This summer, matches from Show-Me State Wrestling started airing on Missouri public television—a milestone for a promotion that ran its first show barely two years earlier.
KMOS-TV, mid-Missouri's PBS affiliate, carried eight scripted episodes of SSW action weekly at 9 PM on its Emerge digital channel, beginning in late June.
How it came together
Co-owners Jeremy Harrison and Gordon Atkins first pitched the idea to KMOS roughly two years before it aired, then returned this year with a second pitch and an offer to handle most of the production themselves. KMOS general manager and director of broadcasting services Josh Tomlinson said the fit made sense: "PBS is very much into theater, and it's into storytelling, and that's what this kind of wrestling is." Harrison, who frames SSW's product around storytelling and emotion rather than gore, called PBS "a legacy channel." Atkins pointed to the station's mission of "letting the community showcase what they have."
Where SSW has been
SSW ran its first event on March 2, 2024, at the Callaway County Extended Employment (CCEE) gym in Fulton, splitting ticket and concession proceeds with the nonprofit. Its annual Wyatt Invitational has become a standing charity benefit for CCEE, and the promotion has since expanded into Jefferson City, where it has run cards such as August's "High Stakes" at the Salvation Army gym.
What comes next
The eight-episode run has wrapped, and neither side has confirmed a second season—though both have called it a possibility. Mat Report Midwest will track whether the partnership returns.