Pro wrestling promotion makes Wausau its permanent home

The Wausau area is home to a number of great theater productions every year that welcome audiences to sit quietly in a dark theater and get caught up in an engaging drama, enjoy a spectacular musical, or laugh all night at a side-splitting comedy.

But an entirely different type of “theater” is establishing itself in Wausau this year.

Blurring the line between sports, stunt choreography, soap operas and interactive entertainment, Wausau’s new independent wrestling promotion is proving that the city’s arts scene doesn’t have to be polite to be captivating.

Unlike a charming night at the James F. Veninga Theater, audiences at a No Regrets Wrestling show are expected to scream at the villain until they lose their voices. The Wausau-based independent wrestling promotion is kicking off a slate of live shows at the LT Club in Wausau starting with “Never Coming Down” on Oct. 3 at 6 p.m. (tickets are $20 and can be purchased directly at the door), followed by four more shows in 2027.

Strip away the turnbuckles, the folding chairs and the sound of 200-pound bodies hitting the mat, and professional wrestling is just live theater with a higher pain tolerance. The “director” of this is Taylor Lytle, the Wausau resident who established No Regrets Wrestling and serves as head booker.

“I started this because at heart I’m a theater kid,” Lytle said. “That’s what I went to school for — music and theater — so this is just an extension of that for me. I think that’s kind of the same thing with all of our guys that we work with. At the end of the day, we’re all just theater kids that really just enjoy putting on these shows and just want to put on the best possible product that we can.”

Garrison Creed eats a right hand from Shay Diesel at an No Regrets Wrestling show.

Photo by Taylor Beche

Lytle started No Regrets Wrestling in 2022 in his hometown of Baraboo. Over four years, NRW hosted 20 shows across several Wisconsin cities, including Wausau. NRW broke ground in the Wausau area by putting on shows as part of Evercon, the annual gaming convention in Rothschild.

“I think we did three years of shows with Evercon,” Lytle said. “Once we started doing that and getting more of a fan base with the gaming convention, from there I was like, ‘Okay, this would be a good fit possibly for us.’”

The promotion took a yearlong hiatus and Lytle moved to Wausau. Once NRW started up again, Lytle envisioned the Wausau area as the promotion’s new home base. That became a reality late this summer once Lytle worked out a deal with the LT Club, which will host NRW shows on Oct. 3 of this year, as well as March 13, June 26, Oct. 30 and Dec. 11 of 2027.

“Year five is about building something that feels permanent,” Lytle said. “The LT Club gives us a home and Wausau gives us a community to build with. Four events, one venue and a clear direction for where NRW is headed.”

It’s an exciting time not only for Lytle, but certainly for Central Wisconsin wrestling fans, as NRW becomes the area’s sole wrestling promotion. Other parts of Wisconsin, namely southeastern Wisconsin, the Fox Valley and Eau Claire area (as it’s near the Twin Cities), are major independent wrestling hubs. But the central and northern parts of the state are largely underserved, Lytle said.

“Our Evercon shows helped significantly grow our fan base to a point where people started asking us when we were going to do shows that weren’t at Evercon, so it just made sense for us to move to this area,” Lytle said.

Johnny CK takes a leap of faith over the top rope and to the outside of the ring at an NRW show.

Photo by Taylor Beche

For those who have never attended a wrestling show, Lytle likens the energy more closely to a concert at an intimate venue than a stadium-sized sporting event. The thing that makes wrestling shows special, he said, is the integral role the crowd plays in the drama.

“The fact that you are getting the audience involved I think is the biggest part of it,” he said. “When you go to a basketball game, the basketball players are not yelling at the fans or interacting with the fans. If you go to a football game, same thing. If you go to a concert, that’s what’s happening — you’re interacting with the audience. That’s the biggest part of it, the audience feels like they’re a part of the show.”

Wrestling is also similar to music in that if you’re in the right place at the right time, you may see a future hall of famer while they’re on their way up. Just about every wrestler starts at the bottom and works their way through the independent wrestling circuit and finally to TV.

“You could be seeing the next CM Punk or the next Roman Reigns,” Lytle said. “You could be seeing the next John Cena realistically in our shows. That’s the level of talent that we bring to the shows.”

Headlining the Oct. 3 show is NRW World Champion Paul Virk, who earlier this year wrestled a match in Ring of Honor, a promotion that once featured CM Punk, Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, Bryan Danielson (aka Daniel Bryan) and Samoa Joe. Virk will defend his title against five others in a gauntlet match (where two competitors start in the ring, and a new wrestler enters each time one is eliminated).

“Paul Virk has just been our top guy this year. He is the guy that people love to hate,” Lytle said. “Every show, people want to see who is going to beat Paul for that title, and every single show he is proving why he’s the champion.”

To truly set this opening night apart, Lytle is outfitting “Never Coming Down” with a complete rave atmosphere featuring a live DJ, club lighting and lasers running simultaneously with the in-ring action. It’s an immersive gamble designed to prove one thing to Central Wisconsin: Wausau’s arts scene has plenty of room for a little chaos.