A lot of controversy has surrounded a post on facebook about “Good” wrestling coming back to Elizabethton. The word good is thrown around graciously by wrestling promoters as a marketing strategy to get people to come and support their events. Phrases such as “You’ve seen the rest, now see the best,” and “Pro Wrestling at it’s finest” and so on and so on as a manner of getting the wrestling fan, the consumer to purchase their product, the event.
Lets take a breif look back at some of the organizations that have ran the town of Elizabethton over the last ehh…lets say 8-10 years. You have Liberty Championship Wrestling that started running shows at Central Elementary School that promoted shows consistently for about 2 years. They enjoyed moderate success in Elizabethton and a few events in Johnson City. The events at Central will always hold some special place in my heart as this is where I broke in as a ring announcer/color commentator.
You had CW, which eventually mophed in to NWA Smoky Mountain take a stab at Elizabethton several times, 2 of which events I personally booked. Again, these shows garnered moderate success…with the Happy Valley event BOMBING…and Yes, I’ll own that mistake.
Of course, my absolute favorite that is probably the least favorite of any of the others CWA: Rocky Top Wrestling. Obviously this is my favorite due to the fact that this was my own personal banner. RTW did something different that all the other promoters that ran this town did not do, we did something different. Our tickets were cheap, and we ran 2 free shows a year in our 2 year existence at Woody’s BBQ and later called Daddy Mac’s BBQ at a bar type atmosphere. We found a new building for wrestling that we could call our own and renamed in the Rocky Top Arena. We took 3 unknown guys in the wrestling world, and exposed them on a greater scale being Skylar Kruz, Richard Weelington, and Gavin Darring and they are still getting bookings with Skylar Kruz being the biggest stand out star this year, and I truely beileve he will turn heads in NWA Smoky Mountain next year. We did that because it was 3 guys in Elizabethton. The 2 main events of the first RTW show featured Elizabethton guys and one Elizabethton girl. The turn out was a 300+ house and a renewed interest in wrestling in Elizabethton. It made the sport “Cool’ again in our hometown. Paired with the CWA (now NWA Smoky Mountain) and their TV exposure, we enjoyed some success and some of the bigger houses Elizabethton has seen. During this time period, CWA produced several TV tapings from the Rocky Top Arena…althought the Rocky Top Arena name just never catched on!
Fast forward to RTW shutting down, PWF came in to town at the VFW. They featured some Elizabethton stars like Alyx Winters and Skylar Kruz, but again, only enjoyed moderate success in that building.
Next Iron Ring Wrestling took a shot at Elizabethton with a house of approximatly 150 people…which sounds good until you look at the main event of that show featuring Jerry “The King” Lawler.
Some pro wrestling returned this October with an AWESOME house at Elizabethton High School that featured Elizabethton and NWA Smoky Mountain starts..plus a few others.
And now, you have 3 different promotions running this town. You have EWC, who I have no opinion on as I do not know anything about their houses or quality of shows.
You have SSW coming back in to town….and here is where the feathers got ruffled a bit. First I’ll say this…SSW has some talented guys. I’ll never take away from the work of Frank Parker or “The Original Young Gun” Scott Sterling. As a matter of fact, I always beileved Scott was used wrong. I personally like Scott, and think he has a lot to offer young guys that are just starting out in ways of continuing their knowledge of working. His phycology of a match is there. I always beileved he should be the guy working with young guys to own their craft, and for anyone that tells you Scott can’t go..they are dead WRONG! There are also guys there right now like Eric Darkstorm that are incredibly talented. But my issue is not the fact that they are running, they are running after a successful card and over exhausting the market. Elizabethton has a select number of wrestling fans that are only going to buy a ticket to “X” number of events a year.
And further more, the work that the following guys did: Chris Richard, Chase Owens, Gavin Darring, Skylar Kruz, Tony Givens, Alyx Winters, Cody Ices (yes myself) Richard Wellington and Daniel Mulligan, in ETown at the event in October at Elizabethton High did is almost for nothing if promoters are going to bring a lackluster product in just to capitolize on one successful event.
Bottom line is, the fan, as a consumer is paying their money to go out and get the entertainment they are expecting. These fans could easily make the 10 minute drive to Johnson City and go to the movies instead. Don’t give them one to two good matches and 3-5 crap matches. Don’t use 2-4 good wrestlers, and use fillers for the rest of your card so that you don’t have to give a fair P.O.
codyices 