There’s not many avenues to navigate as a wrestler once you graduate from college. You can either become a coach somewhere at the high school or college level or, if you’re extremely talented and gifted, make a run at the Olympics to become an Olympian.

The latter is obviously extremely difficult, as only a select handful every four years from the United States can call themselves Olympians.

But once college is over, those who wrestle still have stuff left in the tank to compete. There’s a desire to keep wrestling. That’s where the newly formed Championship Wrestling Association comes into the picture.

“There’s so much more all those guys can give to the sport and compete at a high level,” CWA commissioner Derek Caldwell said. “That’s the opportunity that we’re creating.”

Caldwell is himself a wrestler, having competed in high school and later at Lock Haven University, graduating in 2010 after competing with the Bald Eagles, and has stuck around the sport by coaching both in college and at the high school level. Caldwell started the league in 2021, but had to refine it a bit to get it to what he envisioned. Then, in 2023 when it started getting refined, he was able to eventually get the league to launch this year.

The CWA is a folk-style wrestling league which features nine-minute matches as opposed to a seven-minute match format in college. The format will be three periods of three minutes. Currently, Caldwell and the league are launching showcases throughout the region. The CWA’s first showcase was this past summer in Pittsburgh, which had a few hundred in attendance to watch competition. The 12 wrestlers in that showcase combined for 23 All-American honors and four were national finalists.

“That went amazing. The athletes left it all hang out,” Caldwell said.

On Saturday, Oct. 19, the next showcase will be wrestled at the Liberty Arena in downtown Williamsport and already on the card are two wrestlers that area fans are more than familiar with in former Montoursville great Gavin Hoffman and former Lock Haven University standout Ronnie Perry.

The card for Saturday’s event is all set.

At 140 pounds, former West Virginia NCAA finalist Zeke Moisey will wrestle Oklahoma State All-American Eddie Kimara. Mitch Moore, a five-time NCAA qualifier who competed at Virginia Tech, Oklahoma and Rutgers, faces Graham Rooks, a former NCAA qualifier from Indiana at 160.

At 170 pounds, Lock Haven former standout Perry who was a NCAA finalist, faces former Franklin & Marshall All-American Rick Durso.

At 180, former Pittsburgh NCAA finalist Jake Wentzel will compete against former Rider All-American Chad Walsh. Hoffman, who was an All-American at Ohio State and outstanding wrestler with Montoursville, will wrestle against Greg Bulsak, who was an All-American at Rutgers at 220 pounds.

Finally at 300, Demetrius Thomas, a NAIA champion and NCAA qualifier for Pittsburgh, will compete against Buffalo and Iowa State NCAA qualifier Sam Schuyler.

Tickets can be purchased online at the CWA’s website or at the door as well at the Liberty Arena.

Wrestling is huge throughout Pennsylvania and especially in the central Pennsylvania region. Go to any local high school tournament or big dual meet in the winter, and that becomes more than apparent. Caldwell and the CWA are hoping that enthusiasm for wrestling translates to success at showcases and turnout.

“The more people that show up, the bigger and better we can do with this league. If you sell out Liberty Arena, that takes it to another level and pushed to the next level so the more we do that, in two or three years down the road, this could be in arenas,” Caldwell said. “The product is there. The guys show out and they wrestle amazing. It’s just people have to know the event’s coming.”

This will be the second of sixth plan showcases throughout various markets, including Lehigh Valley, Philadelphia and New Jersey/New York. Caldwell plans to have a showcase in each market over the course of the next year.

The plan after the showcases is to begin an actual wrestling league featuring teams with wrestlers from across the country competing on said teams. Each team will wrestle in a dual meet format. One of those teams will be the Central PA Whitetails.

“It just helpst o create I guess you could say familiarity with the guys who are wrestling for your team, but also the team itself,” Caldwell said. “Just like any other sports tema, you root for your team. That’s what we want in CWA.”

The CWA’s teams down the road will feature wrestlers being drafted ala an NFL Draft style with teams getting picks. Some guys may stay on the team a few years, or some rosters may change each year. It’s a mixture of both Caldwell envisions.

“If guys do retire at various spots — not everybody’s Burroughs who wrestles ’til they’re 36 years old — they may be done when they’re 28, 29 or even younger,” Caldwell said.

The success of the first showcase is something Caldwell hopes will also get the attention of wrestlers looking to keep competing, and doing so at a high level.

“They’re being treated as professionals and that’s a big thing. There’s not a pro league for wrestling, so that’s what we’re aiming to do is we are able to draft college guys out of college to compete in this league every year,” Caldwell said, nothign the wrestlers get paid as well to compete. “So we’re using senior level guys to get it off. We want to get those best guys and get them in. Once that happens, it just keeps feeding itself. You have the best seniors coming out every year like you do with the NFL or NBA. We’ll have these drafts to have people come in and compete right away.”