| | | OFFLINE | | | Post: 967 | Età: 116 | Sesso: Maschile | |
|
The following message has been posted on www.fwauk.com by the new FWA Managing Director, Antony Simpson:
"Dear British Wrestling fans,
Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Antony Simpson and I am the new Managing Director of the Frontier Wrestling Alliance. There are many things which I would like to cover in this opening letter to wrestling fans around the UK, however I would like to start by saying thank you to all those people who have shown interest and support in the re-launch and subsequent side projects stemming from it. We thank you for bearing with the seemingly long process of announcing our principles over a period of ten days. To begin with we planned to announce them all in one go but after careful consideration by our shareholders and partners, the choice was made to release them gradually. While it is true that it has had a dramatic effect on the number of hits our site has had over the last week or so, there is a far more important reason for this happening. We believe that all companies, be they wrestling promotions or otherwise, need a backbone. Something that tells it’s staff, customers and the outside world what they can expect from it and how they will try and advance their business from not just a financial and creative but also a moral standpoint. This is what our ten principles, we hope, allow us to do and this is why it was so important that the proper amount of focus was placed on each one before we even get to the matter of running our first event. From my perspective after careful consideration, the last thing this country needs is just another crop of initials running shows unless there is something within them that explains why we are different and what we hope to offer.
I, like you, am a wrestling fan. In fact I was a big fan of the FWA and the impact it had on wrestling in Britain. Because of this I not only trained to be a wrestler back in 2000 but also wrestled on shows around the UK. When the FWA began to lose momentum in the middle of this decade I headed into a career in banking and have also invested heavily in the property market. During this time, I still always kept a keen interest in pro wrestling but as many would understand, I saw it as a fun hobby to watch but one that would take a serious injection of time and money to turn into a lucrative business in this country. Over the last 12 months I had taken more and more of an interest in getting involved in wrestling again in some way but felt that, unless my contribution was going to make a real difference, then it would not be either personally or financially rewarding for myself or anyone else involved. At the end of last year I began to meet with several main players from around the UK and also abroad in an attempt to get a better grasp of what would be required to make that difference.
In the last 6 months a tremendously talented and experienced crew of people have come forward to be involved with what we are about to do and thanks to their help we are now in a position to make what we all feel are extremely positive steps for the British Wrestling industry. In this first address I wanted to outline some of the things that I personally plan to do while I am MD of the FWA. I want to outline ideas that we as a collective have formulated in order to make the most of the project we are all involved with here. These ideas will work in accordance with our ten business principles and we hope will be seen as the first positive steps as we begin a new era for the Frontier Wrestling Alliance and, we hope, the UK industry itself. Before we get to this there are a few issues that I would like to address stemming from the announcement of the ten principles which I feel should be discussed before moving on with anything else.
Alex Shane
The involvement of Alex Shane in this project has caused a large amount of controversy and in fact much of the negative feeling towards the return of the FWA seems to be directed more at Alex, than the promotion itself. Let me say that despite many personal grievances that several within the UK scene may have with Mr Shane (which I will address later), his passion, talent and work in enhancing the UK scene over the last 10 years cannot be disputed. As his employer I challenge anyone to find another Head of Marketing and Promotion (a position that Shane held for both ROH and TNA in the UK) with his credentials in British wrestling. The fact that two of the references on his CV are Dixie Carter and Gabe Sapolsky speaks volumes about what he can bring to the project in this role and the respect he carries amongst wrestling circles world wide in what he does. However, the FWA IS NOT Alex Shane. I say this as I feel a concern that I personally and the new FWA may inherit animosity from certain fans and members of the UK scene which I want to try extremely hard to avoid. Alex may have, by his own admission, not been the most subtle, humble and noble of people in years gone by but let us not forget that he began in this, often very immature business, at 13 years of age and as he once told me it is both his biggest strength and weakness all at once. The FWA is a very large team of people from different walks of life who all have something to offer and who all striving to see this project and British Wrestling itself succeed. It would be unfair for all of us if personal feelings towards one of the organisation’s many members, no matter how small the minority, jaded public opinion of the rest of our crew and the companies initials themselves.
Alex retired from actively wrestling in 2005 and took a backseat in the industry for several years. As many people do when looking back over their career, Alex admits that he made mistakes that he was only able to see years later having matured and learnt lessons along the way. I am sure there are many who would not want to be held to account their entire lives by what they did in their early twenties. I myself have known Alex for nearly 10 years and in this time have seen him grow as a person both morally and professionally and wish only that he be given a chance before he is demonised for past errors.
JobsInWrestling.com
This project, which is actually not something that I am apart of nor does it have any direct financial link to the FWA, seems to have also caused some confusion amongst several fans and industry representatives within the UK scene. The belief is that we are expecting our crew to work for free when this is not the case and needs further explanation. Let me start by saying that JobsInWrestling.com is not intended to just find staff and crew for the FWA. In fact the main purpose is to find crew for other promotions around the UK which can be offered as a way to help increase productivity within them which in turn will increase the revenue they generate. You may wonder why we wish to do this. The answer is simple; The FWA’s largest monthly expense is it’s talent wage bill. Using the best wrestlers in the country is not the cheapest option on offer but one that we feel is vital. However, our deal with The Grapple Group means that our talent is sponsored by them allowing us to spend more money on the production and filming of our events. The Grapple Group relies on it’s many services (outlined at www.TheGrappleGroup.com) being used by promoters around the UK. This is only possible if they have the money to pay for them, so our offer of staff is designed to help them to be in a position to do so which comes full circle in benefiting us. Of course we would be foolish if we turned down the opportunity to acquire people who could really help the FWA grow as it would be for any promoter. It is important to know that we already have several people within the company that are paid a set salary and multiple others who work on commission. The belief that “paying your dues” is an alien concept in any other business but wrestling is simply not true. Any media based industry with a high level of interest (such as music or television) will see people doing menial jobs for little or no money, just to get their foot in the door and learn about the industry they strive to be apart of. We will mentor and reward these individuals who work hard and/or show initiative. My first jobs in wrestling were working as ringside security and as a backstage runner. It was these positions which gave me the exposure I needed into this business in order to get a better understanding of how it all works, and without these initial placements, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Please remember that no matter how much money is invested into this project, it is still British Wrestling and it will still take some time to see a return on our investment which is why any help that we receive is greatly appreciated and useful. In closing it is clear to see that most of this country’s most successful people in the wrestling business broke into it in this way and as such has generated many committed, patient and talented individuals because of it.
Now that those two issues are out of the way, I would like to talk about some of the more positive things that we aim to do in order to make this project the best we can for both our wrestlers and our fans. The FWA of old thrived on having a community of fans who followed it’s stories month to month and kept up to date with it’s recent happenings. Our aim is to run one monthly main show which will be the flagship for our new promotion. This show will feature the UK’s very best talent and will be recorded and sent to the heads of talent relations for every major wrestling organisation in the world. Because of this we believe that these events will be the very best wrestling events featuring UK talent that we can possibly offer. However as many of our monthly “main” shows are going to be in various different areas of the country, we want to make them as easy and cost effective as possible to follow for our fans. This is why we have devised several special ways to attempt to make this happen as smoothly as we can.
• Firstly, for those people who wish to travel to all the shows we will arrange coach trips for our fans as several other companies have done in the past. However, for those people who can not attend all of the shows or even any of them but still want to follow the FWA, we are going to introduce a completely unique system in order to do so. Within 7 days of each monthly event we will have an edited, captioned and authored DVD ready to send out to our fans. Our plan is to offer these at the very cheapest price possible. We will offer fans each months taping, sent to them within 7 working days of the event for just £35 for 6 months or £62.50 for a whole year. This taping will also include highlights of that months “FWA Unsigned” event too. This will allow our fans world wide to keep up to date totally with the latest events on DVD for cheaper prices and a faster service than any other wrestling company in the world. This price will also include tons of extras such as 10% off tickets for shows of other promotions all around the UK including IPW:UK, XWA and many more. 10% of merchandise from selected UK retailers around the UK for the duration of your membership, a free 1st training session at a SLAM wrestling school, advance ticket purchase for FWA and other UK Supershows, and many more extras. We feel that by structuring our DVD business this way not only does it work out costing our fans just over £5 per 4 hour DVD, but also helps us to keep them up to date with our events regardless of if they are there or not.
• The next thing that we want to bring to the fans’ attention are our ticket prices. The FWA set the bar for the current price of UK event tickets with their British Uprising and subsequent “Supershow” events. However, thanks to our business model we now have the luxury of being able to charge far less for these. Our aim is to give those fans who want something extra for their money a Gold option as before but this time at a far more affordable price. On top of this we will do our utmost to offer extremely affordable lower priced tickets that are at worst competitive and at best, less than our peers around the UK. As many of our monthly “main” shows are being sold to and run by outside promoters or the venues themselves, we do not have full control over our ticket prices but we will endeavour to offer wrestling fans the very best quality shows for the cheapest price possible. Our first show “New Frontiers” on Sunday August 2nd at the Broxbourne Civic Hall is a prime example of this. Our Gold Ringside will be priced at just £22.50, with the remaining tickets selling for between £15 and £10. This is part of our drive to make the new FWA the best value wrestling possible from a customer stand point and not just a creative one, something which I as MD consider vital to help our business grow during a recession. Principles over pounds can sometimes be impossible to uphold at every turn but where possible we will endeavour to do so.
• We will also attempt to offer rewards to people who show customer loyalty to us. Thanks to our shareholder and partner contacts, the FWA has a huge number of people within the industry that can offer our fans and customers items at discounted rates. Just like our DVD deal, these include event tickets, merchandise, magazine subscriptions and training sessions for things that are not directly related to the FWA and we fully intend to offer our fans the best deals on these we can. In a time of recession it is important that we do our utmost to offer fans the best deals that we can and although 10% here and 25% there may not seem like a lot on one off items, over the course of a year it will certainly add up which in turn helps us if it means that fans have more to spend on tickets.
Before I finish up I would just like to let you all know that the main FWA website goes fully live this Friday however from tomorrow (Wednesday) we will begin releasing details of the new FWA roster, with 4 new wrestlers being announced every day until the complete line up has been announced. Tickets for New Frontiers will then go on sale this coming Monday June 1st at 10am from both the Broxbourne Civic Hall box office and via our website. Full details of this along with the other great offers mentioned in this release will be announced on the new site this Friday.
We genuinely hope that the FWA and it’s various affiliated companies can be something that benefit the UK scene as a whole not just for our fans, but for our wrestlers and other people involved in the business in every promotion, not only in the UK but across the world. Wrestling is a passion that is close to all our hearts and as such is never going to be something that we abuse simply to make money without substance. However, until we put our principles into action and our money where our mouth is then UK fans have every right to hold judgement on the sincerity of our intentions. This is why we will do all we can to show the world that we mean business at our first event, New Frontiers on Sunday August 2nd, in a venue synonymous with the Frontier Wrestling Alliance, the Broxbourne Civic Hall. From the huge website interest and the large number of messages we have already received, we expect to see some faces from the past who have not watched British wrestling live for sometime and also a whole host of new ones ready to see what the new FWA has to offer. Our management, staff, crew and wrestlers alike will make sure that you are not let down as we hope to usher in a new dawn in British Wrestling, but this time for the benefit of all.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Simpson"
credits: FWA
|