Steve's View #110
By Steve
This will be my fourth, and final
part (for now at least) of my history of XPW and where they went
wrong. In this edition I'll be covering January of this year to
the present, then I'll take a look at XPW's future.
XPW started out the year, after
gaining an exclusive lease on Viking Hall in Philadelphia, running
the first set of their planned monthly back to back shows, but
it would turn out to be the only time they ran back to back in
Viking Hall.
The week before XPW was scheduled
to run, CZW announced on their website that former CZW champion
Justice Pain had left CZW to join XPW. According to people in
XPW, Justice Pain had actually been trying to get into XPW for
a few months prior, but XPW showed little interest. The feeling
by most fans, and some people associated with XPW, was that Pain
was finally picked up solely to take a shot at CZW.
The Friday night show on January
17th, "New Year's Revolution 3", was said to be good,
but attendance had fallen even more from previous shows, drawing
about 250 people. During a match on the show between the team
Vic Grimes and Lucy (Daffney from WCW) against Shane Douglas and
Lizzy Borden, Lizzy attempted a top rope huracanrana on Vic Grimes
and he power bombed her through a table on the outside of the
ring The floors had recently been painted due to XPW's remodeling
of the arena, and because of their slickness the table moved and
Lizzy barely touched the table and took most of the impact on
the concrete below. People ringside at the show stated that she
was spitting up blood. She was rushed to the hospital where she
was kept over night, though she out by the next day's show.
XPW ran it's second night's show,
"New Year's Revolution 3: Aftermath" on Saturday and
drew about 400, which is about what they drew at their December
show, but both nights combined attendance was less than XPW drew
in one night at "Hostile Takeover", their Philadelphia
debut a little over four months earlier. To make matters worse,
CZW also ran on January 18th just a few miles away.
While the exclusive lease on Viking
Hall would save XPW money on transportation when doing back to
back shows, the numbers XPW was drawing for those shows, and paying
around an estimated $10,000.00 per month for the lease, made XPW's
lease a very expensive gamble. And as they learned on this first
weekend, without the lease the chances of XPW running head to
head with one of Philadelphia's other three big promotions was
lessened. However, with the lease and CZW and 3PW having to find
new venues, XPW pretty much guaranteed they would never run unopposed
again.
In their first (and only) head to
head meeting in Philadelphia, CZW, who was easily XPW's biggest
rival in the promotional war in Philadelphia, outdrew XPW by about
100 to 150, further adding to XPW's embarrassment about their
low attendance. Little did they know it was about to get worse.
In the weeks before XPW was set
to run their next set of shows on February 14th and 15th, Eric
Walker on PWBTS.com reported what been suspected for a few weeks,
that XPW would not be running shows in Philadelphia in March or
April while they remodel Viking Hall, yet they were still going
to let HWA run there in that time. XPW vice president Kevin Kleinrock
confirmed the story to PWBTS.com a couple days later.
Then the day of XPW's first of two
scheduled shows on February 14th, Bob Magee reported the following
on PWBTS.com
"Three different sources,
including two within the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission,
are stating that at least the Saturday XPW show in Philadelphia
is being canceled.
I was first given the information
this morning, in an e-mail that stated the reason given to talent
for the cancellation of Saturday's show was "due to the potential
snow storm". This seemed peculiar given that 3PW's debut
show at The Electric Factory is still on, and that the amount
of snow forecast for Saturday ranges between only 2-6 inches (depending
on which local station one listens to), and that the snow is scheduled
to be over by noon.
Later in the morning, both of
the sources within the State Athletic Commission confirmed the
story, stating that the real reason was "lack of funds".
Executive Director Greg Sirb had indicated to one of the sources
that he had heard from XPW on Thursday that money was an issue,
as well as 'the stacked 3PW show scheduled for Saturday evening."
Bob Magee immediately came under
attack by people involved with XPW, most notably their Event &
A&R Coordinator Slash and someone claiming to be a friend
of his, saying that he was reporting false information and the
shows would go on and making threats of lawsuits.
That night XPW drew about 125, one
of the worst attendances in Viking Hall history, and just before
the main event, XPW's announcer Kriss Kloss announced that the
next nights show was canceled due to snowstorms. 3PW went on as
scheduled and drew an estimated 550.
Refunds for the canceled show were
offered, in the form of merchandise or tickets to the next Philadelphia
show and the first New York show, both of which have never happened.
The show itself was called "lackluster"
and "flat" by people who were at the show, and any heat
the crowd did have was killed at the announcement of the cancellation.
The next week Philadelphia TV station
WGTV canceled XPW's TV show due to the promotion not paying it's
bills for the time slot. XPW's TV in New Orleans was canceled
about the same time.
The whole idea of running TV in
multiple markets, especially markets where you never run like
New Orleans, is a flawed concept to begin with. Paying for TV
time all over the country is a costly move, and one of the many
things that lead to the demise of ECW. It's been proven time and
time again that TV doesn't make indy promotions money, and XPW
was being outdrawn in the Philadelphia market by two promotions
that did not even have TV currently running is further proof of
that. If anything TV takes away from the live gate, as some people
may be inclined just to stay at home and watch the matches a few
weeks later. In XPW's case the only purpose TV served was in Los
Angeles where it was able to keep it's established fanbase there
up to date with what was going on in Philadelphia, and XPW would
have been best served waiting till they planned on running in
multiple cities before starting their TV in Philadelphia, but
by this point their fanbase had diminished so much it was pointless
to keep the Philadelphia experiment alive anyway.
On February 28th CZW was notified
that XPW had been evicted from Viking Hall for bouncing checks
to Viking Hall owners, as well as for violations of the agreement
signed to lease the building. The initial deposit check XPW gave
to Viking Hall had bounced, as well as several others, and Viking
Hall management refused to take any more personal checks from
XPW, so XPW was forced to pay expenses with a combination of money
orders, cashier's checks, and personal checks from individuals.
Also, XPW had run concerts prior
to their January shows, which was in violation of their lease
agreement, though since they waited a month and half to evict
XPW after the concerts, it is believed the bounced checks and
eventual total lack of payment was the real catalyst for the eviction.
On top of Viking Hall getting bounced
checks, XPW wrestlers also began to privately complain about bounced
checks, though to XPW's credit they did make good on all of the
bad checks from Philadelphia to the wrestlers.
The same day XPW was evicted from
Viking Hall, they made their return to Los Angeles, with two of
their most highly acclaimed shows to date. On XPW's February 28th
return to Los Angeles they drew about 450, which is half of what
they were normally doing in Los Angeles, but had far less comps
than normal. On the show Sean Waltman made his XPW debut, defeating
Kaos for the XPW TV title he had held since August 2001.
The next night XPW held what is
considered by a lot of people the best show in XPW's history,
wrestling wise. At the show XPW announced return dates in SoCal
on April 4th and 5th. XPW was finally generating some much needed
positive buzz.
The next week on March 8th, XPW
made it's debut in Pittsburgh, in front of their largest crowd
since July of 2002, approximately 1,200 people, thanks mostly
to all the mainstream publicity Shane Douglas was able to generate
for the promotion in his home city, even getting a feature article
in the local paper just a couple days before the show. However
all was not well as there were several notable no-shows such as
Sean Waltman, who was given a bounced check in Los Angeles, and
Mexico's Most Wanted, who reportedly had transportation problems.
Also on the show the top rope broke and eventually the bottom
rope had to be moved to the tope leaving XPW with only two ropes,
and undoubtedly making XPW look bush league in a few of the people
who came to check out the show's eyes.
XPW was unable to capitalize on
their recent successes with two highly acclaimed shows, and their
biggest draw in months, as quietly any mention of the April shows
in Southern California were removed from XPW's website, the planned
New York show and return to Philadelphia stopped being mentioned,
and April 19th's show in Pittsburgh was scheduled to be the next
show.
XPW's money problems continued,
as Shane Douglas was complaining to other wrestlers backstage
at Insane Clown Posse's "Gathering of the Juggalos"
show about XPW's money problems, and how slow they are to pay
him. Then Justin Credible came out on an interview with chicagowrestling.com
and admitted that XPW had bounced him a check.
It should be noted that XPW had
also announced that they would be running a pay per view at February
28th's Los Angeles show. The pay per view is set to be a "best
of" taped pay per view. As I've stated in previous columns,
running a taped pay per view isn't very risky, as you don't have
the expensive satellite time, but you also won't make any money
off it, especially with XEG, their distributor taking most of
the money. The counter argument to that would be the exposure
XPW would get from the pay per view, but the number of buys will
more than likely be nominal, as NWA TNA has been established for
nearly a year and uses bigger stars than XPW gets less than 15,000
buys for their shows, and also gets more advertising exposure
than a taped pay per view that is nothing more than filler programming
will get.
Then it was announced Kaos, GQ Money,
and Valentina had parted ways with XPW. Kaos, who had been with
XPW since the beginning was one of the companies most popular
wrestlers. No reason for the departures were given by the promotion,
but they did quit the promotion and were not fired. GQ Money had
been unhappy with the direction of the company for some time,
and it's believed he and Kaos were both owed money by XPW.
Advertising for April 19th's Pittsburgh
show was almost nonexistent at first, and when tickets finally
did go on sale, they were very slow. After a week of being on
sale XPW hadn't even managed to sell out one third of the front
row tickets, which are normally the first tickets to go. There
had been talk privately that XPW would just cancel the show, as
the companies funds were running low.
Then on April 8th about 25 FBI agents
and postal inspectors from Pittsburgh, PA in conjunction with
the Los Angeles Police Department, arrived at the offices of XPW's
parent company Extreme Associates with a 10-page sealed warrant,
according to AVN.com.
No arrests were made, though the
law enforcement officials seized three copies each of Extreme
Teen 24, Cocktails 2, Ass Clowns 3, 1101 Ways to Eat My Jizz,
and Forced Entry.
After the raid, XPW announced that
they were canceling the Pittsburgh show due to the raid, because
the warrant states that Rob Black and Kevin Kleinrock are not
allowed to leave the state for 10 days. However, the warrant was
a search warrant and there is no such thing as a search warrant
that prohibits anyone from leaving the state, and even if one
was invented specifically for XPW, that would not prevent them
from letting Douglas run the show. Never
the less, the show was canceled and there are no shows currently
on the horizon.
Extreme has hired high priced attorney
Lou Sirkin, who has represented others in similar types of cases,
to defend them. Since the warrant was sealed there is still no
idea what the government was looking for, but since they took
files and books with them, it's not unbelievable they could be
looking to go after Extreme on a number of things including RICO
violations and tax evasion. Whatever happens it's clear Extreme's
money, which was running low before the raid, is going to be tied
up for awhile.
Even Shane Douglas, who is the promotions
head booker and has been the "face" of XPW recently,
stated on a recent radio interview that the company is on "thin
ice" and he hasn't been in contact with Kevin Kleinrock or
Rob Black since the March Pittsburgh show, but that's a little
hard to believe with him being the booker one would thing there
would be talks about the planned April Pittsburgh show at least.
That brings us to the present, with
no XPW shows on the visible horizon, and the promotion itself
being almost completely silent. A lot of people are ready to proclaim
XPW dead, while XPW's die hard fans are fast to point to the five
month hiatus XPW took in 2000. However there is a huge difference
between this hiatus and the one in 2000.
In 2000 when XPW wasn't running
for five months there was still activity going on. XPW had a planned
show in Glendale that was canceled because of the city not allowing
pro-wrestling events, and of course the Sabu and Onita press conference.
XPW was active at the time, currently it's silent. Plus XPW wasn't
having the money problems it is currently having with workers
complaining about bounced checks and canceling three of their
last four announced shows.
So what about the future of XPW?
The longer XPW goes between shows
and updates, at least to let fans know what's going on, the more
they run the risk of driving more of their fanbase away as they
become disillusioned and realize XPW will not become the next
big thing in pro-wrestling. Over time people move away from wrestling
and get into other things, it's just a fact of the wrestling business,
and the entertainment business in general. Without running shows
or doing anything, XPW isn't attracting new fans. If and when
XPW returns they will return to less fans than they had before
the hiatus. Once again XPW will find itself trying to rebuild
the fanbase it seemingly breaks apart from time to time. That
is a very destructive model for any business to run on.
If XPW does decide to run again,
the first thing they will have to do is revamp their business
model. The promotion has been losing money for four years now,
instead of changing their game plan, they went deeper into the
plan they were running and losing more money than before. Copying
failed business models has never been a successful approach to
any business. A quick review of pro-wrestling history should teach
XPW management that everything they've tried has failed time and
time again. It's time for a new plan.
Will XPW run again though? In essence
that all comes down to Rob Black. The fact that XPW's website
is still going is proof enough that they haven't given up yet.
Even if they start running again, if the government wins whatever
case they might throw at Extreme, the promotion will more than
likely be dead. If it at least goes to trial, I wouldn't expect
Extreme to have the money to keep XPW going during that time.
It will all come down to priorities, and XPW wont be at the top
of their list.
It's hard to say what will happen
with XPW, as so much seems out of their control at this time.
If they do run again, one can only hope they've learned from their
past mistakes, but they have yet to show that ability on a continuos
basis.
--
I'd like to give special thanks
to Slava Siderman's Xistory section at xpwtv.com, which helped
me to keep historical accuracy in my four part XPW piece.
--
Fusion ran it's debut show in Los
Angeles on May 4th. Fusion has an interesting game plan. Lucha
shows normally draw more people than traditional indy promotions,
and Fusion hopes to capitalize on the lucha audience, while still
promoting to non-Latin fans. Part of their process is to run smaller
shows with only a couple big lucha names to help build up some
of the local wrestlers for when Fusion starts running big shows
later on the year. Fusion's promoter, Carlos Zamora, helped promote
Azteca last year, which had one of the biggest non-WWE crowds
in wrestling last year, drawing over 4,000 people to the Grand
Olympic for one of their shows.
--
For those who don't know, SoCal
Hall of Famer Freddie Blassie's book "Legends of Wrestling:
'Classy' Freddie Blassie" is out now. I've read about a third
of the book so far and up to this point it's a very good read.
If you are interested in learning more about the biggest star
in SoCal's history, or more about pro-wrestling from the 30's
to the 80's then I highly recommend picking the book up. I should
have a review of the book in an upcoming Steve's View.
--
Revolution Pro is returning to the
Norwalk Indoor Swap Meet on May 25th at 2:00 PM, which is the
site of what is probably the greatest time period in Revolution
Pro's history. For more info on the show check out the main page
of the site.
-Steve
