Steve's View #85
By Steve
EPIC has announced that Ultimo Dragon
will be wrestling on their November 17th, at a venue to be announced.,
which is probably the biggest talent announcement in SoCal since
the WWE stopped sending talent to UPW in early 2001.
Ultimo Dragon, born Yoshihiro Asai,
started in wrestling training with New Japan, but due to his size
he was not offered a contract. Asai not wanting to give up his
dream to be a proffesional wrestler moved to Mexico, and got into
lucha libre. He wrestled under his real name from 1987 until 1991,
and the Asai moonsault is named after him (though he didn't invent
it).
Asai was given the Ultimo Dragon
gimmick by EMLL in 1991. By 1992 Ultimo Dragon had become an international
star. At one point Ultimo Dragon held ten different titles at
once. In 1996 Dragon started competing for WCW on a regular basis,
where he bacame very popular among American fans also.
However WCW unbeknownst to him at
the time, was the worst thing to ever happen to his career. In
July 1998 Dragon had some shoulder problems and he went to get
a physical from a WCW doctor. The doctor told him he needed immediate
surgery and that he wouldn't get cleared to wrestle with out it.
Ultimo didn't get an opportunity for a second opinion, he just
went in for the surgery and they accidently severed one of his
major nerves that controls the movement in his forearm and other
parts of his arm and he also suffered an elbow infection after
the operation. He was then unable to use his arm, and shortly
after Vince Russo joined WCW, they released him from his contract.
Since that time Ultimo started what
is now one of the hottest promotions in Japan, Toryumon, and it's
offshoot T2P. Ultimo Dragon announced his official retirement
from wrestling on October 20th, 1999.
Like most wrestling retirements,
this one did not last forever. Ultimo Dragon made his in ring
return, losing an exhibition match, on September 8th, 2002 against
Masaaki Mochizuki. That night he announced his full return to
wrestling.
Which brings us to November 17th's
EPIC show, which at this point will be his first US match since
July 1998.
This is most likely the biggest
thing to happen in EPIC's short history, provided this remains
his US return, due to the publicity EPIC, and it's wrestlers,
should get out of it. The amount of Japanese media that will be
there should guarentee some exposure in Japan for at least a few
wrestlers on the show (especially whoever wrestles Ultimo, provided
it's even a SoCal wrestler), and the publicity stateside should
guarentee a strong attendence and strong tape sales, provided
EPIC can release the tapes in a timely manner, as they have yet
to take advantage of releasing tapes while their still is hype
for the shows.
And good news is something EPIC
can surely use with all of the bad news that came out of the last
show. While EPIC has been pretty much praised across the board
for content, finacially they have not been doing so well.
With the lineups they have been
putting out every show, it would be safe to expect that the shows
would lose money, but the amount of money that is being lost is
actually astounding. While the previous EPIC shows lost in the
thousands of dollars, the September EPIC show reportedly lost
in the neighborhood of twenty thousand plus, mainly due to the
cost of video production and addmission was free.
While EPIC should be applauded for
the quality of the shows that the bring to SoCal, since other
than the WWE and WCW there hasn't been a promotion that has run
shows with EPIC's match quality in Southern California on a regular
basis since the 1980s, from a business standpoint they really
need some serious changes. It would be very hard to make a profit
off the shows themselves at this time, so EPIC needs to start
using them as a loss leader for videos, or even international
television much like the XWF did once it realised it couldn't
get a television deal in the United States.
I actually think EPIC's television
desire might be one of it's downfalls right now. Television is
an extra expense most indy promotions don't need, and it does
cost lots of money. Take the last EPIC show for example. If EPIC
gets a TV deal where they don't pay for TV time out of that show,
then the money spent was well worth it. If they don't get any
sort of deal, then all they have is a lot of nice footage.
It is currently a bad time for wrestling
and TV. Historically TV stations have always turned to wrestling
to help ratings, but with huge media companies and only one national
wrestling promotion it is a different world today. Not to mention
that the WWE's ratings have been on a decline, and even when WCW
just died and the ratings were still way up there, no one would
touch wrestling with a ten foot poll.
The trouble is the money stations
can charge for advertisers during wrestling. Advertisers aren't
willing to pay the same rates to a wrestling show with a 4.0 rating
that they are to a different show. The two main reasons for that
advertisers feel the wrestling product is not something they want
to be associated with due to it's risky nature, and that wrestling
fans are not the higher class of people that can afford to buy
the products they are trying to promote. Smackdown doing a 4.0
rating can be canceled and replaced by a show with a 3.0 rating
and make more money for UPN (UPN has nothing that can do those
types of numbers, and have plenty of other time slots they can
put such a show in right now that keeps Smackdown out of danger
of cancellation). EPIC more than likely doesn't have a chance
of getting a deal where they are paid for the TV shows, or at
least get free TV time. Though, with Epic's television connections
they may have an advantage where other promotions did not.
So what can EPIC do to make money
off TV? For starters the route they should not try is to syndicate
across the country. It killed WOW, it killed WXO, it helped kill
ECW, and if XPW continues with their current plans it will kill
them. Syndication hasn't worked in a long time and even the WWE
has really cut back on it.
If EPIC has to go the buying TV
time route, it should buy TV time on a somewhat national outlet
like the Urban America Network and use the TV show solely to push
tape and merchandise sales, and definitely get some sort of advertisements.
They may or may not be able to recover their money, but it's better
than just a local TV show that they are paying for the time and
is being viewed by the same people who can just go to the shows
and pick up merchandise and tapes anyway.
The other option, and this is an
option that with the right deal may make EPIC some real money,
and that's getting a TV deal internationally. XWF shopped their
show around to every major and a lot of minor stations in the
United States and had no takers, and their show even had Hulk
Hogan wrestling on it. They finally did get their show aired in
Puerto Rico. The WWE and the German station that was airing them
recently had a falling out. Now there is no WWE on at all in Germany.
With a deal of some sort there EPIC could be the only game in
town. There are also a lot of smaller countries who are dying
for American programming of any type that might be interested
in EPIC television. It's just a matter of finding the deals.
Hopefully EPIC will be able to use
Ultimo Dragon and the publicity to catapult into a business that
is closer to turning a profit so we can continue to see the type
of shows it has been giving of us over the last five months.
--
Chris Daniels will not be at November
6th's UPW show as he will be wrestling for Michinoku Pro in Japan.
UPW hopes to announce a sutiable replacement in the next couple
of days.
--
WWE is going to be scouting in SoCal
in November. WWE will be sending represenitives to the UPW show
on the 6th at the Galaxy and a UPW practice on the 7th and then
will be at an EWF practice on the 8th and the EWF show on the
9th.
--
GSCW will be running again December
14th.
--
A new batch of "Support Indy
Wrestling" stickers will be on sale towards the end of the
month.
-Steve
