5 Star Wrestling - Massive UK Tournament

[Tim R-T-C]

So after their rather odd televised show in January, 5 Star have announced the first dates for their mega tournament

Liverpool Echo Arena Sat 10th June.

Blackburn Silver Blades Sat 17th June.

The "Dominant Wrestling Championships" will begin on June 10 at the Liverpool Echo Arena and span 30 weeks, hitting every major city around the UK until climaxing at Manchester Arena on December 30th. It will feature 128 of the worlds greatest wrestlers and when it's all said and done, 1 man will have achieved something no other wrestler in history has. That man will unquestionably be, the most dominant wrestling champion in the world.

John Morrison, Carlito and PJ Black announced for the former show. No-one for the second, but VIP tickets (which are first two rows and meet and greet) are a whopping £150 apiece, so get them quick before they sellout.

It will be interesting to see how this one plays out. Their earlier Scottish and Sheffield shows did not get the best reviews or turnout.

[janb]

Carlito and Moose announced for Blackburn. Interesting night to run that area and try and draw, given that 1300 people are going to the PCW free show in Blackpool.

[WyattSheepMask]

"128 of the world's greatest wrestlers", more commonly known as 32 we like and a fuckload of others who are cheap to book

[Keith Houchen]

It's a free show, people are far more likely to sack off a show they paid nothing for than for one they shelled out for

[CAREBEAR LUVVA]

I'd wager people are less likely to shell out for a show if they've already got freebies for something else the same night...

[Keith Houchen]

11 minutes ago, CAREBEAR LUVVA said:

I'd wager people are less likely to shell out for a show if they've already got freebies for something else the same night...

Agreed, probably not if you are local and don't have to factor in travel costs.  The point i was making that people are more likely to change plans if they haven't had to pay for a ticket opposed to if they had.

I can't see someone from Preston sacking off the free show to travel to see one that costs, for instance.

[Jon-Carr_92]

I bet they'll end up papering off a few tickets as they did do that before on the first one they did. Any word on if they did it for subsequent shows?

[Krytie 2X4B 523P]

9 hours ago, Jon-Carr_92 said:

I bet they'll end up papering off a few tickets as they did do that before on the first one they did. Any word on if they did it for subsequent shows?

There were multiple competitions for the last Liverpool show they ran, and a lot of winners. I won 4 tickets and when I picked up the queue for the competition winners was fairly deep. The tickets were for the nosebleeds but we were able to move where we wanted. This was a show with Rey Misterio and AJ Styles (about a week before Rumble debut) so a bit surprised demand wasn't there but pricing will have put people,  especially families, off.

 

That said, the show was great, ran smoothly and we had a great time. Not going to this one though, unless I win tickets or something

[westlondonmist]

They are still going through with this? I assumed they announced it purely because they thought they would be on the tele. 

[BomberPat]

Liverpool Echo is an 11,000 seat arena, and they're trying to sell it out with Carlito.

I've never understood this company, and genuinely assume there's something dodgy going on. Nothing they've done, or plan to do, could possibly make them money, and there can't be a money mark in the country prepared to throw away the amount of cash they must be burning through.

[ClassicsGuy]

JanB beat me to it, noting that PCW in Blackpool goes head to head with the 5 Star show in Blackburn.

The PCW show isn't at their regular Blackpool 'Club Domain' venue, it's their first show at Blackpool Tower Circus, which is a fantastic venue for wrestling and somewhere not a lot of promotions in the modern era have ran. Even though it's a free show, the attraction of being at the Blackpool Tower, coupled with it being an easier place to get to using public transport (especially as the last train leaves Blackburn at 10pm that night, whereas Blackpool it's later) makes me think very few PCW ticket holders will swerve it for 5 Star (cheapest ticket £15).

The 5 Star show at the Echo Arena in January 2016 was probably the worst live show I attended in 2016. Looking back, it's astonishing that a show featuring AJ Styles, Rey Mysterio, Will Ospreay, Zack Sabre Jr, Marty Scurll, Jay Lethal, Jimmy Havoc, Joe Coffey, Big Damo and others could be so bad, but the Vince Russo style booking of the show was horrendous.

Hopefully their booking has improved, but based on their tv special where they had the show's advertising built around Drew Galloway, for a show in Scotland where he was understandably over big, and they had him lose clean in the semi finals of a one night tournament made me think it hasn't. That's before considering their 'UK tv special' - at a time when the U.K. wrestling scene and U.K. wrestlers are the talk of the world - featured just 2 UK-born wrestlers (Magnus & Galloway) neither of whom even live in the U.K. and was based around a bunch of ex-WWE stars from nearly a decade ago. 

They're basically WCPW without any of Youtube popularity or half-way decent buzz. Or probably the deep pockets either, although deliberately running the Echo Arena again when they'll be lucky to draw 1000 people never mind 11000 people makes me wonder about what their gameplan and actual aims are - assuming 'losing a shedload of money' isn't it.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

A little bit more info on the tournament would be worthwhile. Will we be seeing first round matches only, the first three rounds on each show? Will there be filler matches too? Carlito seems to be advertised for both currently announced shows so not sure how that works.

The WCPW World Cup received some stick when it was announced, but at least it has an interesting theme (national rounds), has been laid out in advance and has other matches on the card to keep things interesting.

[Jon-Carr_92]

If it's a 128 man thing, then how many shows will they need. Did they say how many that were planned?

[Tim R-T-C]

Well they seem to suggest 30 shows?

If they have 16 one night shows of 8 competitors, with two rounds of the tournament at each, that would take us down to 32.

Then 4 shows with 8 men and two more rounds taking down to 8.

Then a grand final with three rounds giving a winner.

So 21 shows would cover it with 6 matches on each qualifying show which might be enough for them not to need any padding either.

[Statto]

By far the best thing about their TV special, IMO, was the backstage interviewer describing Rey Mysterio having his knee taken out in a blindside attack after the match as "a nasty challenge".

I presume she usually does local football somewhere or something.