Home
Artists
Search
Recent
Random
Posts
DMs
Tags
Random
Importer
Import
FAQ
Account
Register
Favorites
Login
Full Dave Lagana Interview Transcript! (Patreon)
Published:
2018-12-02 19:00:00
Imported:
2022-02
Content
L - Well it’s kind of interesting cause I think Saturday was like the first, even though I still traveled Saturday, it was the first full day off I’ve had since July 23rd. You know we’ve been running pretty hard since I went to Waterloo, Iowa for the, literally the place NWA was founded I went and shot a video there and I think I’ve been doing something, pretty heavy on All In and the NWA 70 show, since so…there’s no rest for the weary. Once we settled up the show I went on the road for 14 of 18 days to start grabbing content, that hasn’t even started to roll out. But there’s a lot of interesting stuff going on with the NWA and also Lightning One as its own entity.
SRS
L – Well I’ve known Jazz all the way back to 2002. Obviously a fan of her in ECW. She’s just different and, you know, at a time when she debuted there weren’t a lot of women like her. And I think you could argue that there are now but she’s still….her story is so rich and I haven’t even really gotten a chance to touch it beyond that first video yet. We shot that first video Wrestlemania weekend and the everchanging plans of the NWA, I get messages all the time ‘well what’s coming next?’ Well do you want to look at my email? I can put it in a tweet that way there’s no surprises, but if you’d like I can. But there is a lot stuff that happens, doesn’t happen, and we are close at some things. Even back at Wrestlemania, we had hoped we were going to do the match with Cody, but nothing was set in stone literally til two days before the press conference that we were even doing the match. If you go back and watch a lot of episodes of ten pounds of gold I put a lot of easter eggs in. Things that could happen, are on their way to happen, may not happen, there’s a lot there that I think in ten years people will go back and say wow they really were saying a lot of stuff that ended up coming true.
SRS
L- She works like two to four times a month. She’s obviously working more now. But she really took it as a challenge and you know when you had all the carnies from the previous regime with the NWA ya know, Jazz is the only person I trusted and Tim Storm to hold onto the belts. Everybody else either wanted a pay day, wanted me to put a show on so they could be paid to lose the title, which was my favorite. You know I trust her and her and her husband, Rodney, have been good friends over the years and they have a legit story. And you know, we will tell anyone who has a legit story and trust us to tell it. She got in such amazing shape for that show. You know she is in her 40s, she doesn’t hide it and she wants to go. She calls me once a week telling me what she has and I tell her go do it and give her the ground rules for promoters. I want her to have this run. Cornette talked about it. She has been champion for 700 some odd days and so this is her journey moving forward. It’s going to be different than the Tim Storms and Willie Mack. She’s going to sort of be telling her own and we will roll it into our world as it deems fit.
SRS
L- I think it bothers her that she is not part of the call that gets called to WWE. And I don’t want to speak for her and obviously I know that there were extenuating circumstances. She was very ahead of the game as far as a style that is now very accepted, and she has a chip on her shoulder. So, when the opportunity came, and again she waited one year. She was very patient, you know what I mean. A lot of people wouldn’t have been patient, a lot of people weren’t patient with us. I get a lot of people who anytime we put up we are looking for something I hear from and then I never hear from them again and I say oh have you checked what we are doing, and they are like no. And I’m like okay cool. Why would I use you if you’re not interested in what we’re doing? If you’re just looking for a booking, that’s fine, there are plenty of people that do bookings. We do something a little different here. And those who have participated, those who’ve played along have benefitted from it. At least one of them.
SRS
L- Yeah, I think she did not understand what that was supposed to be. She was supposed to say she wants her own ten pounds of gold, not the ten pounds of gold soo…
SRS
L – And it was fine, but in reality, she was supposed to demand her own ten pounds of gold. I think it kind of got lost in translation and then the announcer harbored it home. We don’t really want to do intergender wrestling. You know, we just think its…. If there is something that can fight guys it’s definitely Jazz but that wasn’t the direction we want to take her. She was more supposed to stand up for… you know the lines we gave her…the direction was that she wanted her own ten pounds of gold which she does. The belt she has is not as good as the one Nick has. You know what I mean, and she believes she deserves one equally as good. So that was sort of the direction it was supposed to go and it’s all good.
SRS
L – I am not sure exactly what happened, and I would leave it to those in the ring to discuss. It happens, and I don’t know if she got her shoulder up on one side and Earl didn’t see it. I don’t know… it was a day that I wish we could have a little more time. You ever wish you had five more minutes in your day? I wish we would have had twenty five more minutes in my day to handle a few more things and as Billy posted in his thing. There was a lot of stuff we learned from it and a lot of stuff that won’t happen again. You know, we are very happy with that show. For over 1500 fans to come out to an NWA show, when a year ago I don’t think 1500 people knew the NWA was still around. For us to do a very successful pay per view, which we had very high success as far as the people that enjoyed it. The people that were disappointed with our production…we only ended up doing, I think, 3 refunds. You know people who asked for refunds we were able to get a final version with the audio fixed within 3 days. We were just so happy that these people supported us. And as much as Cody and Nick sort of pulled the wagon these people were NWA fans. And it was not a traditional crowd, it was a little bit different crowd than All In, it was a little bit different crowd than Ring of Honor that was there a couple months earlier. We were very happy with the all around event.
SRS
L – It was just more…the production team was not upfront about the quality of the person doing the audio board. I guess the person they had backed out and they did not tell us until after. If they would have been up front we would have altered the show or made sure of other stuff. In reality, it happens, fuck it happened on Evolution. It happens all the time on television. And I see a lot of arm chair people on twitter, who can barely get 140 characters out in critique, which is fine. If they paid and they weren’t happy we were happy to give a refund to anybody. We worked very diligently to fix it and we have already made strategic deals that will upgrade everything across the board moving forward.
SRS
L – We acquired 7, I think, or 6 with the tag, the national, the North American, JR Heavyweight title, World title, and the Women’s. I don’t know how many that is. You and I could sit here and start naming titles and I always joke about the Italian Missouri Middleweight champion which I thought was real. I’ve got this middleweight guy, he’s Italian from Missouri and I was like what? That’s a title? And I literally went out and saw him wrestle and was like oh it’s just the Missouri middleweight title. But is there that many middleweights in Missouri that we have to recognize who the best one is? But okay. I love things that matter. That’s why there’s only one Stanley Cup. They have other awards that go to this and that, but there is only one Stanley Cup. You want to be the guy. And I feel like now everybody gets a title. Somebody posted a picture….how many titles does WWE have? It’s like 20 something right? It’s like a participation trophy. Everyone gets one, and its fine. But I remember going to Summerslam 1990 and I got to see not one, but two title changes and it was the greatest moment of my life, up until that point, and still might be. And now there’s so many, and we were even hesitant to bring back the National title, but we thought it was the right time, you know same with the women’s. And literally its ok great, what other titles are you bringing back?’ And its like can you enjoy what you have. I really ask people tell me in a five minute video why you want more titles. Explain to me, lay it out in a very succinct five minute video why you care so much for the Italian Missouri Jr Heavyweight title. And if you can I will listen to your pitch. And then there is the whole belt collector world, which is why we released the national title the way we did, because trust me we knew what people’s reactions would be. Because belts are like Donald Trump. Everyone’s got an opinion on all of them and I don’t have an opinion either way on Mr. Trump but people will have opinions. And how dare people make fun of that little seahorse on that belt. That seahorse has worked really hard to be on a title belt.
SRS
L – Yeah, we don’t ignore what has happened. You know, our job is to make what happens moving forward important. And I have no problem, what was the title you just talked about? I’d love to make a video about that someday. Does that mean I’m bringing it back? So it’s like the Australia and that part? Ok. But that’s great. Its interesting. I love exploring, going to see Jim Cornette and him showing me the pay sheets for St Louis in 1982 and theres a lot you can learn from that. Meaning those guys knew in those days that their value was based on the house. They were paid, I think the top guys got 66% of the 33% that was set across for the guys. And we are looking into that model because when we did NWA 70 we announced one match for the first month tickets were on sale and we sold a lion share of the tickets with just one match, which meant the main event saw the lion share of the pay. Because that was how it was done so when a guy comes to me and says oh well my rate is this. Ok but you didn’t sell any tickets, why is your rate this? Just cause people pay it? You know we want to explore a business where the business is still the number one part of the business. We want to help talent show their value. And I think Nick Aldis has been the number one guinea pig to this. A year and two months ago Nick Aldis was out of the wrestling business and now he is traveling the globe, into his basically second year as world champion. He was in two matches that grossed over half a million dollars at the gate for the world’s title in the last six months. These are real business numbers and people will try and knock it down but its legitimate. We are a brand that did not exist. I mean today is, I don’t know if you’re posting it today or not, one year old ago today Tim Storm and Nick Aldis happened. A match that took everybody by surprise based upon Ten Pounds of gold. Which at the time had done four episodes and today we put up episode forty one. What we have shown is consistency builds a business and that’s been our direction and its going to work, cause we have no choice not for it work. But we have committed to providing a consistent story in a place that people can consume it however they want.
SRS
L – It’s both. You know we have a very tight team here. Its three or four people that on a daily basis communicate on stuff. But ultimately, at the end of the day, at four o’clock in the morning it’s me and my laptop who are arguing over rendering and trying to find the best. There was a different ending to the Ten Pounds that you just watched and somebody said well I think this is heading in this direction in the wrong way so why don’t you try this? So, we’ll try it. The no ego, no it must be my way stuff doesn’t work because you have to understand you have an audience that will think things so we all look at it from an audience’s point of view. So, for us, its’ been that type of direction of a group. Now for the last 14 days I’ve had to sort of paratrooper in content…I went and shot with Dory Funk, some of those pictures that you saw were from Dory Funk’s private collection. I never would have had the ability to get that if I didn’t have a relationship with Dory and Marty. You know those photos were great photos in there and I don’t even think people realize it and we will dive deeper into it. Its Dory, Giant Baba, and Antonio Inoki and one other gentleman who is slipping my mind, from when Dory was champion in 1971 from Japan. There is a picture from all the living NWA world champions, I think from a St Louis In Your House pay per view back in ’97. These are photos, so where I don’t own footage this history lives on. I think that’s what we enjoy. I think the Cornette piece showed that memorabilia and photos have a lot of value in this environment. There are wrestling documentaries I have known that have been shooting for the last year and have no idea when they’re going to come out and to me speed is everything in this. I hate that it even took this long to get this Ten Pounds out but because I was on the road for 14 of 18 days, I didn’t want to rush them. Like I am upset that it took two weeks to get these out. In the best case scenario I have an editor that the video comes out the day after the event. And we will scale that but there comes a cost with it. We are really happy at the pace we are moving. There is about to be a lot more content, especially some non NWA content that I think shows what Lightning One is able to do, not only for ourselves but for other entities out there. And, again, in one year the NWA has worked with literally almost every top promotion except the WWE and we have talked with them. For two guys that walked out of Impact two years ago it’s not a bad little thing that we have pulled off.
SRS
L – We explore everything. Not to get into the nitty gritty of who was discussed for what…we have explored every name that you have talked about we have explored in different areas once they were on the open market and prior to them going. Peter is an amazing talent that the world I don’t think has really fully taken in. What’s funny is Norv Fernum and Dewey were supposed to have a much larger role at impact, to roll back for a second. They had a great two month run and we were going to do sort of a big band theory with them and the knockout. And the knockout didn’t get it, she thought we were making fun of her. I was like…ok so we didn’t do the story which is fine. But Peter works hard, you know he trained David Arquette for this run that he is doing. He is a high quality talent that got three very good matches out of Tim Storm. He is very good and everybody that you mentioned I have a very strong personal relationship with. You know it’s no secret that Drew Mcintyre, Drew Galloway, the Galloway documentary was the pilot for Ten Pounds of Gold. Drew, when he left Impact he had to make a decision what he wanted to do. There was a small window that obviously that closed very quickly on that. But Drew, Drew loves Ten Pounds of Gold. There’s no secret to that because he loved the original concept. And I don’t know what talent wouldn’t because it allows them to be authentic. In an era where everyone complains about writers and I used to be a writer and I still, by the way, give a line or two there because guess what we all are being produced. It’s funny here we are 41 episodes and a year later and nobody has copied it yet. I was surprised. You know what I mean, nobody has really tried to explore this and we are still in a world where wrestlers send 140 to 280 characters and that’s the amount of promotion that they put into themselves.
SRS
L – Nick mentioned it, and its not sort of a secret, the gross for that event was six figures. In a building that only held 1500 people. We sold every floor seat at $70, I think it was like 350 maybe 400 floor seats at $70. That did not include a meet & greet. Meet & greets were separate. What it showed us where the work that we put in for the first year, where we did not ask for a dollar, except for people to buy All In, and we only put t shirts on sale in June, that the content that we had given everybody that they became loyal and we did not betray their loyalty. Right now its like everything is behind a pay wall. I always say wrestling fans are the most taxed fan in any sport to pay for content. And yes, we have spent some money this year. We spent less, though, than a top WWE talent travel budget for the month. So, if you really think about, and this is private flights, but I spoke to one person who knows very intimately the travel details of a top talent and they spent more in one month than we spent all year producing content. Which is fine, its different economics. Trust me I drove 13 hours to save us $1200 in the last two weeks because it was the right thing for the company. And that’s what you have to do because I have to guard our budget to get the most out of every dollar and it works. It really does. There is not any wasted motion in what we do and I think the numbers have sort of shown it. Where the average views on episodes we are averaging 20 to 30 thousand views when six months ago it was 11 to 15 thousand. There is an audience there that enjoys this format, and at what level it’s hard to gauge but we are also not spending. I love Lucha Underground, I thought obviously the first two seasons were visually awesome but I don’t know how you replicate that and move faster. Like it’s not scalable. I used to ask how long does it take to shoot a pre-tape. Like a one segment, three minute interview sometimes would take three or four hours. And I would ask what kind of lighting or camera guys. I would do the math and be like well I love it but is that scalable? Can that money be used more efficiently? And that’s really just up to the person writing the check and I have a very patient boss who writes the checks. Who everybody thinks is a money mark and, trust me, if you knew my budget and how we operate you would think the opposite.
SRS
L – We each had our own sort of vision for things. I think the issue was from about September 1st until November 1st it was pure chaos. Creative was put on a secondary thing as we tried to really kind of get ahold of the business end. And my demise at that company was that I took Billy to meet somebody, that if we ended up with the company was going to help with the large scale if not funding of the company moving forward and I was told well why didn’t you bring this to Dixie? And I said well why would I? Why would I bring it to her? She’s never once listened to the things that I have offered or offered me anything in return for the things that I have offered. She made her bed. So, the last two months… yes we had some ideas on what to do with the Hardys and yes I had ideas for Allie and Rosemary, but you know anybody that sits down and writes six to nine months in advance it just isn’t realistic. For example a year ago the Cody thing wasn’t on our radar, you know what I mean, I can’t say that we had a nine month plan. The only plan that we had was to stick as close to the brand as possible and to build Nick Aldis and Tim Storm. Like the fact that we have not done a rematch of Nick Aldis and Tim Storm in a year and it’s still sitting there shows long term planning because if it was Monday Night Raw we would have run that out in segment three because oh god we need a segment here. That’s why we can be patient in our creative.
SRS
L – Legitimately, no idea if there will ever be a Cody/ Nick Aldis 3. No idea. It’s there. I think those two put on such an effort at the NWA 70 show that I think there are 3 more. I do. I think there is the potential. And they both have said this is a great rivalry and as Cody said there are politics that are in the way of future. And that is a very true and real story. And that’s what we like about this because you can’t fake it. Trust me there are things that I wish I could put in Ten Pounds of Gold and maybe in the future we will because as this genre expands the more authentic we are. The closer you are to reality the better the fiction becomes. And it’s our competitive difference because I know WWE won’t do it. They won’t, it’s just not in their DNA. Where we can be nimble as a two man dinghy or rowboat in an ocean full of ocean liners.
SRS
L – No. We wanted to walk out with, I think, four headlines out of the show and the Crocket cup was one of them. And boy did we get a lot of hate when we announced Joecephus, and the Spiritual Advisor, and Hollywood from Glow were going to be in the tag match. But we knew we were going to about the Crocket cup at the end of it. The idea was to have somebody denigrate the tag team division like Joecephus and to have one of the guys that won the first Crocket cup announce that we were bringing it back. To me that was important. And here’s the funny thing. It only happened three times but there is such an energy around it that we want to be truthful to what it was, honor the format that existed in a way that is scalable in 2019. And you know we are looking at various plays. We want the best of the best. I’ve gotten a lot of emails from a lot of people that want to be in the Crocket cup. And that’s great. That’s important and it shows the value. But we want the best of the best and that’s how the original was. I think the first one and the second one, the third one got a little wonky, but the first two were really kind of focused. I think the first one is the one that I think mid-south and Crockett, I think there was a Japan team, I think Giant Baba was in the finals or semifinals of the first one. Maybe Tiger Mask. I’d have to look it up. And its an interesting idea, but it is tied to our history and I think that’s where, back to the National title which used to be the Mid-Atlantic US title, we like touching our history and for once now in 2019 history isn’t written by the winners. The fact that we can tell a historical story without… I don’t need the footage because pictures and humans that exist, the people that were there. You know that’s the interesting part of this backpack culture, where I can walk in with a backpack and create anything anywhere all I need is the environment and the talents and we can tell really compelling stories.
SRS
L – I think it’ll be the best 12, 24, 48, 64, I’m not gonna settle on a number until we know the scale of the event but I think if you look at the make up of the people that were on NWA 70. All 7 of those championships that we acquired…I called all of the people that had those titles. Every one of them stated exactly what was going to happen. You know, the promoters have their licenses even though none of them could produce for me executed copies of their licensing agreements, which was hilarious. Which meant I could have stopped it immediately because they didn’t have actual licensing agreements executed. I said you’re more than welcome to continue taking bookings as the champion up until this date, which was September 20 whatever. I said, at that point, most likely I’m gonna have you send me the titles back and then we will decide which ones we reboot and when. I said and if you play along you’ll get an at bat. Everyone that appeared on NWA 70 were the people that wanted the at bat. Everybody else was selfish, or went into business for themselves, or demanded a pay day, or did not communicate clearly enough or come to us.
SRS
L – Because at the time, a fourth title would have been too much. Even now with Jazz its sets the vision of where I can go moving forward. I have a man’s single, a secondary title,and a women’s title. Yes, I’d like to do tag teams but I think if all of our tag team focus is going into the Crockett cup I think it allows that focus to go in the right direction as opposed to two more guys out there with belts that at this point aren’t gonna matter as much.
SRS
L – In reality our vision is every major promotion sends a team. Why not? And that’s the point that we are making is why not? Why can’t you? Why can’t WWE send a team? Why can’t Impact send a team? Because right now WWE has a 99% market share, I think that’s exactly it. Maybe its 95. You know and I would love for it to be on the WWE network, love for it to be on TBS, love for it be anywhere. We want to build out an attraction and see the best that is possible because I think fans really want to see it. I really do. I think they would love to know for one night. I think that was the success for All In and NWA 70. It was probably a very eclectic card. And I know the star marks were like I can’t really put my finger on what this show is. Who is it catering to? And its catering to our audience. You know, the fact that thousands of people attended live or on pay per view and event of a company that didn’t have a track record a year ago, to me, was really important of where this is going. And all we are doing is growing every day. So by the time we run the Crockett cup, I hope in the first quarter of the year to be able to announce if it’ll be Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, we just want to find the right strategic time and the right strategic partner to run the show with and honestly, for example if Triple H called us tomorrow and they wanted to hold a Crockett cup at an NXT Takeover we would be open to discussing it. When Billy said we are open for business, we are. It’s when people want to take advantage that we are closed for business for some people and that has happened very much with a lot of people who start making deals with our IP, our titles, without us even being involved which is hilarious and then we find out and they’re like oh well I thought you’d be okay with it. Cool well talk to us about it. So it’s really interesting for a brand that’s been around for about 25 years and kicked around and everyone’s had a turn at this girl and now that she’s all pretty again they want to get back in, which is fine. But we have put a lot of work in. Nick, Tim, Me, Billy, everyone involved in this team have put a lot of hours in and we are very much invested in it.
SRS
L – We have a select amount of talents who are under, sort of, overall deals that protect us in that. And obviously I can’t say who or where. A lot of handshakes and a lot of trust because we have been honest with people, which I know is a bold concept in the pro wrestling business, about what we want and all we ask is for communication back. So for example, for certain people if they have an offer to go somewhere just tell us. Most thing they can carny and go uhhhh then they just show up somewhere. And go oh, well we found out last minute. Well when did you find out? Five days ago. Oh, you couldn’t send a text in five days. Okay. And that’s fine, so again there are people that are protected with our IP that allow us to have the right access when we need it.
SRS
L – I think it was one of those whirlwind days that I think if people really went and watched the Willie Mack, Sam Shaw match because I remember I read some feedback when Sam won over in the first match and the fantasy bookers came out..oh it should have been Sky, it should have been this, it would have been a better quote, unquote match with Willie and Sam Shaw. You know the match that Willie and Sam Shaw had for the National title is about as old school as it gets and the reaction of that audience throughout the match. For Willie when he walked out for the first match and then the reaction of when Willie won show me that we are heading in a direction where you can be different and you don’t have to chase stars or things that are much discussed but it’s hard to be a quantifiable value on. Noise to me is the greatest indicator of an event. You know, the noise fans make. We were very happy by the noise levels that these fans made because it showed that these people paid, and they were happy to be there, and they were engaged in the characters and stories that happened in front of them. And, again we don’t have a TV show. We don’t have 52 weeks a year of standard 5 segment, there are this many matches, this many interviews, this many pre tapes. We are trying something completely different and to see an event that went three hours that produced that emotion not only online but in the building. That to me is what we walk away from and I hope people walk away from. Guess what Sean, people have been doubting us since when we walked out of impact, bought the NWA, since we ran Tim Storm, and I remember every piece of feedback. I have an elephant’s brain. Including I saw one reporter who came to NWA 70 and I was very clear to him about something he said. I said there’s no heat, you’re allowed to have your opinion that’s great, but you’re standing here at our show that you bought tickets for. And I appreciate you buying tickets and I hope you continue to support us. There is no heat with any of it, just like I have to build a business, you have to build a business, otherwise its a hobby. And it’s fine to have hobbies, it really is, it’s just where do you invest your time? And we hope everyone that invests their time with us feels fulfilled in the content they watch and they enjoy where we go moving forward. And I think our numbers show it and I’m not gonna quote out well look at all these numbers we are doing. But it’s the depth that our average video view of the Ten Pounds that came out last week with the show, I think the video was 13 minutes, the average view time was 7.5 minutes. And if you understand Youtube that is gold on Youtube. And its why the Bucks are successful. They have created a show that people watch all of it. This is my free tip of the day…if you create content that is meant to get clicks but doesn’t want you to stay then you wonder why your numbers won’t go up. You have to just make it worth your audience’s time and I think we have done that and there is not one second of Ten Pounds of Gold, all 41 episodes that is not worth every moment of your time and that’s where we put all our energy.
SRS
L – Well I’ve known Jazz all the way back to 2002. Obviously a fan of her in ECW. She’s just different and, you know, at a time when she debuted there weren’t a lot of women like her. And I think you could argue that there are now but she’s still….her story is so rich and I haven’t even really gotten a chance to touch it beyond that first video yet. We shot that first video Wrestlemania weekend and the everchanging plans of the NWA, I get messages all the time ‘well what’s coming next?’ Well do you want to look at my email? I can put it in a tweet that way there’s no surprises, but if you’d like I can. But there is a lot stuff that happens, doesn’t happen, and we are close at some things. Even back at Wrestlemania, we had hoped we were going to do the match with Cody, but nothing was set in stone literally til two days before the press conference that we were even doing the match. If you go back and watch a lot of episodes of ten pounds of gold I put a lot of easter eggs in. Things that could happen, are on their way to happen, may not happen, there’s a lot there that I think in ten years people will go back and say wow they really were saying a lot of stuff that ended up coming true.
SRS
L- She works like two to four times a month. She’s obviously working more now. But she really took it as a challenge and you know when you had all the carnies from the previous regime with the NWA ya know, Jazz is the only person I trusted and Tim Storm to hold onto the belts. Everybody else either wanted a pay day, wanted me to put a show on so they could be paid to lose the title, which was my favorite. You know I trust her and her and her husband, Rodney, have been good friends over the years and they have a legit story. And you know, we will tell anyone who has a legit story and trust us to tell it. She got in such amazing shape for that show. You know she is in her 40s, she doesn’t hide it and she wants to go. She calls me once a week telling me what she has and I tell her go do it and give her the ground rules for promoters. I want her to have this run. Cornette talked about it. She has been champion for 700 some odd days and so this is her journey moving forward. It’s going to be different than the Tim Storms and Willie Mack. She’s going to sort of be telling her own and we will roll it into our world as it deems fit.
SRS
L- I think it bothers her that she is not part of the call that gets called to WWE. And I don’t want to speak for her and obviously I know that there were extenuating circumstances. She was very ahead of the game as far as a style that is now very accepted, and she has a chip on her shoulder. So, when the opportunity came, and again she waited one year. She was very patient, you know what I mean. A lot of people wouldn’t have been patient, a lot of people weren’t patient with us. I get a lot of people who anytime we put up we are looking for something I hear from and then I never hear from them again and I say oh have you checked what we are doing, and they are like no. And I’m like okay cool. Why would I use you if you’re not interested in what we’re doing? If you’re just looking for a booking, that’s fine, there are plenty of people that do bookings. We do something a little different here. And those who have participated, those who’ve played along have benefitted from it. At least one of them.
SRS
L- Yeah, I think she did not understand what that was supposed to be. She was supposed to say she wants her own ten pounds of gold, not the ten pounds of gold soo…
SRS
L – And it was fine, but in reality, she was supposed to demand her own ten pounds of gold. I think it kind of got lost in translation and then the announcer harbored it home. We don’t really want to do intergender wrestling. You know, we just think its…. If there is something that can fight guys it’s definitely Jazz but that wasn’t the direction we want to take her. She was more supposed to stand up for… you know the lines we gave her…the direction was that she wanted her own ten pounds of gold which she does. The belt she has is not as good as the one Nick has. You know what I mean, and she believes she deserves one equally as good. So that was sort of the direction it was supposed to go and it’s all good.
SRS
L – I am not sure exactly what happened, and I would leave it to those in the ring to discuss. It happens, and I don’t know if she got her shoulder up on one side and Earl didn’t see it. I don’t know… it was a day that I wish we could have a little more time. You ever wish you had five more minutes in your day? I wish we would have had twenty five more minutes in my day to handle a few more things and as Billy posted in his thing. There was a lot of stuff we learned from it and a lot of stuff that won’t happen again. You know, we are very happy with that show. For over 1500 fans to come out to an NWA show, when a year ago I don’t think 1500 people knew the NWA was still around. For us to do a very successful pay per view, which we had very high success as far as the people that enjoyed it. The people that were disappointed with our production…we only ended up doing, I think, 3 refunds. You know people who asked for refunds we were able to get a final version with the audio fixed within 3 days. We were just so happy that these people supported us. And as much as Cody and Nick sort of pulled the wagon these people were NWA fans. And it was not a traditional crowd, it was a little bit different crowd than All In, it was a little bit different crowd than Ring of Honor that was there a couple months earlier. We were very happy with the all around event.
SRS
L – It was just more…the production team was not upfront about the quality of the person doing the audio board. I guess the person they had backed out and they did not tell us until after. If they would have been up front we would have altered the show or made sure of other stuff. In reality, it happens, fuck it happened on Evolution. It happens all the time on television. And I see a lot of arm chair people on twitter, who can barely get 140 characters out in critique, which is fine. If they paid and they weren’t happy we were happy to give a refund to anybody. We worked very diligently to fix it and we have already made strategic deals that will upgrade everything across the board moving forward.
SRS
L – We acquired 7, I think, or 6 with the tag, the national, the North American, JR Heavyweight title, World title, and the Women’s. I don’t know how many that is. You and I could sit here and start naming titles and I always joke about the Italian Missouri Middleweight champion which I thought was real. I’ve got this middleweight guy, he’s Italian from Missouri and I was like what? That’s a title? And I literally went out and saw him wrestle and was like oh it’s just the Missouri middleweight title. But is there that many middleweights in Missouri that we have to recognize who the best one is? But okay. I love things that matter. That’s why there’s only one Stanley Cup. They have other awards that go to this and that, but there is only one Stanley Cup. You want to be the guy. And I feel like now everybody gets a title. Somebody posted a picture….how many titles does WWE have? It’s like 20 something right? It’s like a participation trophy. Everyone gets one, and its fine. But I remember going to Summerslam 1990 and I got to see not one, but two title changes and it was the greatest moment of my life, up until that point, and still might be. And now there’s so many, and we were even hesitant to bring back the National title, but we thought it was the right time, you know same with the women’s. And literally its ok great, what other titles are you bringing back?’ And its like can you enjoy what you have. I really ask people tell me in a five minute video why you want more titles. Explain to me, lay it out in a very succinct five minute video why you care so much for the Italian Missouri Jr Heavyweight title. And if you can I will listen to your pitch. And then there is the whole belt collector world, which is why we released the national title the way we did, because trust me we knew what people’s reactions would be. Because belts are like Donald Trump. Everyone’s got an opinion on all of them and I don’t have an opinion either way on Mr. Trump but people will have opinions. And how dare people make fun of that little seahorse on that belt. That seahorse has worked really hard to be on a title belt.
SRS
L – Yeah, we don’t ignore what has happened. You know, our job is to make what happens moving forward important. And I have no problem, what was the title you just talked about? I’d love to make a video about that someday. Does that mean I’m bringing it back? So it’s like the Australia and that part? Ok. But that’s great. Its interesting. I love exploring, going to see Jim Cornette and him showing me the pay sheets for St Louis in 1982 and theres a lot you can learn from that. Meaning those guys knew in those days that their value was based on the house. They were paid, I think the top guys got 66% of the 33% that was set across for the guys. And we are looking into that model because when we did NWA 70 we announced one match for the first month tickets were on sale and we sold a lion share of the tickets with just one match, which meant the main event saw the lion share of the pay. Because that was how it was done so when a guy comes to me and says oh well my rate is this. Ok but you didn’t sell any tickets, why is your rate this? Just cause people pay it? You know we want to explore a business where the business is still the number one part of the business. We want to help talent show their value. And I think Nick Aldis has been the number one guinea pig to this. A year and two months ago Nick Aldis was out of the wrestling business and now he is traveling the globe, into his basically second year as world champion. He was in two matches that grossed over half a million dollars at the gate for the world’s title in the last six months. These are real business numbers and people will try and knock it down but its legitimate. We are a brand that did not exist. I mean today is, I don’t know if you’re posting it today or not, one year old ago today Tim Storm and Nick Aldis happened. A match that took everybody by surprise based upon Ten Pounds of gold. Which at the time had done four episodes and today we put up episode forty one. What we have shown is consistency builds a business and that’s been our direction and its going to work, cause we have no choice not for it work. But we have committed to providing a consistent story in a place that people can consume it however they want.
SRS
L – It’s both. You know we have a very tight team here. Its three or four people that on a daily basis communicate on stuff. But ultimately, at the end of the day, at four o’clock in the morning it’s me and my laptop who are arguing over rendering and trying to find the best. There was a different ending to the Ten Pounds that you just watched and somebody said well I think this is heading in this direction in the wrong way so why don’t you try this? So, we’ll try it. The no ego, no it must be my way stuff doesn’t work because you have to understand you have an audience that will think things so we all look at it from an audience’s point of view. So, for us, its’ been that type of direction of a group. Now for the last 14 days I’ve had to sort of paratrooper in content…I went and shot with Dory Funk, some of those pictures that you saw were from Dory Funk’s private collection. I never would have had the ability to get that if I didn’t have a relationship with Dory and Marty. You know those photos were great photos in there and I don’t even think people realize it and we will dive deeper into it. Its Dory, Giant Baba, and Antonio Inoki and one other gentleman who is slipping my mind, from when Dory was champion in 1971 from Japan. There is a picture from all the living NWA world champions, I think from a St Louis In Your House pay per view back in ’97. These are photos, so where I don’t own footage this history lives on. I think that’s what we enjoy. I think the Cornette piece showed that memorabilia and photos have a lot of value in this environment. There are wrestling documentaries I have known that have been shooting for the last year and have no idea when they’re going to come out and to me speed is everything in this. I hate that it even took this long to get this Ten Pounds out but because I was on the road for 14 of 18 days, I didn’t want to rush them. Like I am upset that it took two weeks to get these out. In the best case scenario I have an editor that the video comes out the day after the event. And we will scale that but there comes a cost with it. We are really happy at the pace we are moving. There is about to be a lot more content, especially some non NWA content that I think shows what Lightning One is able to do, not only for ourselves but for other entities out there. And, again, in one year the NWA has worked with literally almost every top promotion except the WWE and we have talked with them. For two guys that walked out of Impact two years ago it’s not a bad little thing that we have pulled off.
SRS
L – We explore everything. Not to get into the nitty gritty of who was discussed for what…we have explored every name that you have talked about we have explored in different areas once they were on the open market and prior to them going. Peter is an amazing talent that the world I don’t think has really fully taken in. What’s funny is Norv Fernum and Dewey were supposed to have a much larger role at impact, to roll back for a second. They had a great two month run and we were going to do sort of a big band theory with them and the knockout. And the knockout didn’t get it, she thought we were making fun of her. I was like…ok so we didn’t do the story which is fine. But Peter works hard, you know he trained David Arquette for this run that he is doing. He is a high quality talent that got three very good matches out of Tim Storm. He is very good and everybody that you mentioned I have a very strong personal relationship with. You know it’s no secret that Drew Mcintyre, Drew Galloway, the Galloway documentary was the pilot for Ten Pounds of Gold. Drew, when he left Impact he had to make a decision what he wanted to do. There was a small window that obviously that closed very quickly on that. But Drew, Drew loves Ten Pounds of Gold. There’s no secret to that because he loved the original concept. And I don’t know what talent wouldn’t because it allows them to be authentic. In an era where everyone complains about writers and I used to be a writer and I still, by the way, give a line or two there because guess what we all are being produced. It’s funny here we are 41 episodes and a year later and nobody has copied it yet. I was surprised. You know what I mean, nobody has really tried to explore this and we are still in a world where wrestlers send 140 to 280 characters and that’s the amount of promotion that they put into themselves.
SRS
L – Nick mentioned it, and its not sort of a secret, the gross for that event was six figures. In a building that only held 1500 people. We sold every floor seat at $70, I think it was like 350 maybe 400 floor seats at $70. That did not include a meet & greet. Meet & greets were separate. What it showed us where the work that we put in for the first year, where we did not ask for a dollar, except for people to buy All In, and we only put t shirts on sale in June, that the content that we had given everybody that they became loyal and we did not betray their loyalty. Right now its like everything is behind a pay wall. I always say wrestling fans are the most taxed fan in any sport to pay for content. And yes, we have spent some money this year. We spent less, though, than a top WWE talent travel budget for the month. So, if you really think about, and this is private flights, but I spoke to one person who knows very intimately the travel details of a top talent and they spent more in one month than we spent all year producing content. Which is fine, its different economics. Trust me I drove 13 hours to save us $1200 in the last two weeks because it was the right thing for the company. And that’s what you have to do because I have to guard our budget to get the most out of every dollar and it works. It really does. There is not any wasted motion in what we do and I think the numbers have sort of shown it. Where the average views on episodes we are averaging 20 to 30 thousand views when six months ago it was 11 to 15 thousand. There is an audience there that enjoys this format, and at what level it’s hard to gauge but we are also not spending. I love Lucha Underground, I thought obviously the first two seasons were visually awesome but I don’t know how you replicate that and move faster. Like it’s not scalable. I used to ask how long does it take to shoot a pre-tape. Like a one segment, three minute interview sometimes would take three or four hours. And I would ask what kind of lighting or camera guys. I would do the math and be like well I love it but is that scalable? Can that money be used more efficiently? And that’s really just up to the person writing the check and I have a very patient boss who writes the checks. Who everybody thinks is a money mark and, trust me, if you knew my budget and how we operate you would think the opposite.
SRS
L – We each had our own sort of vision for things. I think the issue was from about September 1st until November 1st it was pure chaos. Creative was put on a secondary thing as we tried to really kind of get ahold of the business end. And my demise at that company was that I took Billy to meet somebody, that if we ended up with the company was going to help with the large scale if not funding of the company moving forward and I was told well why didn’t you bring this to Dixie? And I said well why would I? Why would I bring it to her? She’s never once listened to the things that I have offered or offered me anything in return for the things that I have offered. She made her bed. So, the last two months… yes we had some ideas on what to do with the Hardys and yes I had ideas for Allie and Rosemary, but you know anybody that sits down and writes six to nine months in advance it just isn’t realistic. For example a year ago the Cody thing wasn’t on our radar, you know what I mean, I can’t say that we had a nine month plan. The only plan that we had was to stick as close to the brand as possible and to build Nick Aldis and Tim Storm. Like the fact that we have not done a rematch of Nick Aldis and Tim Storm in a year and it’s still sitting there shows long term planning because if it was Monday Night Raw we would have run that out in segment three because oh god we need a segment here. That’s why we can be patient in our creative.
SRS
L – Legitimately, no idea if there will ever be a Cody/ Nick Aldis 3. No idea. It’s there. I think those two put on such an effort at the NWA 70 show that I think there are 3 more. I do. I think there is the potential. And they both have said this is a great rivalry and as Cody said there are politics that are in the way of future. And that is a very true and real story. And that’s what we like about this because you can’t fake it. Trust me there are things that I wish I could put in Ten Pounds of Gold and maybe in the future we will because as this genre expands the more authentic we are. The closer you are to reality the better the fiction becomes. And it’s our competitive difference because I know WWE won’t do it. They won’t, it’s just not in their DNA. Where we can be nimble as a two man dinghy or rowboat in an ocean full of ocean liners.
SRS
L – No. We wanted to walk out with, I think, four headlines out of the show and the Crocket cup was one of them. And boy did we get a lot of hate when we announced Joecephus, and the Spiritual Advisor, and Hollywood from Glow were going to be in the tag match. But we knew we were going to about the Crocket cup at the end of it. The idea was to have somebody denigrate the tag team division like Joecephus and to have one of the guys that won the first Crocket cup announce that we were bringing it back. To me that was important. And here’s the funny thing. It only happened three times but there is such an energy around it that we want to be truthful to what it was, honor the format that existed in a way that is scalable in 2019. And you know we are looking at various plays. We want the best of the best. I’ve gotten a lot of emails from a lot of people that want to be in the Crocket cup. And that’s great. That’s important and it shows the value. But we want the best of the best and that’s how the original was. I think the first one and the second one, the third one got a little wonky, but the first two were really kind of focused. I think the first one is the one that I think mid-south and Crockett, I think there was a Japan team, I think Giant Baba was in the finals or semifinals of the first one. Maybe Tiger Mask. I’d have to look it up. And its an interesting idea, but it is tied to our history and I think that’s where, back to the National title which used to be the Mid-Atlantic US title, we like touching our history and for once now in 2019 history isn’t written by the winners. The fact that we can tell a historical story without… I don’t need the footage because pictures and humans that exist, the people that were there. You know that’s the interesting part of this backpack culture, where I can walk in with a backpack and create anything anywhere all I need is the environment and the talents and we can tell really compelling stories.
SRS
L – I think it’ll be the best 12, 24, 48, 64, I’m not gonna settle on a number until we know the scale of the event but I think if you look at the make up of the people that were on NWA 70. All 7 of those championships that we acquired…I called all of the people that had those titles. Every one of them stated exactly what was going to happen. You know, the promoters have their licenses even though none of them could produce for me executed copies of their licensing agreements, which was hilarious. Which meant I could have stopped it immediately because they didn’t have actual licensing agreements executed. I said you’re more than welcome to continue taking bookings as the champion up until this date, which was September 20 whatever. I said, at that point, most likely I’m gonna have you send me the titles back and then we will decide which ones we reboot and when. I said and if you play along you’ll get an at bat. Everyone that appeared on NWA 70 were the people that wanted the at bat. Everybody else was selfish, or went into business for themselves, or demanded a pay day, or did not communicate clearly enough or come to us.
SRS
L – Because at the time, a fourth title would have been too much. Even now with Jazz its sets the vision of where I can go moving forward. I have a man’s single, a secondary title,and a women’s title. Yes, I’d like to do tag teams but I think if all of our tag team focus is going into the Crockett cup I think it allows that focus to go in the right direction as opposed to two more guys out there with belts that at this point aren’t gonna matter as much.
SRS
L – In reality our vision is every major promotion sends a team. Why not? And that’s the point that we are making is why not? Why can’t you? Why can’t WWE send a team? Why can’t Impact send a team? Because right now WWE has a 99% market share, I think that’s exactly it. Maybe its 95. You know and I would love for it to be on the WWE network, love for it to be on TBS, love for it be anywhere. We want to build out an attraction and see the best that is possible because I think fans really want to see it. I really do. I think they would love to know for one night. I think that was the success for All In and NWA 70. It was probably a very eclectic card. And I know the star marks were like I can’t really put my finger on what this show is. Who is it catering to? And its catering to our audience. You know, the fact that thousands of people attended live or on pay per view and event of a company that didn’t have a track record a year ago, to me, was really important of where this is going. And all we are doing is growing every day. So by the time we run the Crockett cup, I hope in the first quarter of the year to be able to announce if it’ll be Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, we just want to find the right strategic time and the right strategic partner to run the show with and honestly, for example if Triple H called us tomorrow and they wanted to hold a Crockett cup at an NXT Takeover we would be open to discussing it. When Billy said we are open for business, we are. It’s when people want to take advantage that we are closed for business for some people and that has happened very much with a lot of people who start making deals with our IP, our titles, without us even being involved which is hilarious and then we find out and they’re like oh well I thought you’d be okay with it. Cool well talk to us about it. So it’s really interesting for a brand that’s been around for about 25 years and kicked around and everyone’s had a turn at this girl and now that she’s all pretty again they want to get back in, which is fine. But we have put a lot of work in. Nick, Tim, Me, Billy, everyone involved in this team have put a lot of hours in and we are very much invested in it.
SRS
L – We have a select amount of talents who are under, sort of, overall deals that protect us in that. And obviously I can’t say who or where. A lot of handshakes and a lot of trust because we have been honest with people, which I know is a bold concept in the pro wrestling business, about what we want and all we ask is for communication back. So for example, for certain people if they have an offer to go somewhere just tell us. Most thing they can carny and go uhhhh then they just show up somewhere. And go oh, well we found out last minute. Well when did you find out? Five days ago. Oh, you couldn’t send a text in five days. Okay. And that’s fine, so again there are people that are protected with our IP that allow us to have the right access when we need it.
SRS
L – I think it was one of those whirlwind days that I think if people really went and watched the Willie Mack, Sam Shaw match because I remember I read some feedback when Sam won over in the first match and the fantasy bookers came out..oh it should have been Sky, it should have been this, it would have been a better quote, unquote match with Willie and Sam Shaw. You know the match that Willie and Sam Shaw had for the National title is about as old school as it gets and the reaction of that audience throughout the match. For Willie when he walked out for the first match and then the reaction of when Willie won show me that we are heading in a direction where you can be different and you don’t have to chase stars or things that are much discussed but it’s hard to be a quantifiable value on. Noise to me is the greatest indicator of an event. You know, the noise fans make. We were very happy by the noise levels that these fans made because it showed that these people paid, and they were happy to be there, and they were engaged in the characters and stories that happened in front of them. And, again we don’t have a TV show. We don’t have 52 weeks a year of standard 5 segment, there are this many matches, this many interviews, this many pre tapes. We are trying something completely different and to see an event that went three hours that produced that emotion not only online but in the building. That to me is what we walk away from and I hope people walk away from. Guess what Sean, people have been doubting us since when we walked out of impact, bought the NWA, since we ran Tim Storm, and I remember every piece of feedback. I have an elephant’s brain. Including I saw one reporter who came to NWA 70 and I was very clear to him about something he said. I said there’s no heat, you’re allowed to have your opinion that’s great, but you’re standing here at our show that you bought tickets for. And I appreciate you buying tickets and I hope you continue to support us. There is no heat with any of it, just like I have to build a business, you have to build a business, otherwise its a hobby. And it’s fine to have hobbies, it really is, it’s just where do you invest your time? And we hope everyone that invests their time with us feels fulfilled in the content they watch and they enjoy where we go moving forward. And I think our numbers show it and I’m not gonna quote out well look at all these numbers we are doing. But it’s the depth that our average video view of the Ten Pounds that came out last week with the show, I think the video was 13 minutes, the average view time was 7.5 minutes. And if you understand Youtube that is gold on Youtube. And its why the Bucks are successful. They have created a show that people watch all of it. This is my free tip of the day…if you create content that is meant to get clicks but doesn’t want you to stay then you wonder why your numbers won’t go up. You have to just make it worth your audience’s time and I think we have done that and there is not one second of Ten Pounds of Gold, all 41 episodes that is not worth every moment of your time and that’s where we put all our energy.