Equity says pro wrestlers can be members

[Ravenhill Promotions]

get the public to see you as better than the other produce ie a marsbar is better than a milkyway

 

Do you know Mars make Milky Way?

[neil's bitch]

Not so much this in itself, but does anybody else feel really let down by the new FWA?

 

I went to the re-debut show, and it was awesome. From that night i expected UK's version of ROH or something, a fully touring company with DVDS, basically a fairly big deal. Since then, its gone nothing but down hill. Everything seemed a good idea, (various stuff they said they would do, GRapple group and BWC) but in practise hardly anything has come to light.

 

All this equity stuff is again good on paper, but im not sure it will work out for the better, or at all really.

[zylya]

There are some problems I'm seeing with the Equity thing.

 

It won't stop shit shows from running, they'll just use non-Equity wrestlers and continue to not pay/under pay. There's still lots of people out there who do wrestling because they absolutely love it, and don't actually require significant compensation for their "work". In fact, it'll be the decently run shows that suffer more, since they'll have higher costs without any noticeable increase in product quality, therefore lower margins, less incentive to run etc.

 

It won't enable more wrestlers to find work, since if a company's budget for wrestlers is (argument's sake)

[Mawhrin]

I'd be interested to hear the reasoning behind this from someone less prone to hyperbole than Alex Shane.

 

In the mean time I'll speculate that the purpose is to increase the respectability of pro wrestling amongst venue owners (particularly theatres) and (ambitious long term thinking) TV producers. The Bristol Hippodrome wouldn't show wrestling for years because it was too low brow.

 

I can't imagine anyone actually joining Equity in the near future for the reasons discussed above.

[ReturnOfTheMack]

that pick any trainie and make him a champion run shows

 

 

The first couple of times I read this I thought he was saying 'tranny'.

[Loki]

In my opinion, it's shit like THIS that is the biggest detriment to wrestling getting taken more seriously. Say I was a tv executive thinking of bringing British wrestling onto my channel. I'd look at their business, the structure of their contracts with their performers, their insurance and healthcare provisions, their marketing and promotional capabilities, and judging by what I read about the state of most BritWres promotions, I wouldn't go near them with a bargepole.

 

This, one hundred percent.

 

I just read this out loud to Big Rob and he asked me to tell you that it really pissed him off but he's too tired to reply himself. Obviously the contract would state the buy-out clause, otherwise RVD would either not sign, or he doesn't care. His fee for working would cover the money he expects.

 

I don't even know who "Big Rob" is, but that doesn't surprise me. RVD doesn't care what he signs with a British promotion, because they are all small time. He knows that their reach and ambition is so small that he'd never see much money from DVD sales even if he got a fair whack. He's in TNA, what does he care? The fact that you don't even understand what I'm driving at here is why British wrestling will never achieve comparable levels of success with its US counterparts. "Big" Rob indeed, what a joke.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

Its not like RVD's appearing on the Extras Christmas special. These promotions pay out the japeye for the likes of RVD anyway.

 

On a related note, I remember when Borash signed all the wrestlers to the Hardcore Homecoming shows, and gave them all royalities off the DVD sales. That was cool of him, considering the publicity the show got was pretty big coming off the WWE shows.

[King Pitcos]

to change this we need CHANGE

 

I'm stealing that!

If it's a change... Make it a CHANGE

[The Genius]

IMHO it is a great idea to have a union and for "the talent" to have the same rights and standings as TV actors...BUT...to state the total obvious television is a slightly bigger animal than British wrestling. If British wrestling was on TV in the UK on a mainstream channel then the production company who was producing the show would already be pushing through equity thing to cover their own backs regarding contracts etc.

 

British wrestling is a live performance event and even in the live performance industry you've gotta be looking at places like the West end before you find unionised performers-there won't be any performing at your local civic theatre just like you're not going to see unionised wrestlers at your local WMC.

 

There is still no body to prevent a promotion from using non equity workers and i'm sure if it came down to working for non equity rates and not working a huge percentage of peeps are going to choose the former-especially as they will now have some hefty membership fees to pay.

 

There needs to be far less back stabbing and far more co-operation between people promoting shows if there's ever going to be any "elevation" of the current status of BritWres.