Who is Allen Riggs?

 

"The Upstart" Allen Riggs BIO

"The Upstart" first broke into the business in 1995 for the up and coming Indy promotion NGW, based out of Pittsburgh, PA.  There he cut his teeth using the moniker The Alternative, a silver masked luchador that delighted fans with his high flying moves and fearless attitude.  Not long after his debut he teamed with another future Hadouken Icon, X-Man and the two became the very first NGW Tag Team Champions.  However, Alternative craved the kind of media attention that a grappler under a hood could not garnish outside of the ring and ditched the mask to become Chaos Kid, a name more suiting his ever increasing heel tenacity.  Chaos later walked out on his partner X-Man who fell victim to the team DV8 and disappeared for short time after. 

With the new name and aggressive attitude, Chaos Kid quickly rose up the ranks capturing his first singles gold in the form of the NGW TV Title.  He would go onto lose that belt to his brother Inferno less than a month later. With his first big setback behind him, Chaos set his sights on the NGW World Championship and began a series of matches with the returning X-Man, now working a satanic cultist gimmick, Gravedigger.  It was then that Chaos Kid really came into his own and became somewhat of an anti hero.  Never a full on face, but slightly less heelish in his attack, Kid earned the respect of the fans and his peers as the companies "go to guy" whenever someone needed put in their place.  He and Gravedigger feuded throughout the Summer of 96 before he finally captured the Title he sought after for what seemed like an eternity.  (In reality, it was almost 1 year to the date of his debut that he became the companies Champion.) With the World Title around his waist, Chaos began doing media appearances for the company and boosted their fame almost overnight, making connections and raising the bar with consistently solid matches on a nightly basis.  

Not long after, NGW Owner JR Lowher passed away and his son Stephen Lowher inherited a company he knew very little about.  Stephen came into NGW with a brash attitude and immediately wanted to involve himself in high profile storylines, despite knowing very little about the way the business worked.  It was at this point that the rivalry of Stephen Lowher and Chaos Kid began.  The two bumped heads on many occasion, mostly due to Lowher's impromptu bookings and lack of respect for the talent.  He put himself in matches, despite not having former training and this angered the wrestlers greatly, most of all the Champ himself.  With the burden of being the companies liason between Talent and Creative, Kid entered a very dark time in his life and angered the writing staff and Lowher greatly in defense of the roster.  In what is thought by many as a vulgar misuse of power, during a heated argument, Lowher unceramoniously fired Kid and the company was suddenly without a posterboy or a Champion.  

With the connections he made during his run as Champion, it didn't take long for Kid to find work elsewhere in a brand new International promotion NAWF. However, due to licensing issues he lost use of his ring name and was given the moniker "Gift of Game" by the booking staff.  Originally intended to be a white rapper gimmick, the name didn't suit Kid's rock n roll attitude and was shortened to "Gift" not too long after.  Venting his frustrations with the way he was treated by his former employer and with a few years experience now under his belt, Gift quickly proved himself a hot commodity in NAWF and was put on a fast track to the Heavyweight Championship.  In Spring of 1999, he faced Luke "The Dominator" Hook and Zoso in a 3 way dance; a match he would go onto win and once again sit atop the talent roster as its crown jewel. With a target on his back, Gift enlisted fellow wrestlers Showstoppa and Deviant to form an alliance known as The Upstarts; a trio of power and agility that dominated NAWF for the remainder of the year before disbanding in Early Spring 2000 at the Ides of March ppv. Gift would eventually lose his Championship to Deviant himself before the company folded a year later, leaving him once again unemployed at the peak of his career. 

In the Fall of 2000 Gift began traveling abroad wrestling in Japan and Mexico for the most part, making a bigger name for himself and learning new styles to incorporate into his arsenal.  It was during his stint in XL (Extreme Lucha) that he began traveling with his brother Inferno again, and this partnership eventually brought him back to his original home NGW.  Despite Lowhers protests, he was at his very core a businessman and had no choice but to rehire his bitter enemy with the promise of bringing in many of the wrestlers he met in his NAWF and XL days.  Luke Hook, Showstoppa, Jay Douglas and Shawn Kalina followed soon after from the now defunct NAWF and XL rookie sensations Grinner and Tinju gained NGW Contracts as well.  

Not willing to let bygones be bygones, Gift decided to keep his new name instead of going back to his NGW moniker Chaos Kid, actually going as far as to spit on his old attire in the center of the ring and proclaiming that from this point on NGW "was the home of The Upstart."  Feeling disrespected Lowher began pitting Gift against the toughest opponents he could find, such as booking him against the 8ft monster Blockbuster and throwing him in handicap matches against long time NGW mainstays Hybrid and Gargoyle (DV8). However, regardless of the punishment directed his way, Gift endured and rose once again to win the companies top Championship in late 2001.  He would successfully defend the title for the next year and it wasn't until NGW Midsummer Nightmare that he was soundly defeated for it, but of all people his brother Inferno, now under the managerial talents of Stephen Lowher. The two brothers would face each other again in Pittsburgh, PA 6 months later in a 4 Way Homecoming Dance, including among the siblings, Gift's long time friends Sickened and Torpedo Tom.  Sickened went onto become the Champion during that match, but at some point Gift suffered a botched Tiger Driver and was told after the match that he had indeed broken his neck.  At the age of 25, Gift was forced into an early retirement from wrestling.  All was not lost though, as Gift came back to the company and used his pull with the boys to become a thorn in Lowher's side as head of Talent Relations.  

NGW folded 4 years later, most likely due to Lowher's poor business endeavors. This unfortunate downfall, once again saw Gift traveling abroad managing his friend Sickened and his tag team partner Grinner during the pairs tour of Japan.  Sickened and Grinner proved a popular pairing and the 2 formed a strong bond with their manager during their Foreign and Indy run.  After 3 1/2 years of seeing the country, Gift's neck began feeling stronger and it wasn't long until he decided to tempt fate and step in the ring once again.  In his return match he joined Sickened and Grinner to defeat the trio of Tinju, Ali Azur, and G; ironically in XL to advance in their Trios Tournament.  The team wouldn't win the tourney, but it was this match and renewed drive that got Gift thinking about his wrestling future.  

During a late night conversation on the road with Sickened and Grinner, the 3 hatched a plan to create a melting pot of talent the likes of which the world had never seen.  Between the group, they had met so many amazing Indy & Foreign talents working as free agents that they knew they could persuade to come to the states and wrestle. Not wanting to mistreat the talent like he had been so many times in his early years, Gift was able to bring many fresh faces to the States with the promise of Contracts, Medical Benefits, and Stock Options....and Hadouken Pro was born.  As the companies main spokesperson and majority share holder, Gift finally ditched his old NAWF moniker and settled into a career of Business Management using his real name Allen Riggs.  What's next for the seasoned veteran is anyone's guess.  Though with the recent appearance of his old rival Stephen Lowher at the companies latest board meeting, it's safe to say that things could be heating up VERY soon.