The Greatest Promotion That Never Happened

(Jimmy Jacobs, MMWA Play by Play man Dod March, and Jimmy Shawlin)

It has been a long time since I pulled out the digital quill and ink. I guess there are two reasons for this.

One, pro wrestling has sucked lately. Oh how bad has it sucked. I don't even watch regularly. When I do tune in I find myself tuning out minutes later. It just sucks. No need to mince words. Sucks pretty much covers it all.

That goes for both WWE and TNA. I don't get RoH in my television area, and don't have the attention span to watch on the internet without surfing over to other sites minutes later. This means the world of televised wrestling as a whole is just a big ball of suck.

The other reason I haven't written is in June my mom lost her battle with cancer. I guess it is hard to be creative when your heart isn't into it. I have put a lot on hold the past few months as I took time to grieve. I think now it is time to be gettin' on with life. I would say my creative fire finally got it's pilot light ignited again.

I don't know if this happens for everyone, but during this time I took a look back at life. The good, the bad, and the shitty. One of the times I looked back on was my days in pro wrestling. Talk about a time full of accomplishments and regrets. My time with the MMWA was full of both.

I've been thinking about this time a lot, and I think I want to do a detailed shoot interview going over this time. Indy wrestling fans seem to enjoy seeing the behind the scenes stuff even if it isn't WWE. It'll be good for my soul to tell these tales.

I am currently working with the people who own the footage for the MMWA because I don't want to just release a shoot interview of me on a couch talking wrestling for two hours. I want to put together a package that includes the final MMWA show that features Raven, AJ Styles, Jimmy Jacobs, Petey Williams, Joe Legend, and many more. I also want to put together a best of DVD to go with it that shows all the great talent and matches the promotion had like Chris Hero, Chris Sabin, Monty Brown, Jerry Lynn, etc.

I hope this happens but right now it is too early in the process to give any updates. I literally just facebooked the people involved last week with this simple message, "Hey, I've got an idea". There is of course money involved and the fact that most of the people had checked out of the world of wrestling years ago.

Fingers crossed kids.

May 1st, 2014 will be the ten year anniversary of the last show that the MMWA ran. It originally was going to be a TV taping for MMWA Rampage, but ended up being the swan song show that we sold as a stand alone DVD called Kalkaska Karnage.

I was the head booker at the time of this event. It was my second show where I was leading things for the MMWA creative team. I was 23 and looking to make my mark on the scene with this promotion. Jim Hall had handed the reigns over to me after the January show and I thought I could put out all the fires that had popped up.

The thing is I should have been putting out these fires in August, not when I took over in January.

I'll cover all of this in the DVD set. I want to tell the story from the start. From when I walked in the door. Go from being put on the booking team to heading it up to the plans I had post May 1st. There is a lot of behind the scenes stuff that never made the light of day. A lot of blame to go around for everyone involved, myself included.

To me there were three things that could have changed the outcome of the MMWA. I'll give you a taste of what will be on the DVD with these.

1. Should Have Taken The Money

MMWA Rampage was on Fox 33. That station covered all of Northern MI from Mt. Pleasant to the bridge. A lot of people don't know that we were offered two options when it came to MMWA Rampage. The first option was that we got to sell our own ads. The second was that the television station was going to offer us $150 per episode and they would handle ads. It's a basic syndication deal.

Of course you can make more money if you're selling the ads, but there is a lot more work involved. The owner at the time had sales experience and thought he could make a mint on ad space. Turns out it was like pulling teeth. Instead, if you do the math on how much money we made in ads vs. money that could have been made on a 13 episode syndication run, we ended up losing money.

The thing is we still could have sold advertising on the TV while taking the $150 per episode, just not in the traditional sense. We had a great segment with Mt. Dew called the "Mt. Dew Slam Of The Week". Also there was an interview area that could have been sponsored. These types of ads wouldn't have violated our deal and would have given us the chance to make more cash on our TV deal.

Had this been the way we went I believe MMWA could have survived. It would have freed up the owner from the pressure of chasing advertisers, brought in a steady cash flow, and established a successful model to pitch to other networks to expand the brand. We did our own video in house from taping to editing. It was at a professional level by 2003 standards.

2. Book A Different Building

In January the MMWA ran a building in Cadillac that the WWE runs when it does house shows. I should have stood up against this. Some people wanted to be big fish in small ponds and decided running a local armory or high school gym wasn't good enough. They needed to have the MMWA name up on the same marquee as the WWE. In the end it probably cost the company everything.

I don't know what the rent was for the arena. I wasn't privy to financials at that time. I mean it is the same exact arena the WWE runs. There were cheaper venues by far. If these venues would have been used then not only would it have saved the promotion money, but probably wouldn't have put the MMWA in a deep debt that it couldn't escape.

On that same show we booked Shane Douglas as the headliner. I gave this the thumbs up. Knowing what I know now this was a waste of money. Not to say Shane wasn't great to have, but Northern MI is an old school area. We would have been better served paying half the price of Shane for an old WWF name like Greg Valentine or Big Boss Man (who passed suddenly 9 months later).

The same building problem goes for the final show in Kalkaska. We ran this huge ice arena and used maybe 1/6 of the space. It could hold thousands of people, and we didn't need that many. The thing about this show is we had a local business man helping us out. He was connected to everyone. We had access to a smaller gym that would have been dirt cheap to rent. Had we run this gym, and not this massive arena, it would have made a four figure difference in the final tally. As the head booker that is on me for not drawing a line in the sand on the arena choice. I should have known it would put us behind the 8 ball.

Put both of those building decisions together and maybe the MMWA is here today. Add it in with 600 dollars in syndication money each event would have been worth (4 shows tape per event), and maybe the MMWA is actually making money monthly. Again I don't know for sure.

3. The Territories Aren't Dead

In wrestling most people run one town once a month. In Northern MI this couldn't happen. Most people up north aren't shelling out the money to take their family to wrestling each month. I grew up in that kind of area. When something rolls around once a year then you come out cause it's a unique event. Think about local carnivals coming in the spring/summer, would they make money if they came to the same town every month? Probably not. Wrestling in Northern Michigan is the same way.

When I took over booking, I was pushing for a new territory model to the MMWA. Thanks to the TV coverage on Fox 33 we had a huge area of potential markets. I was putting together a touring schedule that would have taken the MMWA to at least 14 different cities during the calendar year including the large four in the TV area: Cadillac, Traverse City, Mt. Pleasant, and Big Rapids.

We could have popped each town then let it simmer for the year while watching our TV and then come back again a year later to pop them again. Rinse, repeat.

I was even working on booking Rick Steiner for a loop run with us. Most promotions couldn't bring in big names for 4-5 straight shows. The allure of the name usually wears off in a market after the first appearance. Yet with the touring territory model it would have been his first appearance at each show. It also would have allowed for our TV to have the presence of Rick Steiner as an MMWA regular. I wanted him to feud with Conrad Kennedy III (most know him as Krimson now).

I believed this model of touring would have kept attendance numbers up but the challenge would have been getting a building in each city, selling sponsorships, and getting the word out.

If we could have put all three together: TV money, booking proper buildings, and a touring schedule. Then I believe that the MMWA would have stayed in business. This didn't happen because of a lot of people, but it was also because of me. I let these mistakes happen. I'm as much to blame as anyone else.

It is things like this and other stories that I want to tell on the DVD. I want to talk about how we got Raven for Kalkaska on a sweet deal. I'm talking bargain basement cheap.

I'll let you know more as it builds. I hope this project comes together.

Show Your Ass

It’s Monday! That means another edition of WWE Monday Night RAW. That also means living in fear that Boobs McMahon and the rest of creative will unleash another 9 PM hour on us. We could be faced with more large men in lingerie, a slow plodding assault with the kind of energy you find in a retirement home food fight, and a Divas match. The latter might be the worst.

Out of all the crap that was shoved down our throats last week, there was a diamond in the turd. That was Tensai. I remember the old Prince Albert, personal piercer to Test. I also remember Giant Bernard, the monster from Japanese wrestling. They both are the same guy, Tensai. Now there is a forth rendition of Matt Bloom. That happened when he showed his ass on RAW last week.

“Showing Your Ass” is a term I used when working angles or storylines that are just beyond horrible, but you find a way to get yourself over despite the turd burger you’ve been crammed into. The theory being if you just go over the top then you can somehow rise above the mess. Instead of people laughing at you, they laugh with you, because even you know what is going on is a joke. A good example of that is this match I did for a charity show in Dearborn, MI back in 2003. (Yeah I feel old now too.)

The promoters put myself and my friend Klunk into a match with untrained wrestlers, a guest ref (who had cancer and wasn’t involved in wrestling), and told us to work 20 minutes. Instead of trying to pull off a match, we put together about 7 moves and mixed them with 18 minutes of shenanigans. It isn’t the best wrestling in history, but there is a method to the madness.

The cool part is that Klunk, myself, and Badunkadunk had a lot of fun because we never gave a shit. We actually got a decent following of people who enjoyed our shtick. We never fooled ourselves in thinking we were going to be a main draw for any promotion, but we were entertaining. Again watch the match for all the little details, time wasters, and other ways we found to hide the fact that 75% of the talent involved didn’t have much (or any) training.

I used this as an example of Monday night because it isn’t my finest moment. I’m not putting that ahead of any of my Chris Sabin, Conrad Kennedy III, Nate Mattson, or Sabu stuff. Those matches were on another level. I do like to show it as a true example of showing your ass. We got over with the crowd despite being put into a turd of an angle. Just like Tensai did last week.

He showed that he is one helluva worker by taking that segment and using it to boost his character. Before last Monday, Tensai was a big guy with no charisma that did nothing to move the needle in the WWE. Now he has turned this moment into instant personality. His twitter feed this week has been classic. He also had a great match last Wednesday on WWE Main Event. I actually want to see Tensai because the concept of him on a team with Brodus Clay interests me.

The two are both monsters at the opposite ends of the spectrum. Tensai is big and mean but, until last week, had the personality of a manila folder. Brodus Clay, once a feared bodyguard to Alberto Del Rio, is the cuddly 400 pound dancing dinosaur who couldn’t intimidate a four year old child. This is what happens when peanut butter meets chocolate. It’s a good combo. Now maybe one can fill the void of the other. Tensai can get funky, and Clay can get nasty.

None of this would have happened had Tensai not shown his ass. He could have mailed in that segment. He could have gone to twitter, like Zack Ryder, and bitched about WWE misusing him. He instead took the ball and danced with it. Now I wouldn’t be surprised to see him and Clay on RAW tonight in a tag match.

The tag division is shrinking. It looks like Rhodes Scholars are done. The Prime Time Players are next on the list to be broken up. I am guessing Clay and Tensai will be the feud that splits up the two. The tag champs, Team Hell No, are headed towards splitsville too. That leaves a pretty big hole in the division. A monster team like Clay and Tensai would fill that hole pretty easily.

When you really look at it, we’ve all had to dance in lingerie to get further in life. Then again maybe my boss just does yearly reviews a little different.

Tune in tonight to see the fruits of taking a bad angle and running with it. I for one will be cheering the team of Clay and Tensai. Mostly because fat guys gotta stick together.

(Side Note: Happy Birthday to Chris Sabin. One of the best talents in the world. Hope his knee gets better as wrestling isn’t the same without him.)

TNA Impact Wrestling: Rollercoaster Wrasslin’

TNA has been up and down lately; usually in the same episode. Last night was a step in the right direction. The go home show before Destination X put the finishing touches on what should be an entertaining Pay Per View. Also having a current Ring of Honor champion wrestle on the show created a buzz on the internet, and creating a buzz is never a bad thing. It wasn’t all peaches and cream as there were some road bumps, but compared to last week this was a step up.

The best part of the night: there was no Boobs Hogan. The Hulkster’s spawn didn’t make it on TV this week, and that made the episode better. Absence makes the heart grow fonder … of not having her on my TV. Not to say the Knockouts didn’t have their own dumbass moments.

Madison Rayne has been swooning over a mystery man for weeks. This week we found out the payoff for this storyline was elderly referee Earl Hebner. The man who screwed Brett, is now the man who wants to screw Madison. Angles involving refs are moronic, especially ones with this much build. How does this help build characters? Where does it really go from here? Does it help bring in ratings watching grandpa make out with a fake beauty queen? It is wasted television time, and wasted talent. Let your refs call the matches, and let your wrestlers handle the stories. They missed a golden opportunity to elevate two male talents using Madison Rayne as the middle piece of a twisted love triangle.

Here let me book this on the fly for you. Madison falls for guy X, then guy Y thinks it should be him who she goes for. Guy X isn’t as into Madison as Guy Y, but being hard to get makes Madison want Guy X more, which pisses off Guy Y. Guy X and Guy Y fight. Madison, being an egomaniac, loves the attention. Eventually Guy X falls for Madison and defeats Guy Y, leaving the door open for a variety of angles such as Madison not wanting Guy X anymore in favor of Guy Y, Madison screwing both of them over by debuting Guy Z, Madison celebrating that Guy X loves her back, etc. Now we just have Madison & one half of the grumpy old men. This is a prime example of why TNA falls on their face.

Another head scratch moment was when Gail Kim used her lawyers to get her out of a Knockouts Title match this week, and she’s not the champion. So she doesn’t want to wrestle for the title? Who waits a week for their shot at the strap? And why make it next Thursday and not this Sunday at the PPV? The tag match between the Knockouts was good for what it was. They kept Gail and Tessmacher apart during the finish to protect their future match up. I still don’t see why Gail Kim gave up a title shot, especially against somebody like Brooke Tessmacher, who isn’t exactly the most threatening champion in the world.

Speaking of Lawyers, I really dig Joseph Park. Having met Abyss when TNA was running the Nashville fairgrounds on Wednesday nights, it really is cool to see him evolve as an all-around worker. Plus I think Bully Ray is the bee’s knees. His persona, mic work, and physical style make him an asset to the company. Nothing against the two, but I hope this feud ends soon so Bully can make his way into the main event picture against somebody like an Austin Aries. He is that damn good.

The restraining order came off a little low rent. Who goes to jail for life for violating a restraining order? I don’t mind the use of the restraining order to keep “Abyss” out of the match, but put some reality into it. It’s a minor hiccup, and as good as these two are, it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

What does matter in the grand scheme of things is the wrestling. Devon and Crimson had a good match, but it seemed really rushed. It felt like an enhancement match more than a TV title match. Also why does Crimson get a title match when he lost at the last PPV to James Storm? Then again he was undefeated for 18 months so one loss shouldn’t drop you to the bottom of the basement.

Storm vs. Hardy was a really good match that had the crowd going nuts. I can’t deny that both are over like Grover with the fans. I still can’t stand the Bound for Glory series. I have said that it is over booked wrestling, but it does give good matchups every week. Who knows it might actually grow on me, until I am forced to do math, then I will hate it again.

The X-division tournament was two totally different matches. Flip Cassanova & Dumbshit Darsow should never come back to TNA. That was the sloppiest spot fest I have seen since that movie the backyard. Darsow is lucky he only walked away with a broken nose. Flip has a good look but he is dangerous in the ring. He will hurt somebody in a real bad way if he keeps wrestling like that. Just awful stuff.

On the other hand Kenny King delivered on all fronts. In the ring he looked crisp, and light years ahead of the three other x-division workers tonight. Add in the fact that he is one half of the current Ring of Honor tag team champions, and his debut had tons of sizzle. He got to cut a promo after, plus a backstage segment. I’m not a betting man, but I think KK will be in the Ultimate X match finals on Sunday. Hell, I think he is my pick to win it all.

King appearing on the show and the PPV this Sunday won’t help the rumors going around the internet that Ring of Honor is going out of business. Mark Madden, former WCW announcer, has been leading the charge that RoH is on their last leg. The promotion just cancelled a whole run of shows in the Carolinas. Now one of their champions appears on the competitors show only weeks after winning the belt. No matter the truth, this is a dark time for Ring of Honor.

The darkest time is what has happened to AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels … I can’t even talk about this. Pregnancy angles never work in wrestling. Mae Young giving birth to a hand thinks this storyline is stupid. The only excuse for this is if later it comes out the whole storyline was written by a mentally handicapped child as part of a make-a-wish, but that can’t be it because even the mentally handicapped community thinks this angle is retarded.

The exact opposite of Styles & Daniels is the world title match at Destination X. Robert Roode and Austin Aries is going to be so good. They have done a great job of building to this match. Roode abusing Sabin, and kicking a cripple cemented him as king asshole in TNA. It also allowed for Aries to get the upper hand at the end of the show, and not make it feel like AA was dominating the night. The two have been booked to seem neck & neck, which makes Sunday a toss-up. That helps a buy rate, which is the reason TNA is in business.

The shot of Aries and Hogan at the end with both titles raised high is a great closing moment. Hulk Hogan has really embraced this back seat role. It looks like it may not last with the playing cards & sting’s attackers beginning soon. I hope Hogan realizes less is more in the coming weeks. 10 minutes of the Hulkster is good, and 40 minutes of Hulk is bad.

Impact Wrestling was an entertaining show this week with ups and downs like a rollercoaster. In the end I almost a puked a few times, but when it was done I was glad I went along for the ride.

Get Well Soon!

Last Thursday on TNA's flagship show, Impact Wrestling, one of the brightest young stars in the business, Chris Sabin, suffered an ACL injury to his left knee during an Ultimate X match. Chris is an extremely gifted athlete who has always had a great mind for the wrestling business. On top of that he is one of nicest people you will ever meet.

In 2003 I had the honor of being his manager in a handful of the Michigan indies before he broke out big in TNA. In the ring Chris stole the show at every event, and brought people to the shows because he was a must see talent. Together we had a lot of fun & the 13 episodes of MMWA rampage that we did will always be a feather in my cap. It's easy to be a cocky manager when the guy your working with is a true blue chip talent.

The worst part about this injury is that it comes only months after he returned from having his right knee ACL torn. Knowing Chris I can say this won't stop him from pushing himself to be the best he can be. This will only give him more fuel to make a bigger impact on his return. It's just the way he is wired.

We worked together in front of small crowds and sell out crowds; Chris Sabin's effort never changed. He has always given 100% to the fans that show up to see him do what he does best. I know he will give the same effort on getting past this temporary setback. I wish him a speedy recovery because when Chris Sabin isn't in a wrestling ring, the fans are the real losers.

I found this wrestling match from MMWA rampage on Youtube of Chris (w/ me) against a long time rival, N8 Mattson. Even in 2003 you can see he was ready to be a big time star. The match is in three parts and goes in order, enjoy!

In the end a ladder got involved. You will ask, "How does that make sense to use a ladder in a title match where you can be disqualified?". It is simple, the promotion wanted a ladder match as the rubber match between Chris & N8 at the next show. It was Chris Sabin who came up with the idea to use the ladder as a launching pad & not a weapon. It would prevent a DQ and lay the seeds for the ladder match at the next event. He has always had a great mind for the business, including bringing logic to a business that traditionally lacks it.

Get well soon Chris Sabin, Pro Wrestling needs you!