411’s Buy or Sell 2.11.11: The State of Independent Wrestling

Michael Ornelas: BUY. I honestly believe at this point in time, TNA needs to play the role of a televised Indy. Sure it has guys like Kurt Angle and Jeff Hardy, but in terms of its contracts with Indy workers, it should just be another place to get a paycheck. If they’re not going to use the Young Bucks (although from my understanding, they actually do use them), then they rightfully should be able to (and do) appear for PWG, Ring of Honor, and other place. They just signed Christopher Daniels to a deal as the returning Suicide character, but Daniels can stay in Ring of Honor as well. That opens all sorts of doors and I think it should be applied to all its current and ex Indy talents (Desmond Wolfe, Motor City, Amazing Red). There are talks of El Generico being brought into the company and I think he should hold out for a deal like that, as his absence in PWG and RoH would really be a shame. Add to the fact that supposedly TNA doesn’t pay the lower card talents too well (I’m NOT stating that as fact; just hearsay), and these guys should absolutely be given the opportunity to make money elsewhere if the dates don’t conflict with TNA.

Steve Cook : BUY. If you’re going to have somebody under contract and allow them to work these indy shows to make more money, doesn’t it make sense to let them do that? To me, it brings up the old saying of “you either gotta s*it or get off the pot”. Right now it seems like TNA wants to work with these indy groups when it’s convenient for them, but sometimes they don’t. Make a decision. Either let your talent work for outside promotions, or don’t. In Robbie’s case, he had a big push on TV for a little while, and now he’s doing nothing. Now TNA wants to keep him from working with other groups while not using him? I’m not sure how you can really spin that in a way that makes sense and sounds fair unless you decide that no outside promotion is going to use your talent.

1 for 1.

Steve Cook : BUY. This is assuming that TNA decides that they want other promotions to book their talent on a regular basis. They should be pretty aware that these companies aren’t making a whole lot of money on their shows. It’s not like TNA makes a whole lot of money on most of their shows, so you’d think they’d understand.

Michael Ornelas: BUY. I really could have gone either way here, since I’m interpreting it a couple different ways. If it means letting talent go elsewhere when they’re not booked, then like NSYNC would say: BUY BUY BUY!! The affordable part is where I’m thrown. Does this mean TNA is paid extra (and not the talent) to let its contracted talent go? TNA isn’t a vending machine of wrestlers. They shouldn’t be paid just to allow their talent to work days that they’re not going to be used anyways. If that’s what that was meant, then SELL! However, if it means the talent gets more money just because they’re contracted with TNA, then BUY, I suppose, as I’m all for bettering morale and earnings of the athletes. I have a feeling that’s not what it means though, for I’m pretty sure TNA doesn’t really care how much they make per booking elsewhere…

2 for 2.

“I was happy when I checked out the DGUSA show this past Sunday, as Tozawa cemented himself as an official star of DGUSA. I didn’t see his other matches of the weekend, but according to all reports, he had a show stealing match with Austin Aries, which kind of reminded me of way back when, when Christopher Daniels made Austin Aries a star in the northeast in the finals of the 2004 Super 8 Tournament. After that tournament, Aries became indy wrestling’s newest darling, kind of like the reaction Tozawa is getting right now.”

Michael Ornelas: SELL. I like him, and he’s good, don’t get me wrong…but I need to see more. He can get it done in the ring, but he doesn’t have the same swagger that other Japanese indy darlings like KENTA, Nakajima, Doi, Yoshino, Shingo, YAMATO, and CIMA all have. I’d still rather see all those guys in a match before I watch one with Tozawa in it. He does however have the advantage of being a PWG regular, meaning he spends plenty of time in the United States. In my opinion, Ring of Honor needs to bring in some more Japanese talents like in the old days, and Tozawa in Ring of Honor might just push him into “indy darling” territory with me. Don’t take my answer here as dislike for the guy, I just think he has a little more room to grow.

Steve Cook : BUY. I didn’t see these shows, but I saw a Tozawa sign on the Royal Rumble PPV. That probably means the guy’s getting over, since the only other guy that got a sign there was YAMATO, the new DGUSA champion. I’m pretty far behind on my DGUSA watching and I haven’t actually watched him wrestle yet, so it’s ridiculous for me to comment on his ability. I hear that he’s a pretty good kisser though, so take that for what it’s worth.

2 for 3.

“Is the ACE arena becoming the ECW arena of NJ?”

Steve Cook : SELL. I’ve never been to the ECW Arena, but I remember watching TV shows held there when ECW was in its prime. It’s a place that has played host to a lot of interesting wrestling moments and has a lot of history behind it. Even though 99% of them took place over a decade ago and the place seems dead when ROH has their TV show there, people still mark out for working there because it was the ECW Arena. The ACE Arena doesn’t have that history and people don’t mark out because they’re working there. Maybe it’ll get there someday, but in 2011 it’s way too soon to be throwing those comparisons out there.

Michael Ornelas: SELL. I really don’t have much to say about this other than the fact that the crowds simply aren’t as hot as they were for ECW. Maybe that’s only coming across that way on DVD or maybe it’s because of the decline in wrestling’s popularity since the late 90s, but I just don’t think wrestling has a new equivalent of the ECW Arena right now.

3 for 4.

“Will the New York State Athletic commission ever give a f*ck again? For all you people who are happy the NYSAC does “jac” sh*t about illegal rentals, I wonder if you are happy when the wrestlers don’t get paid on canceled dates? If there was a strong commission, the wrestlers would get paid and fans would have their tickets refunded right away.

Michael Ornelas: SELL. FALSE! FICTION! Regulating our niche form of entertainment like a sport would kill it. EVOLVE portrays itself like a sport, but all the rest need the freedom to be a little over-the-top violent for effect (and I hate “garbage wrestling” like CZW’s deathmatches, so don’t mistake that comment for bloodlust). Would the Steen/Generico feud of last year have been as good as it was if it was more strictly regulated? I highly doubt it. I think for the sake of these guys’ respective health, they need benefits, but that should come through the promotion, not the state. It’s an entertainment industry whether we like it or not. Regulating it as a sport just reeks of disaster.

Steve Cook : SELL. Yeah, because wrestling promoters love dealing with athletic commissions. I live in Kentucky, a state where wrestling came under a huge amount of scrutiny in the late 90s and early 2000s because a promoter (Ian Rotten) decided to do some crazy nonsense on his shows and people complained about it. Now we have pretty strict rules on what wrestling promotions can or can’t do. As far as indy promotions go, we have a couple “major” ones. OVW hasn’t really been the same since WWE moved developmental to Florida. The NWF runs some shows in Northern Kentucky, and I think their sister promotion the MWA still runs shows down south. ROH runs Louisville now that Cary Silken worships at the altar of Jim Cornette. Other than that, there’s not a whole lot going on in the state because wrestling promoters don’t want to put up with Kentucky’s strict regulations. They fined WWE after Backlash 2006 in Lexington in 2006 for some pretty ridiculous things that they claimed violated their rules. How many PPVs has WWE run in Kentucky since then? Zero. They don’t need to put up with that nonsense.

I understand the point that having more regulations put on wrestling promoters would help wrestlers get paid. But I firmly believe that wrestling promoters would rather run shows somewhere where there aren’t strict regulations. Bring in the athletic commissions, and the promoters will go away.

4 for 5.

“Do wrestlers realize what they do somewhere else can hurt their standing in another company? How are the fans supposed to believe what you’re doing and take you for real when you act one way one place, one way the next?”

Steve Cook : SELL. Seriously? I mean…there aren’t really that many people watching these companies. Is somebody really going to say that somebody doesn’t deserve a push in CZW because they had a bad match in JAPW? Are they going to say that a guy can’t be a face in CHIKARA because he’s a heel in DGUSA? I agree that wrestlers should in general keep an eye on how they’re booked and make sure that people don’t have them do things they aren’t comfortable with, but you can’t tell a promoter “Hey, I don’t want to be a heel here because I’m a face somewhere else.” or “Hey, that guy’s my tag team partner in another promotion, I can’t wrestle him here.” They’ll roll your eyes at you and come up with ideas for somebody else that isn’t such a huge mark for themselves.

Michael Ornelas: SELL. This is not the same as the territories of wrestling’s past. In that case, it’d be an easy buy. Nowadays though, we are conditioned to know wrestling is scripted. If El Generico had lost his mask at Final Battle 2010, I still would have expected him to show up in PWG with his mask on. Every company has its own storyline that is its own creative property. If two guys have a history and they want to touch on that when they get them both in their promotion, that’s fine, but booking in one company shouldn’t have any effect on their booking elsewhere in terms of how the fans buy it.

5 for 6.

“It seems like Sami Callihan & Jon Moxley are 2011’s Homicide and Jay Lethal. Who will be the next great indy wrestler to work in every fed in a 5 mile radius?”

Michael Ornelas: SELL. A man’s gotta eat! In all seriousness though, I don’t have any problem with this…with one exception. If they play the EXACT SAME character in EVERY promotion they’re in at the SAME TIME, then I have a problem with it. But look at Claudio Castagnoli right now. The man has main evented an EVOLVE show, is a King of Wrestling in Ring of Honor, he’s the PWG World Champion, and he’s a part of the hottest storyline in CHIKARA. I think the Claudio case pretty much proves this should be a sell if done right. Claudio plays at least 3 different roles across several companies and he’s interesting in every single one. Homicide on the other hand could probably benefit from an overhaul…

Steve Cook : SELL. I can see the point being made here…it kind of sucks when you see the same guys working everywhere and doing the same thing in every promotion. It’s not very inventive, and you kind of wish that you’d see them less. But it’s ridiculous to blame the wrestler for that. It’s not their fault that all of these indy promoters insist on running shows so close to each other, and it’s more convenient for them that the shows are so close in location so they don’t have to travel as much. Why would guys like Moxley & Callihan travel all over the country when there are 30 indy promotions running in the Northeast? And if they’re depending on wrestling to put food on their plate, why wouldn’t they work every show that they possibly could in the area? Who the heck cares about over-saturating the market when you need to make a living?

6 for 7.

“When will people realize ECW has officially been dead for over 10 years now and if Paul Heyman was booking anything it would be something different not something that worked back then?”

Steve Cook : SELL. I agree that people should stop with the ECW stuff, because it’s beyond played out at this point. But two weeks ago an indy promotion in Tennessee drew over 1500 fans in the Nashville Fairgrounds with a main event featuring Jerry Lawler against Bill Dundee, which is potentially more than DGUSA’s entire triple shot weekend did. I think there’s a lot people can learn from that. In the right situation and the right location with the right people, nostalgia sells. Names on a marquee sell tickets. Why not use that? If you’re smart, you’ll find a way to get the people drawn in by the older names interested in your younger talent, and then they’ll come back to see those guys when the Lawlers & Dundees aren’t there. And if you’re obsessed with creating the “next great concept in wrestling” you’re probably taking yourself way too seriously.

Michael Ornelas: BUY…but I feel like they’re already doing that? 3PW, CZW, and other “hardcore” feds aren’t at the forefront of the independent scene right now, and that’s largely because they haven’t evolved. All the well-received indy promotions are however. EVOLVE is trying to treat wrestling like a sport, Dragon Gate USA focuses on mixing Japanese and American talents on American soil, CHIKARA is the fan fiction version of a wrestling company (and is awesome, might I add), Pro Wrestling Guerrilla is the edgy-but-still-fun little engine that could, and Ring of Honor is (or at least used to be) the place to go to see all the top indy competitors (they really shouldn’t have let Steen go…or Austin Aries). All of those promotions have something different to market that wasn’t just an Extreme Championship Wrestling rehash.

6 for 8.

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Open Ended: Independent wrestling is not as strong is at was even 4 or 5 years ago. The economy tanked, live event attendance and DVD sales are both down. What will it take for independent wrestling to experience a resurgence in popularity and profitability?

Michael Ornelas: SELL. I kid, I kid. I don’t think independent wrestling is shitty…just Ring of Honor isn’t as good as it used to be. RoH is not the same as independent wrestling, just a branch of it. Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s past couple years have been amazing. CHIKARA’s Bruderschaft storyline was my vote for the 2010 Storyline of the Year. Kevin Steen and El Generico probably had one of the five best blood feuds I have EVER seen, and that was just last year. I disagree that indy wrestling is weak right now. The economy is, and I think that’s what’s affecting the attendance and sales. Solely the economy. As a result, I think all of professional wrestling’s eggs are in one basket in terms of how to regain popularity, and that basket’s name is the WWE. Almost everyone nowadays that hears the term “professional wrestling” thinks that WWF is the only game in town. That goes to show just how out of touch the general public is with wrestling. They changed their name 9 whole years ago! They’ve been WWE about half as long as they were the WWF!! (Since they were WWWF before that) With the economy doing poorly, wrestling fans statistically having lower incomes, and almost a standard of pirating media, I don’t know how these companies can see huge profits. My suggestion would be streaming of free content to get people hooked, online video-on-demand services (subscription or single view) on their websites (Ring of Honor took a step in the right direction by releasing all their out of print DVDs on rohvideos.com), and find other ways to reach an audience. Most of the circumstances surrounding declining income for independent companies are out of their hands, but they until the WWE becomes popular again, I doubt people will be looking elsewhere for wrestling. There’s a good chance that Ring of Honor will get another ECW-like fan base when the PG WWE kids grow up and look for non-shitty alternatives (because really, what can TNA offer that is of substance?), and they’ll find RoH, PWG, and Dragon Gate USA. I’m rambling here, but the point is that unless the big dog is actually a decent sized dog, all the smaller dogs are going to stay that way. But if they have to do something to stay afloat right now, I’d say ENCRYPTED, hard-to-redistribute downloadable files for a small price (sell per match or per show. Like a wrestling iTunes!) is the best bet.

Steve Cook : What independent wrestling needs to be popular and profitable again is pretty simple. It needs another wrestling boom. It’s no accident that indy wrestling got a lot of great talent during the tail end of the last wrestling boom. More people were watching wrestling, were fans of wrestling and loved it so much that they wanted to try it themselves. People who didn’t like wrestling but had great athletic ability saw that wrestling was doing big business, and they thought “Hey, I can do that and make a lot of money!”. That’s not really happening now. Athletes are turning towards MMA because that’s the popular thing now, and there are less wrestling fans around to become wrestlers.

Once wrestling becomes popular again (and I do believe that it will someday), more people will want to get into it. When wrestling has more fans, that means there are more people willing to go down to the local venue every week to see some local wrestlers doing their thing. Indy wrestling largely survives and thrives because of the mainstream promotions. I’m not bashing anybody here, that’s just how it works. If WWE blows up again, or if TNA finally produces something that more than 1.whatever of the television audience wants to see, then more people will like wrestling and want to watch it, or get into it. It’s not rocket science.

The 193rd edition of BUY or SELL finishes at 6 for 8 as Ornelas and Cook tend to agree on the state of indy wrestling. I hope you enjoyed what was a very different Buy or Sell, and found it both interesting and informative. Many of the writers here at 411 are passionate about indy wrestling, and feel it’s where you can see the best in-ring action around.

Stay tuned for next week as two new people step up to the plate on Buy or Sell!, and be sure to share your thoughts on this week’s questions in the comments section.