Earlier this week I talked about my idea for a DVD set that would include the last MMWA show from Kalkaska, other matches, and a shoot interview that goes into depth about my time with the company from joining the creative team, becoming head booker, and plans for the time beyond Kalkaska. In that post I mentioned some of the things I thought could have saved the MMWA.
One of the things mentioned was a territory style touring schedule to help keep the houses up for the promotion. As I stated, Northern MI towns probably aren't big enough to support a monthly wrestling promotion. They are big enough to support an annual event. The fact that the MMWA would come to a city only once a year would add a bigger feel to the promotion. Add that with the television show, and we might have looked/seemed like a bigger deal than we actually were.
I have been digging through my old stuff lately. I keep a tackle box full of old notebooks, pictures, and misc crap. This is kind of what sparked this whole trip down memory lane. In those notes I found what I was going to pitch for a tour schedule to begin in late September of 2004. For those that wanted to see a glimpse into my vision for the MMWA future here is that schedule. (Note: Just in case you're confused, these are all cities in Michigan)
MMWA Tour
Late September: Big Rapids
October: Cadillac
November: Mt. Pleasant
December: Kalkaska
January: :Ludington
February: Gaylord
March: Manistee
April: Alpena
Early May: Traverse City
Late May: Petoskey*
June: Sault Ste Marie*
July: Cheboygan*
August: Escanaba (UP State Fair)*
Early September: Marquette* *"MMWA Sunshine Slam Tour"
There is what I was hoping to do from Late September 2004 to Early September 2005.
I front loaded the schedule with three big cities for the MMWA. Big Rapids and Mt. Pleasant would have been great towns because of the college atmosphere, but also because we got huge responses from people in that area when it came to our TV. Mt. Pleasant probably would have been a huge draw for us because we had a great base for a street team there. Cadillac in October was must to celebrate our anniversary shows.
I put some of the small towns in the middle because colder months are easier to bring people into a events. You're not competing with outdoor activities and most high school sports are during the week. Manistee really showed how strong those cities could be with a little effort on our part to get the word out.
I decided to close the schedule with Alpena and Traverse City because those are two big anchor towns for Northern MI. I believe each would benefit from a year of TV building towards the events. Alpena was a market I thought could have been a corner stone for the MMWA.
The Sunshine Slam tour was just a marketing tool to make our trip into the UP and the far north of the LP sound special. Really I picked those times because it would have been easier for talent to travel and those areas have festivals & fairs around that time to help bring people into the area. We could tape some TV and use these towns to help build new stars going into year two of the tour schedule.
I've had more talks with the MMWA folks who own the footage. Things seem to be moving forward nicely. I'll let everyone know more as I know more. This project is looking up as we speak.
(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.
If you missed WrestleMania, and I'm jealous of you for not wasting an entire Sunday evening, then you missed one good match. It was the match that closed RAW. Probably should have been the match to close Mania. It was the respect vs. the streak. It's CM Punk vs. The Undertaker.
Here is the match in full. I hope these two meet again at WrestleMania. It looks like next year will be Cena vs. Taker at WM30. My fingers are crossed they don't break the streak with Cena. That would be a wasted investment. Beating the Undertaker at Mania is something a talent could live off for decades. The kind of thing a guy in his 50's still talks about at local indy shows 25 years later.
If Punk doesn't snap the streak then a Dean Ambrose, Daniel Bryan, Antonio Cesaro, or Dolph Ziggler would be the logical choice. Then again maybe it is one of those things that should never be broken. That is the true debate.
And that debate is for another time.
Enjoy the match, and realize this was the only thing worth paying for on Sunday night.
WrestleMania was horrible. I watched the Cena and Rock match again yesterday, as I fell asleep during it the night before. The finish was fun, but the first 75% wasn't. I had to watch RAW last night because you can't skip the night after Mania. Especially now that it has become the night where the hardcore fans pack one arena and take over the show.
Remember last year? (Daniel Bryan's bank account does) YES! YES! YES!
It would seem that the night after WrestleMania has actually become the don't miss event. The actual BIG show has all the stars but none of the energy. The show last night was a blast and I'd watch that crowd again.
They had energy. They had anger. They had fun.
How special was it for Dolph Ziggler to capture the title last night in front of those crazy fans who truly appreciate all he has done despite the best efforts by the WWE creative team to bury him? He might be #Heel, but even he wants to feel the warmth of the most vocals fans.
Also, maybe Fandango should give a big thanks because that crowd made him a star last night. The humming of his theme song during his match, after his match, matches later on, as the show ended, in the parking lot leaving the building, and even by car horns as the crowd left the parking lot. Amazing.
Maybe the WWE should stop paying The Rock and Brock millions and just pay this crowd to be at every event each week. I bet rating would be better. I know the shows would be more entertaining.
Some worker friends of mine shit on the crowd. They couldn't believe these "marks" could be so disrespectful.
My response: Look in the mirror. The fans wouldn't chant during your match if you gave them a reason not to. Randy and Sheamus have been crammed down people's throats for years, well guess what not everyone is a 12 yr old boy or their Mom (Sheamus & RKO's demographic).
It's the 10PM hour and there isn't a sign of CM Punk, Brock, HHH, or Rock. Hell the Shield was only on screen for 5 minutes. Also where is Antonio Cesaro? That is why you chant, because if the WWE doesn't care about the WWE fans, then the fans don't need to care about the WWE.
I'm probably done for a bit with watching wrestling. I want my last memory to be that crowd. Like being able to die during sex. You want to go out with a bang. (Get It)
I'll keep checking the dirt sheets, but it looks like it is time to cool my heels for a bit. That is until the Monday after WrestleMania next year. That is must watch TV.
I regret not watching Game of Thrones and reading a good book.
Pro wrestling in the WWE is dead. That is now a full blown television drama. Not even one of the best 20 on TV.
If the WWE was looked at the same way as most scripted television is they would be destroyed. Their characters are horribly developed. Their stories make little sense. I'd cancel the show and order a new one about zombies.
Worst event in the companies history. Even read my older posts. Damn near called this one three weeks ago. That is sad.
Fuck you WWE, fuck you for ruining what was once something entertaining. Heartless bastards.
The WrestleMania times have been leaked. God how do I hate the WWE. You can't even keep the basics under wraps. If you want to see it. Look below.
* Chris Jericho vs. Fandango has been given 10 minutes
* Kane and Daniel Bryan vs. Dolph Ziggler and Big E Langston has been given 12 to 15 minutes
* Ryback vs. Mark Henry has been given 12 minutes
* The Shield vs. Randy Orton, Big Show and Sheamus has been given 15 minutes
* CM Punk vs. The Undertaker has been given 20 minutes
* Jack Swagger vs. Alberto Del Rio has been given 15 minutes
* Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar has been given 20 to 30 minutes
* The Rock vs. John Cena has been given 25 to 30 minutes
* A Diddy musical performance has been given 8 minutes
* The WWE Hall of Famers coming out to wave to fans has been given 7 minutes
* The show opener and National Anthem has been given 7 minutes
* Other assorted segments throughout the show have been given 10 minutes
The longest three matches all involve part time talent. One match is all part time talent (and the second longest match on the card). Why build talent when we can just remind people of guys that used to be here, but now are just using Mania for a good pay day.
Also P-Diddy is getting about the same time as Chris Jericho. That makes sense. Mother fucker.
Anyone catch The Ultimate Fighter this week? Uriah Hall has a better build as character than most new WWE characters (Shield excluded, but that might be more the talents doing than the writers).
Still not sold on buying this show. Might be my first missed Mania in a decade.
Normally I don't post when life just gets hectic. I am now working from home and taking care of a 3 month old. That would be enough of an excuse as to why nothing new has appeared here. If that was the truth.
The truth is I haven't watched wrestling in three weeks. I know, we're almost upon WrestleMania! The thing is, I don't really miss wrestling. The WWE hasn't put out a solid product in years. Every once and awhile they do something right but lately that ratio has been way out of wack.
If the WWE doesn't give a shit about me, and would rather cater to a demographic somewhere between MTV's Buckwild and that stupid humor of that fat British chick from the Chelsea Lately show (who isn't funny, but I believe mentally handicapped), then I say I don't give a shit about them.
I don't know if I'll order WrestleMania. I just don't see the sense in plopping down 60 dollars to see out comes I already know and a WWE champion that misses three straight weeks to promote his movie. Here is what 11 PM this Sunday will look like: Undertaker streak continues, John Cena is the WWE champion, and the semi-retired CEO will beat the legit former UFC champion.
There might be a surprise or two thrown in, but the big stuff. The stuff that shapes the WWE going forward. That stuff will be the same old same old. The WWE learned a long time ago, it easier to change nothing and accept the fans who won't leave than to try hard and chase the fans that have left.
I think I might be part of the latter now. When the clock strikes 6 on Sunday, I'll make up my mind. If that was today, I wouldn't be watching WrestleMania. I'll spend my money on Sonnen vs. Jones. It has a better storyline.
