 1FW, and running Center Stage in Atlanta, Georgia. Center Stage is an iconic venue in wrestling. The venue has hosted many WCW events in the past. In more recent times, TNA and GCW have also run shows at the venue. Even WWE NXT recently held its NXT Great American Bash event in the storied Atlanta arena.

Now, QT Marshall is discussing hosting the 1FW Summer Stage event in Atlanta’s Center Stage. He recently told Jeremy Lambert and Stephen Jensen of Fightful Overbooked’s The Spotlight that it was always a goal of his to run a show at the venue. He hopes to make it an annual occurrence.

“1FW is something that I created in 2017 when I first moved to Atlanta. We had the 1 Fall Power Factory, which was the school I had, and I never wanted a wrestling promotion to sound like a school. I came up with 1 Fall, and I was a little ahead of the time because now everyone chants ‘The match is scheduled for one fall.’ When Cody and I partnered, I didn’t have enough time to run a show due to AEW,” he said. “When I took my hiatus from AEW, I decided to start running shows again, and we thought about doing the Turnbuckle brand, so we gave it a shot.

“We did really well, and it was a nice relaunch, and we did a tour. We did a year and were maybe hoping to do more, but honestly, with Cody and the WWE ID thing, it gets a little crazy. I had all the assets and everything, and we morphed back into 1FW. It was always a thing to run Center Stage. Teil and I spoke about it, and we collectively came up with the name Summer Stage. I try to put the money back into the shows and really go above and beyond to give the athletes something they can be proud of. Maybe we don’t make a lot of money or even lose money, but to be able to say you wrestled at Center Stage is pretty cool. I’m hoping to do it every year.

“It was always a goal of mine to have a show,” he continued. “With AEW, it was a little harder, but when I came back to AEW, that is one of the things I kind of put my foot down on with Tony. I really wanted to do my own thing and have the support of being able to use my students. If there’s an AEW person in town and they want to get an extra rep in or give back. Jay Lethal has been great, he always wants to do stuff.”

QT Marshall also opened up about WWE running the venue two weeks before 1FW. He noted that they had booked the venue long after he did and even paid more. He also stated that there was a jump in ticket sales for the 1FW event after the NXT Great American Bash.

“They booked it way after I did, and I think they paid a lot more. They get to do whatever they want, and I was excited for it. I was in Texas, but a couple of my kids were out there handing out some fliers. We had a flyer that very much looked like an AEW flyer. That’s our fanbase as well. If we can steal a couple of those people. Great American Bash is a huge show for NXT, and they were able to charge a premium price for it. Ours is a lot more affordable. We did see a pretty good jump on ticket sales after the weekend.”

Fans can purchase tickets for 1FW Summer Stage at this link.

Check out the full interview with QT Marshall embedded above.