Where to begin?

Asylum has always existed one way or another, two cavemen battling for scraps of meat in a prehistoric age, great roman gladiators duelling to the death for glory, two pissed up assholes knocking the sense out of each other in their local pub over a spilt pint. It's always been there to remind us that in a world gone mad for culture and the notion of being civilized, deep down inside we're still the vicious animals we were in the beginning and will likely be until the end.

So where does our particular brand of death dealing come into all of this? It's a long story that started when someone actively decided to make boxing a pussy sport by making the fighters wear gloves, naturally as with most laws it wasn't long before someone somewhere was breaking them and thus underground fighting was born.

Run largely by organized crime leaders in the earlier half of the 20th century, perhaps the most well known underground fighting circuit operated through the seemingly harmless front of family restaurant chain Smilthy's, a small business that quickly became a nationwide diner chain for reasons that had entirely nothing to do with the food. Deep within the basements of these supposedly innocent restaurants was where the criminal underbelly of America made a killing, a place where unsavoury characters could meet up, make more criminal contacts and gamble on some of the bloodiest fights mankind had ever witnessed.

Fast forward half a century and the business falls into the unruly hands of an Englishman by the name of Joe Campbell. Campbell would proceed to plagiarize the legacy of underground fighting by turning it into a corporate business and television show, things surprisingly however took a more violent turn and it wasn't long before the demands of a bloodthirsty public and the unrelenting sickness of Campbell's mind would see mutilation, rape and death being broadcast in the public arena.

Campbell had turned underground fighting into a sick circus show for all to behold, he quickly became one of the USA's richest (and most wanted by the FBI) individuals and his Asylum television event quickly became one of the most popular shows on worldwide television. With many of the promotions competition being dealt with in a typically straightforward fashion... many other wrestling and fighting promotions quickly folding due to sheer intimidation.

2004 saw the promotion enter a dark era, as Campbell battled heroin addiction his television event rolled out of control like a runaway train. The number of fighters under his employment dwindled and the number loyal to his cause dwindled even further, amidst stories of blackmail, betrayal and an impending FBI move to close everything down... Campbell mysteriously disappeared and the promotion folded quickly thereafter.

Rumours of his death to this day are greatly exaggerated as nobody truly knows what happened to the richest criminal in the history of the United States of America.

Many now believe that fighting as a sport is dead and buried, boxing and sports entertainment once again rule the television ratings and Asylum's violent events of the past to many are just a fading memory of an era where crime ruled the television.

But some insist that something still stirs in the dark of the back alley, the abandoned warehouse, the dank basement in your local diner that you always presumed was used to store your next meal, that something horrible is growing once more down in the shadows.

That underground fighting exists.

That Asylum is still alive and well.

If you should lay your hands on an unmarked video tape, digital video disc or even stumble into a darkened alley on the wrong night.

You might just see for yourself.