Indy professional wrestling

Indy is short for "independent" and is sometimes spelled "indie". In professional wrestling, the "indy circuit" refers to the many independent wrestling promotions that are much smaller and have lower budgets than the WWE. As such, most of these promotions offer low salaries (one of the smallest indy promotions is said to pay its wrestlers as low as fifty dollars a month); their matches were usually not televised, thus the indy wrestlers who had not already gained recognition in other promotions remained in obscurity; and they had to make use of any open space, such as a field or a bingo hall, to set up their rings because they could not afford to use actual arenas.

When a wrestler is said to be "in the indies" or "working the indies", it means he/she is wrestling in one of the independent promotions, or performing in one indy promotion and then moving to another. For most wrestlers who had previously worked in the WWE or WCW, this is considered a step backwards in their careers.

Independent wrestling promotions are the most likely places to find outrageous "garbage" matches. Since the indy wrestlers are not on television, there are no restrictions on what they can say and do during matches. The New Jersey based Combat Zone Wrestling (CZW) is one of the most infamous "garbage" indy promotions, as the wrestlers use weapons like weed whackers and staple guns.