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Vince has BritWres in his pocket.


IANdrewDiceClay

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21 minutes ago, Dolph Pigglers said:

My guess is the link between Jim Smallman and Chris Brooker.  Since Brooker owns Futureshock, maybe he managed to get in with wwe folks through his link with Smallman. 

Or that Zack Gibson, Jack Gallagher and Ashton Smith all came from there...

Yeah, Brooker's tight with Regal and there's been a few consistent players from Futureshock being featured on TV. Guys like James Drake, T-Bone as well were all working there when the first UK tournament was announced.

Probably helps they're a Manchester based company as well, meaning they've pretty much got the biggest regions for wrestling locked down London, Cardiff, Scotland, Ireland, Midlands and Manchester.

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At the chance of pulling a Tilde here (add that to the UKFF Thesaurus); there's heavy rumour around Twitter that Regal's son trains with Future Shock, hence the connection. There were even a few photos of him at a show the other day but I have no idea who posted them as it was just a casual glance and a "Oh, that's interesting" before scrolling further down.

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The crux of the matter is WWE is a publicly traded international company, beholden to their share holders. As much as we love to vilify Vince's business practises (80's nationalisation etc), did anyone really not see this coming?

These "new" contracts are protecting their assets and the marketability of them. Who will pay top dollar for a ticket to NXT UK, when for half the price and bus fare home you can go the sports centre and watch some local fed with an import/big name headlining (plus there's always the meat raffle).

Admittedly, I'm playing devil's Heyman here, the clause regarding paramedics is restriction by stealth. I assume for insurance purposes, feds require at least a qualified First Aider on site. Upping that regulation to a paramedic is an added expense most small local feds can't afford on their profit margin.

Progress et al, are in the pockets of WWE in the same way big football clubs have affiliates. Talent sharing, first option, the occasional friendly away.

I just hope at the end of it all, we keep our thriving scene and it continues to grow.

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6 minutes ago, bigfoote said:

 

Progress et al, are in the pockets of WWE in the same way big football clubs have affiliates. Talent sharing, first option, the occasional friendly away.

I just hope at the end of it all, we keep our thriving scene and it continues to grow.

 Football clubs don't usually retain the rights to close their feeder clubs down.

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12 minutes ago, Your Fight Site said:

It’s a revolving door. Wrestlers and promotions gobbled up by WWE will be soon replaced with new ones. This isn’t the end of the UK scene.

I'm sure Verne Gagne, Eddie Graham, Bill Watts, Don Owen, Jimmy Crockett et al all said the same thing in America in the 1980s. 

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23 minutes ago, bigfoote said:

Progress et al, are in the pockets of WWE in the same way big football clubs have affiliates. Talent sharing, first option, the occasional friendly away.

But the staff those affiliates have only play or work for that one club and don't get loaned out to a different one every week.

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17 minutes ago, Tamura said:

I'm sure Verne Gagne, Eddie Graham, Bill Watts, Don Owen, Jimmy Crockett et al all said the same thing in America in the 1980s. 

And I’m sure there were wrestling promotions, other than WWE, in America between ~1984 and the debut of NWA:TNA.

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7 minutes ago, Your Fight Site said:

And I’m sure there were wrestling promotions, other than WWE, in America between ~1984 and the debut of NWA:TNA.

Where were the new territories to replace the old ones swallowed up by McMahon? I can think of two, three at a push, new promotions that could reasonably be considered a place where a wrestler could work full time. SMW (worked in partnership with McMahon), ECW (worked in partnership with McMahon) and OVW (worked in partnership with McMahon). Spot the common theme?

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2 hours ago, IANdrewDiceClay said:

They are as punk rock as Glen Matlock's 2nd band the Rich Kids featuring a young Midge Ure on vocals.

Deep reference there.

I started writing a long post about punk rock and selling out, then I realised it was totally irrelevant. 

On the whole, my only issue with WWE’s interest in Indy scene is that they hold onto their wrestlers way too long. The should let more current guys go who can go repackage themselves like Cody. Let guys freshen up for a few years before bringing them back while keeping the smaller promotions going and generating more wrestlers. Guys like Ziggler and Sheamus would be worth way more after two years away.

The roster needs to stay fresh, half of them have been there forever.

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8 minutes ago, Tamura said:

Where were the new territories to replace the old ones swallowed up by McMahon? I can think of two, three at a push, new promotions that could reasonably be considered a place where a wrestler could work full time. SMW (worked in partnership with McMahon), ECW (worked in partnership with McMahon) and OVW (worked in partnership with McMahon). Spot the common theme?

The territory system was archaic and fell by the wayside. New, non-NWA territory promotions will have formed. A strong number two also emerged in that period. The wrestling industry didn’t die when the territory system collapsed, and it won’t die if WWE buys out PROGRESS and ICW.

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16 minutes ago, UK Kat Von D said:

On the whole, my only issue with WWE’s interest in Indy scene is that they hold onto their wrestlers way too long. The should let more current guys go who can go repackage themselves like Cody. Let guys freshen up for a few years before bringing them back while keeping the smaller promotions going and generating more wrestlers. Guys like Ziggler and Sheamus would be worth way more after two years away.

The roster needs to stay fresh, half of them have been there forever.

Yeah, very good point. Look at McIntyre for example- he was dead in the water and dull as dishwater. They got rid of him, he freshened up and came back a genuine potential top guy.

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