Calling anyone with knowledge of the UK Indy scene
 

Hi guys,

I'm putting together a degree project on arts funding at the moment and I need some help getting together info about the costs involved in running a one off wrestling show.

I remember that FWA ran that big event about a year ago where they basically showcased British talent, it went out on Bravo, but I don't remember what it was called. Does anyone have any info on that show as it's pretty much exactly the kind of thing I'm looking at.

As well as that I'm interested in things like basic rates of pay for Indy workers in the UK and places to buy wrestling supplies.

Last of all can anyone think of any famous British wrestlers (all I can think of is Regal) and if they have websites etc?

I know that there's alot of people here who know about this kind of stuff so any info you can give would be helpfull. I'll try and post the project up in the wrestling forum when it's finished, hopefully it'll make an interesting read.

Thanks guys,

Spoony

Jody Fleisch (I know he's retired), Jonny Storm (maybe not totally famous).

Man what was that FWA event called again?

The only one I've seen since is Frontiers of Honor. Well bits of it.

Err yeah *bump*

Doug Williams, Jack Xavier

Frontiers of Honor was the cross-promotion with Ring of Honor, could be what he means.

As for other UK wrestlers, there's Doug Williams, he's had a couple good stints in RoH. Fit Finlay's pretty well known too.

I think he means that one where it was like a tournament. If I remember right Eddie Guerrero and Brian Lawler competed that night.

I think it was Revival.

Famous British wrestlers? Doug Williams would probably be the most well known who is actively working. Dynamite Kid is the biggest all time with a website (no way is he bigger than Davey Boy overall).

Average pay is next to nothing. I know Jody Fleisch, who was one of the biggest names in the British biz, only got £50 for working 3 matches at Revival and Alex Shane was proud of this (what a dickhead but thats another story).

£50? damn.

Tell us the Alex Shane story Rob :(

Okay I'll try to be brief (which means it will probably go on forever :) )

Over on the UK Fan Forum, most of us were complaining about how some UK show was selling it's front row tickets for like £60. Alex Shane (the booker) had the excuse that if you didn't want the £60 tickets then buy cheaper ones and got all defensive, Well I was the first person to openingly speak up about it being daylight robbery. My arguement was we, as fans, are allowed to publically speak up and say if we think it's robbery charging £60 for ringside tickets for a glorified indy show especially since WWE were charging £45 for the same tickets for PPVs. If we work hard for our money, we deserve value for it and I, along with many, didn't think that was value and saying "buy cheaper tickets" was a bullsh</>it excuse because if the ringside tickets aren't value than neither are the cheaper ones (since you get a worse seat).

Anyway, like EVERYONE then spoke up and agreed with my post so Alex Shane got the arsehole and then got another ID and said if I had balls I'd go to Finsbury Park and say that to his face. I found out it was him and bad mouthed him more and said if he, a trained pro wrestler, wanted to fight a fan then I'd go but I was bringing a few of the boys. Needless to say, he never spoke of it again.

Do you mean British Uprising?

And LOL @ Alex Shane challenging Rob to a fight.

Well technically it was whatever monkey name he was posting under. We did get him on Yahoo IM later and my ex girlfriend made him look like a right mug. He uses his real name in chat rooms and calls himself a pro wrestler by the way. She was like "my bf and his brother have heard of you" and he said "oh thanks, I'm glad they are fans" and she said "no, they think you suck" and when he asked to put her on his friends list, she told him to fu</>ck off and get a life. Childish but it was sooooo funny here anyways. :D

Nice. I think Revival was the one I was thinking off. Right...now I need to look into the costs of hiring Jake the Snake, William Regal and the London Arena for one night...any ideas? this project rules!

Can you not make the figures up?

If I wanted to get a cheap first by producing a shoddy project I could.

William Regal is under exclusive WWE contract so that's a no go. Phone London Arena (or whatever they are calling it now) and ask what the rental price is or how you can find out. I'd imagine you could get most UK workers for less than £200. Most big name indy U.S stars would probably demand flights and/or hotels depending on who it was. Right now, I'd say Raven and D-Lo Brown would be the biggest draws for a big show here and they'd probably cost something in the region of $1000 each.

It would be cool booking your own show.

Me and my mate considered doing one a while back but we found it would cost 10 grand roughly just to a show in a 2,000 building (including talent).

Didn't even consider the coffee budget :p

Oh yeah, think of all the no-shows if there was no coffee on offer.

Dude, I'd be the first out the door so I could hardly blame them.

Spon Bender is you want some info on the costs of a msaller sized show (i.e for about 500ish peoppl) i can give you someestimate. PM if your interested

Cheers guys! The arena are being shits about getting back to me. I'll let you know what they say if I get through though.

I thought wrestlers under exclusive contract were allowed to take Indy bookings, but a fee had to be paid to the company owning the contract?

Nope. Only people with announcing contracts are allowed to accept indy dates. That would mean Al Snow, Jerry Lawler and Tazz (although nobody is gonna get Tazz).

London arena is somewhere in the regeon of £30K for one night!!! Ouch! Glad it's only theoretical!

It's pretty sick actually, I worked out that hiring 3 well known American stars to appear would cost about £7,000 including fees, flights and accomodation. I included Regal in the end (I doubt my leturer knows THAT much about WWE contracts) and added an extra 2K to his fee with the assumption that some of it would go to WWE. Having done that I then worked out that I could book about 10 British Indy workers for just over £1,000! Damn those guys need a union!

Yeah I thought it wouldn't be cheap. I guess that's why US Indy feds don't hire MSG and the like.

Do you also have to include your booking card, insurance costs, health and saftey requirements as well?

What other 2 Americans did you pick?

If you were able to get say D'Lo Brown, Raven and Teddy Hart (easy the most over indy star right now) then I think it's feeasble that you could draw 5000 people with the right promotion and building. For any show, you'd need more than 3 Americans though. Possibly exploit Mexico's economy and get 2 stars from there to do a match together.

I think your overpaying the UK workers there mate

I think he means he's getting 10 works for a grand, i.e £100 each.

£100 a piece was it, and that's a generous! I'd feel bad booking talent for that low, but at least it's twice what Shane paid. Still pretty crappy though.

Don't need to give the card, just an overview of the story behind the event.

The other 2 Americans were Raven and D'Lo, I've also factored in having Jake the Snake (though probably in a non wrestling role). Figured he'd cost about half what the others did due to the fact that you don't have to pay for flights and because (I'd hope) he doesn't charge as much per show.
Might add a few quid to get some Mexicans in, trouble is, I'm almost over my 50K limit already and I need to show that the show can break even. Haven't factored in sponsorship yet though.

I'll give you £1 to have my name on Jonny Storms wrestling attire. If you are using Storm.

If you had 50K to run a show, you could easy break even. Hell you should make money in reality. And with a national Wrestling only channel, you could even get TV.

Me and Rob could be announcers.

And we work for coffee.

A mackem and a jockney? Trouble written all over it

"Be quiet Harvey, nobody tuned in to hear what you think"

"....."

Yeah i know and that's loads over what average workers get.

Doug Williams who many regaurd as the best worker in the UK makes around that for UK and he's the cream of the crop and is dam difficult to book right now as it is with his sucess in NOAH.

Spoony, how much were you gonna charge for tickets?

How much does Dave Youell D.I.Y cost per apearance?

Me?

Christ if i can get work i've work for free as long as i get travel costs, but overall my wages have ranged from £5 to £70

I only got £70 cos it was a show in my home town and i got a lot of punters in plus i set up alot of the show

Put Youell in the show Spoon Bender, he's value for money.

Yes, yes he is i agree with Mackem :y:

:y: