Pwd: A Promoters Look At The World Of Indy Wrestling

tobin834 · October 26, 2012

</div>

<div id="imgwrap0sec0" class="" style="clear: both; position: relative; padding: 5px; border: 1px solid transparent; "><div id="imgcont0sec0" style="padding:5px;text-align:center;font-size:1.8em;"><img id="standaloneimg0sec0" src="http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh232/tobin834/COVER-1.jpg" style=""></div></div><div id="fixedtextblock0sec0" class="" style="clear: both; position: relative; padding: 5px; margin: 5px 0px; height: auto; background-color: rgb(217, 217, 217); border-top-left-radius: 15px; border-top-right-radius: 15px; border-bottom-right-radius: 15px; border-bottom-left-radius: 15px; border: 1px solid transparent; "> <div id="fixedtext0sec0" class="" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; display: block; "><p><strong>I sat outside the venue smoking his cigarette wondering where I would find an announcer for tonight's show. Only a few hours away my repeated attempts to get in touch with Scott Hudson had gone un-returned and now I was out an announcer for the night. Hudson's absence means I would have to find a last minute replacement within' the company. Someone who had a decent voice and wouldn't be afraid to use it. As I wondered about this problem I had several more in my head.</strong></p>

<p> <strong>When is the ring getting here? Where is Sean Morley right now? Is Morley coming or would he stiff him the advance he had gave him? How many tickets did people sell tonight? You never knew with these guys and I wasn't in the business of patiently waiting. As I wanted to call Morley to see where he was, I waited for a little bit longer. I knew I'd want to call close to show time and I wanted to make sure at the same time I had enough time to prepare if Morley wasn't coming.</strong></p>

<p> <strong>It wasn't that Morley even had a past of this. He had been known to be very dependable and humble. I liked working with people like that. A lot of people told me that I planned this too soon. That I looked at Morley like a big wrestling mark and wanted to get someone famous on my shows.</strong></p>

<p> <strong>First, it wasn't my shows it was our shows. And second, I wanted to bring in someone of name recognition to let people in this town know we weren't kidding. I know we have a long ways to go to get recognition or big crowds, but I had some money to invest and I planned on losing some my first year. Morley was only a once and a while type guy and this was our first show so I felt like we needed to pull out all of the stops that we could afford to pull out. I knew we weren't going to draw amazingly our first show, but every single show we could do would help us build out reputation which in turns would help us build our crowds.</strong></p>

<p> <strong>As I finished off the cigarette I started smoking the Uhaul truck came around the corner followed by three of our ring crew. I was happy at least they were on time, now it was time to make sure the venue was paid and we were fully in this spot so we could setup. There was so much to do before we actually let the people in, and that would bring with it a whole new set of challenges. This first night wasn't going to be easy for me and if I didn't come out of it losing all of my money I would be lucky. I knew I wouldn't make money tonight, but it wasn't about that. It was about bringing some recognition to our promotion. It was about building a name for ourselves and making sure these people knew that professional wrestlers work here.</strong></p>

<p><strong>I took a look at the flyer on the wall:</strong></p></div> </div><div id="imgwrap1sec0" class="" style="clear: both; position: relative; padding: 5px; border: 1px solid transparent; "><div id="imgcont1sec0" style="padding:5px;text-align:center;font-size:1.8em;"><img id="standaloneimg1sec0" src="http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh232/tobin834/01.jpg" style=""></div></div><div id="imgwrap2sec0" class="" style="clear: both; position: relative; padding: 5px; border: 1px solid transparent; "><div id="imgcont2sec0" style="padding:5px;text-align:center;font-size:1.8em;"><img id="standaloneimg2sec0" src="http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh232/tobin834/preshow_thoughts.png" style=""></div></div><div id="fixedtextblock1sec0" class="" style="clear: both; position: relative; padding: 5px; margin: 5px 0px; height: auto; background-color: rgb(217, 217, 217); border-top-left-radius: 15px; border-top-right-radius: 15px; border-bottom-right-radius: 15px; border-bottom-left-radius: 15px; border: 1px solid transparent; "> <div id="fixedtext1sec0" class="" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; display: block; "><p style="text-align: left;" align="CENTER"><strong>I knew the business of professional wrestling seen me as a money mark. Alright, so I had sunk in $5Million dollars into this project. That was a lot when talking about an independent promotion. What people didn't get was that I wasn't looking to remain an independent promotion at the end of the day. I invested this much money to finally make my return of investment but first I needed to get the crowd up. I knew promoting at the bowling alley every week would help establish a firm grip on the fans in the area.<br> <br></strong><strong>I sat there in the back thinking to myself. The boys were all getting dressed in the back and the energy that ran through the back of that locker room that night was electric. There was no Paul Heyman speeches. They certainly wouldn't listen to one of them speeches from a money mark such as myself. I remember looking at the card. Our first show and it had Sean Morley coming in to take on Asher Knight, one of our finest workers. We obviously wanted to put Morley up against someone who could hang with him and we thought he would be happy with Asher Knight.</strong></p>

<p style="text-align: left;" align="LEFT"><strong> </strong><strong>Other then that, I knew we'd be losing money tonight. I tried to just focus on running the show, making sure things were on time, and making sure the locker room remained peaceful. Our pre-show draw was 32 tickets sold. A major dissapointment for having Morley here, but then again its the first ever show that we have thrown. We were sure to get more people in here (both from an attendance point of view, and a workers)</strong></p>

<div style="text-align: left;"> </div></div> </div><div id="imgwrap3sec0" class="" style="clear: both; position: relative; padding: 5px; border: 1px solid transparent; "><div id="imgcont3sec0" style="padding:5px;text-align:center;font-size:1.8em;"><img id="standaloneimg3sec0" src="http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh232/tobin834/resultsshow01.jpg" style=""></div></div><div id="imgwrap4sec0" class="" style="clear: both; position: relative; padding: 5px; border: 1px solid transparent; "><div id="imgcont4sec0" style="padding:5px;text-align:center;font-size:1.8em;"><img id="standaloneimg4sec0" src="http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh232/tobin834/postshow_thoughts.png" style=""></div></div><div id="fixedtextblock2sec0" class="" style="clear: both; position: relative; padding: 5px; margin: 5px 0px; height: auto; background-color: rgb(217, 217, 217); border-top-left-radius: 15px; border-top-right-radius: 15px; border-bottom-right-radius: 15px; border-bottom-left-radius: 15px; border: 1px solid transparent; "> <div id="fixedtext2sec0" class="" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; display: block; "><p style="text-align: left;" align="CENTER"><strong>* Correction: Asher Knight, not Asher Roth</strong> <br><strong><br>I knew that we would lose money going into this weekend – I just wasn't sure how much. I made a rookie mistake tonight and hired a bunch of lighting crew members to hook up lights and special entrance ways, as well as paid for a local band to come in and play to add to the excitement level of tonight. Whereas it made for a great time, it also cost me a ton of money and ended up making the promotion lost $15,000. This is obviously a hit we can't take every week.</strong></p>

<p align="LEFT"> <strong>Our 52 fans we drew were loud. Something like 18 fans with walkup and the rest were sold before the show by the wrestlers and family. I thought bringing in Sean Morley would have gained more fans then that, but it turned out to be a decent Main Event. Morley brought professionalism and humbleness to the table in a way that made me really look at him as someone I would like to use in the future.</strong></p>

<p align="LEFT"> <strong>For our first show we had a lot to learn, but we also learned a lot. I would say it was a success overall, and we will continue to use big names like Morley in the future. Maybe not every show, but we will try and bring them in as special showcases. The fans liked the rest of the card and we need to come up with some angles like yesterday. We still don't have a promotion champion but I think that is something that can wait until the time is right. For now we are just going to focus on making the promotion something that is supported by it's fans, and I have budgeted a loss of $1Million to do so we have more money to spend. I just want to make sure that we do it in a way that isn't completely setting standards that we can not get used to.<br><br></strong><strong>As they say, on to the next one...</strong></p>

</div>

TheEffect · October 26, 2012

I'm in.

Texasrangers13 · October 27, 2012

Good start. I also loved the start to the "Federation" so hopefully this one lasts a little longer (i'm more intrigued by this story anyway).

tobin834 · October 27, 2012

</div>

<div id="fixedtextblock0sec0" class="" style="clear: both; position: relative; padding: 5px; margin: 5px 0px; height: auto; background-color: rgb(217, 217, 217); border-top-left-radius: 15px; border-top-right-radius: 15px; border-bottom-right-radius: 15px; border-bottom-left-radius: 15px; border: 1px solid transparent; "> <div id="fixedtext0sec0" class="" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; display: block; "><p><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>I leaned back in the office chair I had gotten the day the promotion officially became a business with the state. I was living on a natural high when I bought this chair and now I sat in it worrying if I had made the wrong decision to invest all of this money into it. The good news is that it wasn't all invested, just in a separate area of my finances. So I hadn't lost it, but I questioned if I was ready to spend this much money on professional wrestling.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>Just as quickly as I thought that I snapped out of it. Of course I was, and I needed to do this better. I took a look at the opportunity I had that no other independent promotion on my level or even three or four tiers higher had – solid financial backing. I needed to make sure that I didn't take that for granted and I wanted to start making money immediately. I was glad the first show was in the books and we proved that we could do everything without a major hitch. But this promotion needed a facelift and on this Monday morning I was going to make sure that it got it.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>The office consisted of me alone. I rented space downtown in a small one room office with a shared bathroom on the floor, and nothing elaborate at all. I needed to put money into the promotion, not into the office space to make myself feel good. Inside there I sat and really thought of what this promotion was, and what I wanted it to be.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>What it was, was a small local independent promotion based in the Southeast part of the country. We were a group of local wrestlers who knew a few people to talk to about booking talent. That is why Morley was so great to have for our very first show. We proved we could talk and book wrestlers of his caliber, and we also proved that they wanted to work for us. Of course, money is always green – but we'd at least be able to sell it to the fans that they wanted to work for us. I thought a bit about what I was going to do.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>After a few hours of literally sitting there and thinking, jotting down notes, doing calculations. I decided that we needed to gain recognition quickly. We needed to use semi-decent wrestlers to make shows better, and to increase awareness of who we are. We had $5million dollars to spend on brand recognition and getting this thing to work. 1Million dollars I had budgeted for just the first year to make us look bigger, get bigger stars, and overall better talent. We couldn't even get Bret Hart to return our calls on a possible autograph session, with being booked as a manager. We weren't even on his radar yet, but we could get guys that we're midcarders and I had a few I could call to see if I could get them to come.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>The way my calculations figured, if we ran 2 shows a month that is 24 a year. 1 Million dollars divided 24 ways is $41,000 and some change per show. I lost $15,000 on the first one and was feeling bad about it. I decided that I wanted to maintain a low roster cost, but add maybe 6-7 names of people I could focus around. The smaller indy guys would still get their chance to shine as well, and we would have a rounded roster with the ability to put some lights on, and make a special entrance way and have a local band come in everytime. Again, not having to user $41,000 but having the freedom to.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>With this assurance I set to call a few of the “names” I knew. If they could make their way into the roster, especially since I hadn't started anything yet. I needed to make sure that I didn't have a major feud with big names, and then the rest of the show was all local guys because the difference would be too much. I didn't want to showcase a few guys in spite of the entire roster. It's great to have them on marketing material, but the show itself suffers if you don't have a good roster up and down, or around the same ability – obviously only difference by push.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>I knew this next show had to be brought. We needed to develop stories. We needed to develop angles and a ranking system of sorts in the viewers mind to make sure people knew where each wrestler was on the roster. I knew that we needed to make a big difference with our second show and now that I know I could lose $41,000 each show, I am okay with it.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="color: #000000;"><strong>This next show I was really going to setup a story we could run with for awhile. I had already talked with Ashley Massaro and she was going to come in and help me out with an angle. I knew the guys would drool over themselves to see her, and I knew that she would be the perfect person to start this new look off with. My thought was soon interrupted by the sudden jolt on my computer screen where a new piece of mail appeared. It was my designer and he had already gotten back to me with another poster for the next show. I liked it:</strong></span></p></div> </div><div id="imgwrap0sec0" class="" style="clear: both; position: relative; padding: 5px; border: 1px solid transparent; "><div id="imgcont0sec0" style="padding:5px;text-align:center;font-size:1.8em;"><img id="standaloneimg0sec0" src="http://i257.photobucket.com/albums/hh232/tobin834/02.jpg" style=""></div></div></div>

</div>

tobin834 · October 27, 2012

PWD Show 2

</div>

</div>

tobin834 · October 30, 2012

</div>

<p><span style="font-family: tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><strong>The final part of the night as Marty Jannetty jumps the barricade perfectly on-cue and made everything look great like a true professional. I think the fans really took to it, and now just in the past few days they've been treated to Sean Morley, Ashley Massaro, PJ Polaco and Devon Storm. All in a matter of three shows and they were running an angle now. This small town was getting spoiled and they knew it, but I promised myself if I ever got this thing going then I would always come back here.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="font-family: tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><strong>I thought the night went very well and could be considered a success. We are getting our name out there with more talent we bring in. Attendance was down 13 but we expected that as one of our wrestlers who sells a lot of tickets told us in advance he couldn't this time. No worries. We were well below budget and still just starting. I had these guys sell tickets just to humble them a bit, and make them earn their way. Established stars obviously didn't sell tickets – but some did. Devon Storm sold about 10 of them. Great guy.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="font-family: tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><strong>I liked where the main angle was going too. The Collective against Morley and Jannetty. I thought so bad about wanting to propose a neo-rockers for the guys, but then thought again about how much both of them would hate me. I left it as was, and we had a hot couple Main Events for the next show. I wanted to run a supershow but only when the time was right. The time wasn't right at this second, and I worried if I had pushed everything too soon. I needed to slow burn it a little so I could buy myself a little bit of time to setup a show, contact other workers etc.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="font-family: tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><strong>Overall I liked my guys. I didn't mind Shawn Murphy (King Kung Fu) being my road agent for now, but I needed to find someone else. Shawn just doesn't have any experience being a road agent and that isn't why we brought him here. Shawn will eventually be a color commentator we are just training him right now and working slowly. So getting an established veteran was on my top list of things to do. It would also add more credibility to our roster and I didn't mind paying. As I said, I planned on losing $1 Million Dollars the first year to just gain notoriety. I was fine with this.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="font-family: tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><strong>As for the promotion, I think we are right where we need to be. I want to work a little on the midcard division, and we need to start thinking about getting a championship tournament or champion here at some point. I didn't know who I wanted as our first champion or how I wanted to play it up yet, but having no champion wasn't the worst thing in the world. We could have the fans focus on their favorite wrestler, not just who happened to be the champion at the moment.</strong></span></p>

<p><span style="font-family: tahoma, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><strong>I wanted to continue to try and find some venues where we could possibly hold shows. Until then, we were happy with the roller rink. </strong></span></p>

</div>

tobin834 · November 13, 2012

PWD February Show

</div>

</div>

tobin834 · November 15, 2012

Any opinions on how to make this better, or more interesting are appreciated. I would love there to be a forum where you could just get feedback.

Sign In

Pwd: A Promoters Look At The World Of Indy Wrestling

Recommended Posts

tobin834

Link to comment

Share on other sites

TheEffect

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Texasrangers13

Link to comment

Share on other sites

tobin834

Link to comment

Share on other sites

tobin834

Link to comment

Share on other sites

tobin834

Link to comment

Share on other sites

tobin834

Link to comment

Share on other sites

tobin834

Link to comment

Share on other sites

Archived

Games

Wrestling Games

MMA

Football

Basketball

RPG

Browse

Activity

Support