This was posted on the Wrestling Classics board by someone who attended the show in Little Rock. I found it interesting cause you get the perspective of someone who doesn't watch Memphis Wrestling and how the average fan views these shows where big names are promised and not all are delivered. I'm posting it here along with a link to the actual post to show it's legit and so people can read the response it's getting there.
GENE JACKSON
http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=081180
Hey, guys. I've been lurking here for a couple of months. I love reading this board, but I haven't posted yet. Thought you guys might want to hear about the fabulous wrestling card I attended last night. I sent this review to Meltzer, but it's long and rambling so I doubt he'll use it.
Little Rock, Arkansas. At times, it has been a good wrestling town. WWF, WCW, and WWE taped for television here in front of solid crowds. A card is adverstised for a Thursday night at Barton Coliseum, the OLD wrestling building in Little Rock, located at the state fairgrounds. Every national star of the 80's and 90's appeared there.
A promotion calling itself Phenomenon Wrestling Legends presented a card featuring "Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Jimmy "The Mouth of the South" Hart, Kamala, Koko B. Ware, Sid Vicious, Abdullah the Butcher, and more!" The radio ad promised "eight matches" including a "falls count anywhere" match. Ad campaigns are run on two major (competing) radio stations. Jimmy Hart and others do appearances on radio talk shows. An on-air angle results in one radio station's most popular personalities becoming involved in a match. The other station has an on-air personality, former Arkansas Razorback shooting guard Pat Bradley, involved as the guest referee of the "falls count anywhere" match. I am told ads were run on local cable during WWE Smackdown! and TNA Impact promoting this card as well.
So big radio campaign, television advertising, and big names promised. A lot of money was spent to draw a crowd to this card. General admission tickets were $18.50 (advertised as $17.50) and they went up to $32.50 (or did they?) Card was scheduled to begin at 7:30.
At 7:30, there were 500 people in the building. It is likely that at least 100 of them were there for free.
8:00 and the crowd has not grown. The lights go down and it's time for the show to begin.
At this point, I was already bummed. This was my first live wrestling show since 1993. I was not much of a fan of any of the billed wrestlers except Abdullah and Koko Ware and that was for their work fifteen years ago. But, I attended hoping to find a large, enthusiastic crowd looking for a WWE alternative. And if that happened, I hoped that the card itself would deliver and send that crowd home happy. Sadly, despite all of the efforts of the promoters, nobody showed up for their card.
I knew before there was ever a match that this show was in the red, bad. Barton Coliseum probably cost them two or three thousand dollars. An equal amount was probably spent on the ad campaign. Conservatively, $5,000 was spent before the bell ever rang. And then you remember that Nash, Hall, Jimmy Hart, Sid, Koko, Abby, and Kamala are supposed to be backstage. Did they pay to fly them in? and put them up for the night? And what did they promise Kevin Nash to get him here? A grand? Two grand? And the rest? Abby didn't come all the way out here to make $200, right? You've got to figure, at least $5,000 was spent and at least another $5,000 was promised before the bell rang. It might be double that. And they only sold 300-400 tickets.
Oh well. We're here. Let's have a good time. The lights are going down.
Oh no! A local radio guy opens the show and introduces the announcer for the evening. Cory Maclin. So this is a Memphis show. Hmmm. Maybe their plan had been to use the big names to fill seats and then get the Memphis guys over so they could return to Little Rock regularly. Is that still the plan with nobody here? Probably not.
First match. Two small white guys. Mel Tucker, I think vs. Tommy Redneck. Tucker wins in a decent, but very short match. Crowd did not know these guys, or Maclin. That's okay, it's a prelim. Things will get better.
Second match. Two small white guys. The Rocker (at least that's what it sounded like) vs. Flex (?) The Rocker wins a decent, but very short match. Crowd played along pretty well considering they came in their NWO shirts and still haven't seen a guy they've ever seen before.
Third match. Jimmy Hart comes out and talks to the crowd. Gets a good reaction. Brings out the local radio guys. One is ref, one is seconding the babyface, who I can't recall at all. The heels come out, it's a fat masked guy with another guy I think was from the radio as his manager. Whatever they did on the air to promote this match is not explained to the crowd. Match starts. A second fat masked guy comes out. The ref takes him and walks him all the way to the back and never returns. Some sort of weird, botched double interference thing goes down in the ring, the other radio guy reveals that he is also wearing a referee shirt and counts the pin. Awful.
Jimmy Hart then takes the mike and announces the first intermission and he will be at a table in the floor section signing autographs and meeting people. This takes forever as at least 50 people mob the table. I walk around. I see several more young Memphis guys that have not hit the ring yet. Are any of the billed stars here? Okay, saw Abby peaking through the curtain. Saw Nash walking around.
Okay, that's over. Fourth match. The two fat masked men come back out. A black dude comes out to face them. Apparently he is one half of the tag team champions and this was supposed to be a championship match, but his partner didn't show. Nobody in the crowd would have known any of this if Maclin had not told them. They do a singles match. The fat guys switch out when the ref isn't looking. Later, the one outside interferes in front of the ref. Quick bell, DQ. Yeah, don't want to kill the heat on your fat masked tag team or have one half of your unknown tag team champions do the job.
Fifth match. Black guy dressed in pink comes out. Announced as Precious. Music starts for his opposition...and plays...and plays. Wait a minute. I heard the word Kamala. That must be Kamala singing. And singing...and singing. I get up and go to the back. I figure right about now, Kamala knows he ain't gettin' paid. Precious is still standing in the ring jawing at the crowd. Maclin is wandering around in back, seeming only slightly concerned that there is no match in the ring. I believe Jimmy Hart is somewhere trying to convince Kamala to come out. Maclin eventually tells them to go to intermission. Crowd repeatedly shows its displeasure at the further stoppage. The thing is, the crowd didn't even know Kamala was supposed to be next. They could have sent anybody out there. Eventually, that's what they do. I didn't see who. By that time, I was having too much fun in the back, making fun of this pathetic endeavor.
Sixth match. Two black dudes. A small guy with bleach blond hair and a really small guy covered in tattoos. I think this was a title match. If you know Memphis wrestling, you know who these guys are. Little Rock crowd? Nope. Don't know who won, but the crowd actually popped once during this one.
The average height of the Memphis guys was five feet, six inches. At 5'8" I was taller than most of them. Security made no effort to keep people out of the back. The only barrier to the actual dressing rooms was a half-pulled curtain.
Saw Kamala, sans make-up, pulling a suitcase and getting the hell out of there.
Seventh match. White guy goes out. He's short, but pretty built with a shaved head. His opponent, Abby! I leave the back and go to ringside and plop down in the third row to watch this match. Apparently this is the falls count anywhere match featuring guest referee Pat Bradley. Abby blades the guy almost immediately and works him over with a spoon. He takes him to the guard rail, still working the spoon. Guy almost has full on crimson mask. They go over the guard rail and into the crowd. Guy takes a hard bump on the floor, Abby covers, 1-2-3. The whole thing might have taken four minutes. I head back to the back. I beat Abby there and try to get a picture with him. He stays in character and walks on into the locker room. Juicing guy comes back, stops so everybody can take pictures of his bloody face.
Brian Christopher comes out of the dressing room. He walks by me, then walks back by me again. I call out to him and he stops so I can take a picture, then walks by again. "Where do we go out?" he yells. Apparently, the pacing was him trying to figure out how to get to the ring. Everybody points to the giant opening and he heads for the ring. Koko Ware comes out right after, I shake his hand as he follows Brian. Then out comes Nash and Hall. I snap an out of focus picture of Nash, then shake Hall's hand. I head back to the third row.
Eighth match. Brian C. works the mike first, trying to get heat. A five person "Jerry's Kid" chant starts. Brian stops talking, finds the perpetrators and says "That's so old!" Crowd laughs. Koko talks next. Crowd wants to like him even though he's playing a heel. Nash next. Crowd cheers. Then he gives the mike to Hall. Hall plays it up for a minute. He holds up the mike to start talking several times before finally giving the crowd the "Hey, yo." Biggest pop of the night. Match starts. Sloppy, but crowd loves it. Chant of "Razor, Razor" for Hall, then "Diesel, Diesel" for Nash. Kind of weird. After a few minutes, Nash powerbombs (well, lifts and drops) Brian C. then tags Hall who casually enters the ring, covers Brian and gets the pin. Six minutes, max.
Afterwards, Hall and Nash circle the ring and shake hands and talk to everybody that comes up to the rails. They are very gracious. I head to the back to try again to get that Abby picture. I am told he had already skipped out. When Hall and Nash get to the back, they hug and shake hands and pose for pictures with everybody interested before going back to the dressing room. I have to give them a lot of credit for being professionals and giving to the crowd even though the show was a huge failure. They could have done what Kamala did. (I'm not saying Kamala was wrong to not work if he wasn't getting what he had been promised, ,but if every advertised name had done that, this horrible show would have been even worse) I don't know if Sid was there. I doubt it. I was told Jake Roberts was supposed to be there and did not show.
All in all, the card was a failure. The effort put in to draw a crowd and the horrible turnout is a terrible sign for wrestling in Little Rock. The show itself was not very good and it did not deliver what was advertised.
But, I had a great time. I've enjoyed myself much less at far better shows.
One thing I will say is that a number of the unknowns on the card showed promise.
