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AUGUST WRESTLING DISCUSSION THREAD


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Let me tell you this. I was doing a show and in the same building was THE ACRO-CATS. They're a big fucking draw and when I think about it Teddy's idea ain't that crazy.

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Has billing someone that few have ever heard of as a "former WWE developmental wrestler" ever proven to give a show an attendance bump?  Like... I could understand it if it was someone that people were raving about in developmental who never got the call but I can't even place that guy's name in my memory at all.

 

 

What is even better is when a local guy has a dark match, or works security/extra for a WWE show, and then start being billed as a "WWE Star".  That is like, trying to market to someone that is aware of what the WWE is, but doesn't pay enough attention to it to know who actually works there. 

 

The previous comment does invite the question:  Who on the indy scene could really be considered a "draw"?  As in, what name could you drop to a casual fan that would convince them to attend an indy show they otherwise wouldn't bother with?  I see groups book outside talent all the time but I really don't think it affects the attendance all that much.

 

In my experience, there are two types of draws - The obvious one is the former WWE star - which would be either guys from the 80s boom, or "Attitude Era" guys.  If you don't use them too often, guys like Honky Tonk, Gangrel, and guys like that will pop a crowd, because it draws in fans that might not attend an indy show, but want to see the guy that used to be television. 

 

The other type of draw is when well built up local guys have some kind of gimmick match.  Local guys will provide you with consistent, if not huge, crowds, as long as the shows are decent and consistent.  If you build up something like a cage match, a laddermatch, a royal rumble, that will pop attendance. 

 

 

 

As much as you or I might like the lucha libre, I don't know if casual fans would be that interested.

 

The last SICW show in my area brought in a midget match(Beautiful Bobby Dean vs. Little Kato) but actually drew less than the previous month due to other factors(local town picnic, I believe).  Still, they sold a lot of merch that night.

 

IIRC, lucha shows used to draw quite well in Chicago, FWIW.

 

 

I think it is all relative with lucha.  Would bringing a guy like Dr. Wagner Jr. pop the gate for some random indy running in Bristol, TN?  Probably not.  However, you see results and attendance figures for lucha shows in CA/TX/IL and other places that have large Mexican populations, and they blow the attendance figures for most indys out of the water.  I seem to recall a few years back lucha shows at Congress Theatre in Chicago drawing like 800 fans with LA Park headlining, while US indys like ROH/Dragongate/whomever running the same building and drawling less than 200. 

 

 

I think the more succesful indies are more about the promotion themselves and the overall card rather than relying on a name to sell the show.

 

An example would be someone like Drake Younger, on his own I wouldnt go to see him at a local show vs. Joe McShmoe, however, put him in the PWG system, with everything else thats going on, then there would be more than enough to get me to go.

 

ECW would be a good example, I wasnt desperate to see one name, but I was desperate to see the overall show itself and what was going to happen.

 

I don't think it is so much about seeing the "promotion" as much as it is that people knowing they will see an entertaining show and not feel ripped off.  I think the days of sitting thru two hours of shitty local guys that were half trained to see the promoter's son work a name are over.  However, I think fans will pay a reasonable price to see 2.5 hours of well trained local guys that go out and bust their ass and put on a good show. I think the biggest obstacle is getting fans to take a chance on indy wrestling, honestly. 

 

 

Plus, all booking on the indies is done through recommendations. Very few Indy promotors watch DVDs. So if you get Davey Richards on your show and he works with Joe Blow and it works out well, Davey may get Joe Blow a shot in Ring of Honor.

 

 

This cannot be emphasized enough.  For better or worse, no one really looks at videos.  Getting booked is all about who you know. 

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  I seem to recall a few years back lucha shows at Congress Theatre in Chicago drawing like 800 fans with LA Park headlining, while US indys like ROH/Dragongate/whomever running the same building and drawling less than 200. 

I was at both shows. The night before the lucha show was DGUSA. They gave out comp tickets to the people at DGUSA for the Lucha show the following night. Also I'm pretty sure they had an insane deal on kids and families. Like you didn't have to pay dick to get in.

 

That being said, there were a ton of people there regardless of paid. And it wasn't a high percentage of the DGUSA crowd either. So what I learned from the whole experience is there are a ton of families who like to go to a fucking lucha show. And I think one could make quite a few dollars if they marketed to them better in this city.

 

And...that show sucked the balls. The undercard was mostly local indy guys, but not the good indies. Like the real bottom rungers.

 

So that cracks me up that some of these jabrones got a bigger crowd than Daniel Bryan or Jon Moxley in the same building.

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So that cracks me up that some of these jabrones got a bigger crowd than Daniel Bryan or Jon Moxley in the same building.

 

 

That was one of the crazy things that I discovered over the course of my in-ring career.  I worked for a number of different promoters that ran backwater buildings in towns that with populations of lass than 5000, didn't have an internet presence, etc.  But the promoter would work deals with folks, put up flyers, and work their ass off, and draw crowds of 600-800 fans. 

 

Then on the flipside, I knew promoters that uploaded videos & promos to youtube, did radio ads, had tv commercials during Raw, etc. - and would draw <150 with names on the show. 

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"Chucky"

Ooof yeah that's him. He did some insane spots IIRC but it was all for naught because he wore vinyl pants, a t-shirt, and had flowing ginger locks.

 

My other favourite Stampede memory was Teddy's return. I think the second to last show I went to, and I was fucking pumped. Not least because I'd met his sister before and totally fell in love with her. And I was sure she'd be there and I would win her affections and become buddies with Ted, Bret, Smith etc and basically take over the Hart family for generations to come...

 

...anyway he comes out, works an awesome spotfest with just nasty fucking moves constantly beating the shit out of whoever he fought. His finish was some sick guillotine DDT or something. At least one of them was. Anyway he comes out, wrecks shit, gets on the mic and says after being cut by WWE he's no longer going to try and impress them, he's here for the fans, yadda yadda yadda. Then his music hits, he leaves, comes back, cuts the music, grabs some girl's hand, raises it and says "oh yeah and this is my girlfriend" and then leaves again. That dude is just awesome and I will never hear a bad word against him. Although I never did see his sister again.

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With all due respects, FSW siring the next generation of Harts would be...fuck I want to say disappointing but the last gen wasn't all that tremendous...let's just say...wrong? (Of course, again, with all due respects).

I

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On the whole indy draw thing, pretty much anytime you book a local guy who "made it", you're going to get a nice bump.  We've booked Hurricane a few times around here, and it always turns out well.  Same for some of the other local groups that book the Hardys.  Lawler is going to draw in TN, where he may not draw as much elsewhere, and so on.

 

Also, Nikita was spot on when he said that you get local guys as consistent draws, and the big gimmicks will usually draw a very strong crowd.

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Here's Byron Wilcott's OWW profile in its entirety:

January 9, 2010: Byron Wilcott was released from his World Wrestling Entertainment developmental contact..

He is, however, the current reigning defending NWA Texas Stampede Bull of the Woods Champion, so he has that going for him.
Damn, that's a mouthful for title name.
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  I seem to recall a few years back lucha shows at Congress Theatre in Chicago drawing like 800 fans with LA Park headlining, while US indys like ROH/Dragongate/whomever running the same building and drawling less than 200. 

I was at both shows. The night before the lucha show was DGUSA. They gave out comp tickets to the people at DGUSA for the Lucha show the following night. Also I'm pretty sure they had an insane deal on kids and families. Like you didn't have to pay dick to get in.

 

That being said, there were a ton of people there regardless of paid. And it wasn't a high percentage of the DGUSA crowd either. So what I learned from the whole experience is there are a ton of families who like to go to a fucking lucha show. And I think one could make quite a few dollars if they marketed to them better in this city.

 

And...that show sucked the balls. The undercard was mostly local indy guys, but not the good indies. Like the real bottom rungers.

 

So that cracks me up that some of these jabrones got a bigger crowd than Daniel Bryan or Jon Moxley in the same building.

 

It's weird, back in 04 or 05 CMLL had a show at the Greensboro Coliseum where I worked for several years.  That city has a huge hispanic population and WWE shows always drew heavily from that demographic.  However this show had maybe 200 people there.  I hadn't seen or heard any type of advertisement for it, save for the adds that showed the usual coliseum upcoming events, and it was just a small blurb.  Whether or not they advertised it on the Spanish language outlets I don't know, but you'd think it would have drawn bigger.  Then again there weren't that many name guys there and I think the show had about 5 matches total.

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Bull of the Woods is a fantastic championship name. Sid no-showed in Winnipeg last year too. The last time I got to see Sid was against Luger on the one card WCW actually ran here. They sold a shitload of tickets, but the main event ended up being Sid vs Lex, when it was originally scheduled to be Bret Hart (concussion) vs Chris Beniot (left the company).

 

Teddy Hart fucking rules. Guy is crazy, but he's entertaining to no end.

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Bull of the Woods is a fantastic championship name.

 

Only if everyone, regardless of gimmick, nationality, or ethnicity, pronounces it "bulluhduhwoohhds!"

 

It's no ICW-ICWA Texarkana Television Championship but it's a good name.

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SHAMELESS PLUG - I did a two hour interview yesterday with @voiceswrestling talking about wrestling stats.

You can find both the articles I discuss and a link to the podcast at http://indeedwrestling.blogspot.com/2013/08/mookieghana-on-voices-of-wrestling.html

I had a lot of fun with the very fine hosts. We talk about PPV correlations to feedback/RAW ratings, WWE 2Q financial results, favorite WWF Jobbers, B-level stars with decent win records, WWE Network and other assorted chicanery.

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Just want to point out that @D_V_D_V_R live tweeting Impact is making my night. There were COMIX. It is good.

 

GodDAMN, that puppy is so fucking cute!  FUCK, that thing is cute!  Up there with that sloth that Cool Arrow had that kept sticking his tongue out at me.

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I feel as though if Teddy Hart did his infamous shoot shooting star press off the top of the cage in today's ROH (and most importantly, on to Davey Richards), he would win march madness. 

 

Off the top of a steel Davey Richards onto Davey Richards?  The space-time continuum A'SPLODE!

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Just want to point out that @D_V_D_V_R live tweeting Impact is making my night. There were COMIX. It is good.

 

GodDAMN, that puppy is so fucking cute!  FUCK, that thing is cute!  Up there with that sloth that Cool Arrow had that kept sticking his tongue out at me.

 

 

Damn, I forgot about the sloth!  I need to find him again.

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As to the draw discussion I found it interesting that the local indy here in the suburbs of Detroit that I call matches for got almost no bump from Hacksaw Jim Duggan but doubled the crowd when they brought in Carlito.  They even raised ticket prices from 12 to 15 bucks for Carlito and people flocked to the show.

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I would like to give AJ full credit for knowing exactly how to play to her audience

 

 

A.J. ‏@WWEAJLee 13m

Watch #Smackdown tonight to see me go to town on Kaitlyn.
 
A.J. ‏@WWEAJLee 13m
It’s entirely possible there was a better way to phrase that.
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