Irish Promotions' Thread ***Info & Results***

I wouldn't exert too much energy in responding to JohnJericho, he's serving a 3 month ban as of one hour ago.

I don't think there's ever been a single Irish promotion that didn't have an utter clusterf*ck of a show. NWA Ireland once had a show in Longford that had an attendance of about 10 kids or something a few years back, IWW had a show in Cork with no ring. After the WIN show back in 2002, Sandman got jumped!

So look at it this way Gerry, at least this one happened when you were starting, as opposed to being established, which in my honest opinion, would have made the promotion look worse. After all, if you draw a good crowd from the getgo, and then you sink down to about 20 kids, barely covering the entire front row. To me, that looks worse!

It takes balls to start a new promotion from the ashes from the old one. IWW pretty much had to start from scracth in 2004-2005 too. Many people say they'll do it, others claim they will do it, but very few actually give it a shot. But with some better advertising and promotion of your next show Gerry, i can't see how it can fail. Of course, that's just from an outsiders perspective, but to me, that's common sense. But at least you're not letting it stop you.

Because in wrestling, as in life in general really, sh*t always happens.

GerrySoul wrote: »

shawn thats the best pep talk i think i've ever had. and i thank you very much.

You, eh, never played for a football team or anything, did ya Ger?

Pass the ****ing ball!!! I don't care if you're 10! We're 1 down and if you don't pull your weight you can **** off and find another team!

Ahhh the memories.

Irish Stunner wrote: »

And Ger Was John Jennings on the Cavan show cause i didnt see his name on the result sheet or on the card.

He was ring crew

Tbh I think it's a little harsh to come down on ANY promotions with the economic climate that's in it.

As someone who's done a lot of promotion in my time...if I was looking to invest money in ANYTHING at the moment, local pro-wrestling would be bottom of the list. So my hat's off to anyone, from Gerry to Simon, who's still going. They're proving that they are now doing it out of passion for the business...because it's definitely not for the money!

The fact is that the likes of WWE and even roadshows like AWR have a massive advantage at this time. I currently do some part-time work in The O2...and numbers for larger scale gigs aren't hurting that much despite the recession. People are careful with their money...but they're more willing to make the 'bigger' investments because they're a safer bet. It's the smaller scale shows that'll hurt...because people won't risk paying E70-80 taking the family out to see an unproven bunch of lads wrestle in a community centre (I say unproven meant on a mainstream scale).

There's no money in it anymore. Without a big investor to give it the pomp and circumstance that the public now DEMAND when handing over their cash...there's not going to be for some time either. If I was still working with Simon, I'd be telling him to take a few year's well-earned rest and come back stronger when the country is in better shape. But he still promotes because he obviously enjoys it and is willing to lose a few bob here and there to do so. So respect to him, and all others still plugging away, for that.

I know this is going of the last post but I got a leflet bout iww doing a show in the green isle hotel on the 12th july and it doesnt say bout any wwe stars or anyone famous been on it,on the other topic,if people were to do and pull together and put good shows together would be good but ya got to think of people need money for all this which means people need to work so it would be kind of hard and then its ya got to get people traveling from wherever there living and then if there getting paid aswell or getting them trasported home.

I agree with most of what you say but I still think that a small tightly run promotion that showcases all the Irish talent can be successful. It doesn't take a large injection of cash to make a wrestling show into a real nights entertainment. I have discussed this before on this forum many times. The country is crying out for a proper wrestling booking office to be established in an open and honest environment that uses talent from all promotions and through the use of lighting, smoke machines , proper sound systems and decent venues the Irish talent have bucket loads to offer wrestling fans. The shows have to be regular and developed with creative thinking and story lines that fans can follow. But as you know all of this requires a lot of effort and dedication and a willingness from both Talent/promoter and fan base to commit to the cause. For example members on this forum were offered free entry to a wrestling show two weeks ago and how many showed up probably none enough said and that's not affected by the recession because it was free. A wrestling promotion is only as strong as its talent and its fan base and both have a shared responsibility in its success or failure

I get where you're coming from man, here's were that argument falls down though in my opinion:

The general public DON'T care about the survival of grassroots Irish pro-wrestling. If it all disappeared tomorrow...apart from the people involved, 9-10 people on boards and a few loyal regular punters (we're probably talking less than 20 here)...nobody would bat an eyelid.

Local Irish wrestling relies on getting middle-class families in the doors of local community centres and GAA clubs.

The average middle class family will have either experienced one of the bread-winners being laid off recently...will have had to take a pay-cut...or will be just watching what they spend in case the worst happens.

How creative a promoter is DOESN'T matter if there's nobody paying in the door.

An average night out for the family at a wrestling show, say one parent and three kids, costs about E60-70 when you factor in the kids buying merch etc.

People will NOT spend that on a bunch of guys they've never heard of. It doesn't matter how creative or dedicated the promoter is...people pinching their pennies will NOT spend that. End of story.

They'll gladly spend E200 once or twice a year on a WWE show (if they can afford it) because WWE is an international brand, a reputable one, with a wealth of established stars. So it's a worthwhile investment for the consumer. Same reason Slane today, Oxegen and Electric Picnic will all be packed out despite huge ticket prices in a recession.

But, aside from the odd few that currently make up the poor houses on the shows, the general public won't spend it.

That's the simple economics of it man.

You talk of smoke machines etc...that's wasted money dude. That's even more losses. If people WILL bother to pay for local wrestling...they won't expect or need this kinda stuff. So investing in it is suicidal for a promoter (unless he's going for big budget and has a rich financial backer behind him, ala AWR).

Storylines etc don't matter unless its on TV. Take it from someone who has booked and, early into his run, held the same view as you. At house shows...people just want to see some wrestling. Throw them a storyline with the hometown boy to attract them via the local papers, and run a promo setting up your main event, that's it.

Anything else is self-indulgent, fantasy booking nonsense on the promoter's part...and it's the reason you see so many mark promoters come along, blow a wad of cash and go out of business as quick as they got in.

Again, I don't mean to disrespect you as you clearly care, so fair play for that. But your argument only holds water with wishful-thinking Internet fans...not in the real world...and, as you alluded to, unfortunately Gerry (who's a great guy I only wish the best for) recently found out the hard way what good pandering to the net will get you.

I'm not saying that advertising on the net is a bad idea.

Certainly, it can be GREAT if used correctly. Especially nowadays where pretty much everyone is online and many check sites like Facebook, Bebo etc on an almost daily basis.

Pandering to the typical Internet wrestling fan...however...is a bad idea that has failed time and time again. In Ireland. You can make whatever argument to counter that that you wish...it all SHOULD work on paper...but when it comes to prising bums from seats you really see what good the likes of this place is for a business. That's not meant in a bad or mean-spirited way, btw, it's just a fact.

If all of the regular posters here even showed up, for the free tickets they'd been promised, he probably would have got enough punters in to be able to put on an actual show. (Nobody take that personally) I mean, he probably had to pay for the venue anyway so it wouldn't have cost anything if he put on a show at a massive loss...the loss was there already. So the actual show would have just served as a morale boost after the fact.

That's not the only reason for the failing of the show...I'm sure there's a bunch of them, many we'll never even know about, but it's definitely a lesson learned for Gerry. I know, if I was him, I wouldn't be rushing to help out boardsies again with great deals anytime soon.

Yes, the IP show was advertised on boards, but I wouldn't exactly call it pandering to the net fans other than the free ticket offer.

There was no website, no facebook, no myspace, no twitter, no youtube channel, no sustained effort on other forums other than boards. The only thing they had was a Bebo page that wasn't updated for weeks and didn't even list they had a show coming up. In fact, they pretty much AVOIDED the internet. Net communities need to be built.

IwW when it first started used to have a net community, but there was no effort made to keep them and they all went away one by one. A prospective promotion would need to build this up again over time and once they did, they'd have an easier time marketing shows. Dead websites that are updated once every 6 months aren't going to cut it. They need to be updated at LEAST weekly, and all supporting social networking sites. It should appear that something is always happening and worth checking out.

You can't say internet marketing doesn't work in Ireland because no one has ever really done it. They just dip their toe in it and yank it out when they think it's too cold, but you need to dive into that ****, swim around in it and get used to the temperature.

Internet in conjunction with proper street methods can be extremely effective.

"Anything else is self-indulgent, fantasy booking nonsense on the promoter's part...and it's the reason you see so many mark promoters come along, blow a wad of cash and go out of business as quick as they got in."

TOTALLY disagree with this. Storylines are fundamental if you ever want to expand past the small hall format without big backing. Everybody gets hung up on TV but it is not the be all and end all like it once was. A good product is a good product with or wihout TV, and it is up to the promoter to educate the fans as to just how good.

I am currently subscribed to TNA On Demand. WWE has their own WWE 24/7. Many TV stations have their own on demand service now too. Many TV things are now becoming stream focused. More and more CASUAL people are becoming internet friendly. It is fast becoming as common as TV. Even my comp fearing parents use it to get streams of their favourite shows now. It's all about education and the internet has evolved to the point where you can deliver an online show, have it look good and keep everyone up to date with what's going on in your promotion story wise. With a bit of advertisement and prominent placement, a net show could have hundreds of thousands of hits internationally.

Promotions have done major storylines without TV for DECADES. More complex stories than the hometown hero to. In fact, many depended on complex storylines to sell their show, they were just clever in how they got the feud information to their fans.

Without TV, you improvise. TNA couldn't get TV, they went to PPV. RoH had no TV, they went the DVD route. ECW in it's early days relied heavily on the net when it WAS a niche thing. Even smaller scale, like FWA in England years ago was able to keep you up to date with it's storylines cause Alex Shane was a smart promoter, if not fiscaly. People here even keep up to date on the latest Japanese rivalries even though they have no TV here and are thousands of miles away because the methods and infrastructure are there for them to do so and the reputation brings them in.

If there is interest in your product, and the proper infrastructure in place where they can get information about you in as many ways as they possibly can, then you can book anything on your shows and not have it be "fantasy booking" but intelligent booking. First you build the infrastructure, then you build your reputation, then everything else comes into place. Once you have a community around you, you're half way there.

I don't deny that TV is a major help, I'm just saying that it isn't the be all and end all when it comes to promoting successfully with major storylines that are followable. TV would still be preferable because it is less work to get exposed, but for those willing to put the work in there are other avenues.

Just a couple of points cus it's late and I'm wrecked:

1) Nero, the net was NEVER IwW's core fanbase. Sorry to tell you that. Sure Simon did a few things that appealed towards that direction...the NWA/IwW feud being one such example...but the net fans never made it worth his while to bother continuing. You turn a profit by appealing to families, you go out of business by appealing to smart marks. Fact. Ireland isn't NEARLY big enough for an RoH-style promotion to do well.

2) Cannibal...I'm sorry, I wish things were different, but storylines do NOT matter that much off TV. They confuse people. I wished it were different when I started out booking...because I'm also a passionate writer and saw this as a big creative opportunity...but fans will not pay the money to follow storylines, and you can't over-complicate things on a show that panders to kids.

The reason they worked in the territory days was because they were running the same venues time and again. So the same people were showing up. It's a COMPLETELY different environment to Ireland today...where running the same venue 3-4 times a year over-saturates it.

Sorry dude, but believing storylines to be important for house shows displays a severe lack of understanding for how the business works. Again, I'd love if you were right...but I've learned the hard way. If you ever prove me wrong though, I'll happily hold my hands up and admit it.