Steve's View #100
By Steve
On January 31st XPW issued a press
release stating that IWA-MS, HWA (Pennsylvania, not Les Thatcher's),
the new WZW, and SoCal's own Revolution Pro would be part of what
XPW is calling their "developmental system".
Immediately after it's release the
press release received pretty strong negative feedback from long
time SoCal fans and people inside Revolution Pro. People who work
for Revolution Pro in various capacities, were not so much upset
that it was announced Rev Pro and XPW will be working hand in
hand, but that XPW is labeling Revolution Pro as part of their
"developmental" system, and not an affiliate. During
the meeting that XPW and Rev Pro had, the word "developmental"
was never agreed upon.
Revolution Pro has actually worked
with XPW since around the time of XPW's beginning's, with wrestlers
being booked for XPW by Revolution Pro promoter Ron Rivera, as
early as XPW's second show. Damien 666 and Halloween both give
Ron Rivera credit for getting them into XPW.
Early last year an angle in XPW
began where wrestlers from outside of XPW would begin invading,
and once again XPW and Ron Rivera worked together, as Ron was
the principle booker for most of the talent that would comprise
the "SoCal Jobbers Union". While the angle started as
a good idea, and was beginning to develop nicely, Rob Black soon
decided that he didn't like it, and the non-XPW guys in the angle
were squashed, and the angle was killed. American Wild Child and
Street Style hung around XPW as regulars until XPW went to Philadelphia
however.
In recent months before the "developmental"
press release was sent out, a few XPW wrestlers such as Angel
and Juantastico have been training with Revolution Pro, and XPW
sent Doomhammer (under the name Thunderbird) to Rev Pro to gain
more ring time and hopefully improve.
The idea for the developmental system
was thought up by XPW vice president Kevin Kleinrock. There is
no money being given to Revolution Pro by XPW, only access to
XPW wrestlers for their shows. Also, like in the case of Doomhammer,
XPW may send people to Rev Pro to get work while waiting to debut
in XPW. XPW also hopes to use Rev Pro to scout new talent for
their shows.
While on XPW's side of things, the
deal is a smart move, one has to question what Revolution Pro
gets out of the deal aside from access to XPW wrestlers for shows.
An increase in fans attending the
shows is not a guarantee based on XPW wrestlers just being there,
as when Messiah first left XPW he did not any noticeable impact
on the promotions he worked for's attendance, despite being one
of, if not the most the most popular wrestler to come out of XPW.
Any increase in fans as a result
of XPW wrestlers being on the show could also be harmful to Rev
Pro's stated goals of having shows the entire family can enjoy.
I have never been to an XPW show that I felt was a good environment
for people to bring their families, and when EPIC went after XPW's
fanbase they had pretty much the same results as far as fans that
were there only to yell about wanting to "fuck Hailey's ass"
and other obscenities.
Another risk Rev Pro takes is alienating
part of it's fanbase, the part that has supported it for years.
It's no secret that XPW is hated by a few people in the area,
and people have already made it no secret they are no longer supporting
Rev Pro due to this announcement. Even if XPW wrestlers on the
show does spike the attendance, what happens on the shows when
they aren't there? Will XPW fans really be impressed enough by
Stryker versus Goalie Howe part 78 to come to the next show? Also,
what does any promotion gain by being labeled as another promotion's
"minor league" basically?
Something that may be hurting Rev
Pro among what is known as the "smart" fans more than
any XPW deal is the changing face of wrestling in SoCal. In 2000
and 2001 Rev Pro was truly revolutionary. Bringing a hybrid style
of lucha, American, and puroresu to the table that you could not
get anywhere else. Now it's all over SoCal, and some promotions
like GSCW have been putting on shows that have a better lineup
overall, and are cheaper. Compare the lineup to Revolution Pro's
next show, and GSCW's last. GSCW easily had the better lineup,
and only cost $11.00 compared to Rev Pro's $15.00. The XPW deal
may be just an excuse for some people.
As far as XPW goes the entire idea
can be a huge benefit to them if they use it to it's potential.
Firstly they are teaming up with two promotions that are popular
among internet fans, IWA-MS and Rev Pro, which could gain XPW
some ground into their fanbases. Also, the mere fact of saying
you have a developmental system will make XPW seem bigger and
more important to new fans who might not know the deal behind
it. Lastly it gives XPW a chance to scout wrestlers, who they
could probably get cheaper than a lot of their roster, and they
can begin to phase out some of the "name" wrestlers
who are their for a paycheck, and replace them with wrestlers
who are hungry to make a name for themselves, and could possibly
have better matches. Thus improving show quality and making the
shows more cost effective which is something XPW desperately needs
to do at this point if they plan on lasting.
All in all, aside from Revolution
Pro having access to XPW wrestlers now, the deal itself doesn't
really change anything in Revolution Pro. The public announcement
of the deal that everyone already knew about, could have great
impact on the future of Revolution Pro.
--
Speaking of XPW, they will be running
in the paint ball field portion of the X Park when they return
to SoCal at the end of the month. For those who don't know the
venue used to be the IceoPlex, and XPW was interested in renting
it out in the past before the X Park bought it.
XPW will also be running shows in
SoCal on April 4th and 5th.
--
Recently I had the chance to check
out former SoCal wrestler Ben Peller's book, Living the Gimmick.
Peller, who wrestled in SoCal frequently during the early 1990's,
and is even the second Slammers Wrestling Federation heavyweight
champion, really offers a lot of insight into the world of professional
wrestling with this book. While the book
is a work of fiction, a lot of the book is based on real events,
or real people, even various SoCal personalities that long time
fans of the scene might be familiar with.
The book is about Michael Harding,
who becomes a wrestling fan during childhood, and decides that
he wants to become a professional wrestler, and to find his identity.
The book begins with Michael as
a child in Chicago, avoiding bullies and rooting for his favorite
wrestlers such as Sunny Logan and Chuck "The Stud" Beastie.
Michael leaves Chicago and heads
to San Bernardino to begin his training in pro-wrestling, and
is soon working for various indy promotions all over SoCal, then
to Memphis, and eventually the WWO, the biggest wrestling promotion
in the world.
Throughout the book Michael struggles
with coming to terms with who he is, and struggles to learn that
everyone has a different perception on you, and becoming your
own person is more important than whatever perception others have
of you. Is Michael living, or is he just living his gimmick?
While the book is about one's search
to find himself, it is also a great look into the inner workings
of professional wrestling. From sleazy promoters, steroids, ring
rats, to bringing joy to a child meeting their hero, it's all
here.
The characters in the book are all
well done. I'm of the school who believes there are no "flat"
characters in real life, meaning no people who behave exactly
how they are expected all the time, and even though I'm quite
familiar with some of the people the characters in this book are
based on, I never knew what was coming next from each, as Peller
does an excellent job making sure none of his characters are flat.
The only flaw I found with the book,
and to us wrestling fans it isn't really a flaw, is that even
though a lot of the book is based on true events, the average
person might find it hard to believe some of the things that happen
in the book, would happen in real life.
What I liked most about the book
is how Ben Peller is able to put into words his love for wrestling
in such a way that you really feel what his words mean, and how
they relate to your own enjoyment of wrestling. On page 65 of
Living the Gimmick, Peller gives one of the best arguments for
wrestling being a sport that I have ever read when Michael Harding's
wrestling instructor, Shane Stratford explains "Many people
don't think of professional wrestling as a sport because a sport
is defined as a competition between two opposing teams or single
participants. Well, consider this: You and whoever else is in
that ring with you are on one team. The crowd is the opposing
team. You're competing against their skepticism and powers of
observation in order to make them believe and appreciate what
you are doing in that [squared] circle. Your job is to make that
match appear as violent as possible while at the same time imposing
a conscious order on the very chaos you you're creating and using
to entertain. You want to pop the crowd and make them say 'wow.'
Break down those barriers of disbelief and they'll keep coming
back. That's the competition the qualifies wrestling as a sport."
I would highly recommend this book
to anyone, not just wrestling fans, and it is easily the best
book about professional wrestling that I have read next to Mick
Foley's "Have a Nice Day".
--
The Travel Channel will be airing
a show beginning next week called "Professional Wrestling:
Tricks of the Trade" that will feature footage from UPW
and EWF shows, as well as footage from a training session at Ultimate
University. In a somewhat humorous side note to the documentary,
I was at the EWF show where they filmed the EWF portion of the
show, and during intermission they asked the entire crowd to move
to one section of the audience so they could film crowd shots.
It wasn't EWF who asked everyone to move, it was the Travel Channel.
Unless the Travel Channel used a pretty tight shot the crowd will
probably still look pretty small, because if I remember correctly
there was less than 100 people at that show. Anyway, the first
airing will be February 11th at 10:00 PM.
--
A lot of people always ask me how
I came up with "Steve's View", which is a horrible name
for a column by the way. In truth I didn't really come up with
it.
When I used to work for CCW doing
odd jobs and running the website, CCW's promoter Charles Gibbs
thought it would be a good idea if I had my own section on the
CCW message board. He ended up calling it "Steve's View".
I really had no idea what to write, as it's a lot harder to write
about things if you are limited to one promotion, and can't say
things that go against the grain of the promotion. So rather than
being fake or blindly shilling things, I just never wrote anything.
Eventually Demento asked why nothing was ever posted, and me and
Demento made a secret deal turning "Steve's View" into
"Demento's View", where he wrote about many Earth shattering
topics.
Fast forward to when SCU started
up. When Lonnie Hill and I originally had the idea for the site,
I really didn't plan on writing much. I wrote a few columns about
various things, but each column had their own titles and were
single subject columns, unlike the current Steve's View where
I go over a few topics every time. Since in SCU's early days we
really didn't have a lot of content I wrote a little bit more
than I wanted to. One week I had a few different items to talk
about, but nothing big enough to really devote an entire column
to, so I just threw them all together. I was really inspired by
former MPW ring announcer The Rev's column on socal-wrestling,
which covered various SoCal news. I had no idea what to call the
column so I just used the "Steve's View" title. I never
planned on their being a #2. I just had more stuff to put out
there, and we were still short on content. Also, I couldn't think
of a better name so I just labeled it #2 and it stuck from there.
Even though this is the 100th edition
of Steve's View, I really didn't want to do anything out of the
ordinary for it. I'm not really a fan of when people who write
columns for websites (or any other form of media for that matter)
write long thank you columns, or retirement columns, or whatever.
I just don't really think it's necessary. However, that being
said, I must go against what I just said as there are a few people
that I really think I need to thank everyone who reads this column
time and time again, and I need to thank the wrestlers and promoters
that I write about every column. You guys risk injury week after
week just to entertain, and even though sometimes there are negative
things said here, I really respect and appreciate that you are
willing to take that risk.
--
Next column I'll have some thoughts
on the WWE house show in San Diego, plus some other things I'm
sure.
Steve
