The bell has officially rung for the Duffy Wrestling League. After just wrapping up its second season on Starz earlier this month, Variety exclusively reported that the hit wrestling drama Heels has been canceled at the network. Following a small-town independent wrestling promotion trying to take it to the next level professionally, the series starred Stephen Amell and Alexander Ludwig as brothers Jack and Ace Spade. It’s one of four series Starz scrapped today, including Blindspotting, Run the World, and The Venery of Samantha Bird which had yet to air its first season.
UPDATE: EW – The news was particularly painful for Heels’ small but devoted following of viewers, coming as it did just 10 days after the intense season 2 finale. “High Flying” followed Amell’s Jack Spade and his Duffy Wrestling League promotion as they put on a “Harmageddon” show in the hopes of landing a major deal with a streaming platform called Continuum. In the main event, Jack faced off in a match against the Condamned, a character played by his brother, Ace (Alexander Ludwig). He executed a dangerous flying leap into the ring — and ended up catastrophically injured, with no feeling in his legs.
But Jack and the DWL may not be down for the count just yet. Now that the Hollywood writers’ strike has ended, showrunner Mike O’Malley says he and his team are “actively” shopping the show around to other networks. “I really do think it’s going to have a life someplace else,” says O’Malley, who also appears on the show as Charlie Gully, the flamboyant promoter of the rival Florida Wrestling Dystopia league. “We did not intend, nor do we intend, for [the season 2 finale] to be the last episode of the show.”
