YOUNG TALENT
----This story started earlier last week when I had received an e-mail from "Allen Walker" of NBW. In reality the e-mail was not even from him, but it brought up points about NBW. The main point was that Sir Mo as the booker was pushing all the untalented and young talent. That has been a long discussion I have had with various bookers in this area. At what point do you use "bad" wrestlers and at what point do you let the rookies work?? Rule of thumb with rookies has always been 1 year. Two cases that are close to me are two guys that I helped get in the business – Mark Fleming [Mark Justice] and Chuck Gaskins [Rod Dent III].
----I know what some of you are thinking. LOL OMG!! BT helped train people!! LOL I have not always been one to be able to do the moves, but I could tell you how and help with the psychology end of the training. Fleming worked out for 1 year before I would book him on a show. Gaskins about 7 months. The difference was very noticeable. Nothing against Gaskins, but Fleming was tons better with moves and psychology. Chuck was primarily trained to be a manager, but had decided later on he wanted to work. Fleming, at one time, was one of the top guys in this area. For shoot – ask some of the guys that are working TLCW right now that worked Mark during his first two years – they will tell you how good he was. On the other hand, Chuck had a great gimmick [I gave him the name – he created the gimmick] and look. As a manager, you wanted to kick his ass and he fit right into the “InHumane Society” gimmick with his partners Krusher/Tony Diamond. Now was Chuck ever a great worker?? Nah!! He knows that and I am not saying anything here to hurt his feelings. Both guys had their best runs with CCW. [Mark also had a pretty good one with the now defunct Mid South Wrestling] I am not saying this to make you think I was the best booker in the world [because believe me – I was not], but I was able to utilize their talents to their best ability.
----Mark was all around good worker. He could take almost any move and give almost any move. He could talk on the mic and I always had fun working with him. Dent with the “InHumane Society” gimmick proved that people that had a good gimmick could get over without tons of talent. Tony Diamond was a good bumper and Krusher was big, but real slow. They were over for my promotion and Malden, MO’s ICW. I had two totally different guys here – the great worker and the one with a great gimmick. Which one do I use?? I use them both.
NBW – MO’s BOOKING
----Now back to NBW and Sir Mo’s booking. I got a call from Mo last week after I had sent him a copy of the letter that “Walker” had sent. His first question was - what do I do with the young talent?? Not let them work?? And, as I told him, I had a conversation with another booker in this area that said, yes, you got to use them, but in reality the issue is thinning out the real bad ones and keeping a good crew. Or is it taking what you got and trying to book a show??
----A good wrestler is one that can work anyone. No matter how good or how bad his opponent is, he is out there to make him and will make him look like a million bucks. A good booker is one that also can take anyone and with the correct execution can get them over. The perfect example of a great “old school” booker with this ability was Bill Watts of Mid-South Wrestling. He could take guys with very little talent and get them over. They would sell tickets and pack the houses. I was one of the biggest JYD marks ever, but go back and watch some of his matches. He sucked, but damn he was over. Don’t get me wrong – Watts had some great workers – Eaton, Coundry, Cornette, Dundee, Ricky Morton, Robert Gibson, Brickhouse and Landell, but he also knew how to use the guys that didn’t have talent.
ROH = TLCW
----I give TLCW lots of great press and praise. It is well deserved. But, they have almost fallen into the ROH role in this area. Everyone raves about ROH and how they have the best matches in the United States and such. You know why?? They have the best indy workers in the US. TLCW has the best workers in this area. So, how could you not have a good show?? It goes back to the statement that I have said – get rid of the lower class workers and your show will draw more. Proof in point – TLCW. Now I know almost every booker in this area is going to argue this with me [some of you that are honest with yourself will know I am right], but TLCW has the best working crew from top to bottom than any other promotion in this area. The booking is solid also, which has kept them drawing almost 200 every show. Even though, CWA, ASWF or All Pro might draw as many people as these shows or more, the TLCW hardly has bad matches.
RING PSYCHOLOGY
----What is a bad match?? I am a stickler for wrestling psychology. It is something that I believe can be taught and some people think it can only be learned. I think the basics can be taught, but the overall execution is up to the wrestler himself. I, for years, was the kind of guy that just “played it by ear” and actually told my tag teams when to come in and out of heat. I had a start and a finish. My team “Sex & Candy” [Paul “Brutally Sexy” Justice/Christian “Girl Candy” Jacobs] had a fun feud with “Naughty By Nature” [Rude/Tully]. During that series of matches, something just clicked. NBN had a formula of psychology and they could have good matches with anyone. They taught all three of us a lot. This is the simple as it gets – baby face shine, heel heat and hot tag. I started studying matches from all over the world looking at how they did “hope spots” and how the finish would come after a hot tag. [Remember I was mainly a tag team guy] I even watched a video of a Ricky Steamboat seminar that taught me more in that 1 hour than I had been taught the whole time I was in the business. Steamboat spoke of hope spots and “babyface fire”. All these things I still use on this site when describing matches and any GOOD worker in this area will not exactly what I am talking about if I decided to call a match.
----My main point on good match or bad match is this – you must know psychology!!! If you can do all the flips, high dives, double flying pancake pole jumping whatever – it don’t mean shit if you can not tell a story with it. Call me an old timer or whatever, but take a look at either WWE or TNA – not one guy on that entire roster does not know psychology. In reality, you may be able to execute moves better than some of their roster and they are guys on all rosters in this area that can do that, but you got to know the basics. Psychology makes the difference in the crowd sitting on their hands most of the match or being into it all way to the end.
NBW – ANOTHER LOOK
----Now with all that said, let’s take a look at NBW for a moment. From pure drawing standpoint they are in the 80-100 range every week. Their storylines are good and make sense. Something most people do not understand about his promotion is that Mo does not see it taking off and drawing the 200+ range right now. This is a long process that if people can wait, then Mo may be able to take some of this talent and build them into great workers. He is not going to do it overnight and he is not going to do it in 6 months. If he has the backing within a year, people will start seeing the improvement of the show crew. The crowd [in my theory of better workers bring better crowds] will pick up and more of the top tier workers will want to come in and work for NBW. The core crew of TLCW has probably an average of 5 years experience. Aside from Tank, Kilo, Alan Steele and Mo – his crew is very young and some of them [Gunner Thompson/Tim Edwards] have been working forever and still don’t get it. Edwards is better in his execution than Thompson, but both are not at the level of the top four.
TROUBLE BREWING
----So where does the trouble really start brewing?? The NBW show, although not drawing big crowds, but are bringing in a little money every week has made either some jealous or made some a bit greedy. Dale Walker, who owns the building, or either is the tenant of building has decided he wanted to control the show. I have spoken with the real Allen Walker and even though he was unhappy with the direction of NBW, I don’t believe he was too keen on the idea of taking the show away from Mo. Allen in a headline story, that I was unable to even post because of my computer, jumped ship to TIWF this past weekend. In this realm of small time wrestling, it is big news. Alan’s duties will include helping write TV and booking talent. TIWF is a much like NBW with good storylines and some good talent, but some other guys that don’t need to be in the ring. TIWF has TV though and it is a good opportunity for him. Will he take talent from NBW and use them at TIWF?? AC Havoc has already jumped and I look for a few more. There was talk that Thompson/Edwards may be interested in jumping due to some stuff that happened this past Saturday night, but Walker will not be improving his roster with them.
----Shit started stirring the week that Tank got injured as Tim Edward's wife allegedly told everyone that "if he would learn how to work, then he wouldn't have gotten hurt". Tank responded on the mic with a thank you to the fans for their support during the accident and it turned him babyface. He pretty much said he didn't have to be kin to anyone to get over and he could work circles around Edwards. More shit started this weekend when some kids sprayed Gunner Thompson with silly string. It got in his eye and he got all pissed. The kids apologized, but it did not help matters that Gunner's wife or gf told the kids "You little mother fuckers need to fucking quit spraying that shit at people. You could have fuckin blinded him. You little bastards.". Then her mother in law and Edwards wife told her that .."them little fuckers ain’t worth it girl...come on". The crowd went dead - no one could say a word after that.
----You can say what you want about Mo and NBW, but along with people trying to take over the show, having push people that are family and then incidents like above -- he needs a pat on the back for his effort.
ACW LOSING TALENT??
----Another incident this past weekend, which is not at all related to NBW, but gives you idea of how when people start drawing well it might slightly go to their heads. Hey, it happens to the best of us – I have been known to do foolish things like this also. Big Cal, who was doing announcing for Arkansas Championship Wrestling, informed Buster Johnson, booker and I guess one of the owners of ACW, that when Memphis Riverboat wrestling [PCWA] started back in April, the PCWA shows would be his priority, but he would come and help ACW on his nights off. Big Cal is co-owner of PCWA, so what do you expect him to do?? Buster told him to just not come to any of the shows, if he could not announce them all. That is also the reason that a few of the guys either walked out [Big Indian] or did not work the show the other night in Paragould. It will be interesting to see how this all folds out as PCWA had used some of the same crew.
----Hope you enjoyed my long rant about various things; it was subjects that I wanted to talk about.
