"Territorial war" describes a number of conflicts that have occured in the history of the wrestling business when rival interests have sought to establish their product as the peak of the market in any given region. Is this concept even relevant any more? The business has changed a great deal over the past twenty years.
Under the structure established by the NWA in 1948, each territory had a recognized promoter. In western Canada during the 1960's, for example, that was Cliff Parker (B.C.), Stu Hart (Alberta/Saskatchewan), and Alex Turk (Winnipeg -- as a branch of the Minneapolis/St. Louis wrestling centres). These promoters were regularly trading top names in the business, hosting world champions, and drawing crowds in excess of 2,500 people on a weekly basis. Understandably, when you're doing business at this level, any competitive interest would be cause for concern.
Many of the wrestlers who are breaking into the business today, in 2009 -- let's speculate that their average age is 20 years old. For these guys if they were drawn into the wrestling business in grade school, many were watching the tail end of what has been glamourized as "the Monday Night Wars" between WCW and the WWE. Sounds exicting, right? Two top companies going head to head in a "territorial war" for prime time television ratings. Exciting for fans in the short term, damaging for the business in the long term.
Consider this: At the peak of the war, when WCW was still in the lead, they might be drawing a rating of 7.1 compared to the WWE's 4.6. Do you know what this means? At the height of that war, 11,700,000 fans were tuning in every Monday night to see how one company would pull out the stops to outdo the other. When the "war" was over and WWE pulled ahead, eventually conquering WCW, where are the ratings now? The WWE didn't retain that eleven MILLION people -- the ratings dropped back to 6s and 5s. What happened to that other five million people? Why did they turn their TVs off?
Think about this at an independent level now. First of all, there isn't a single promoter that I am aware of across the whole country that is drawing four figure crowds on a weekly basis, or even monthly. Many promoters are running smaller halls and drawing 300 fans or less on any given night. What this tells me is that there is A LOT of room to grow -- both for the companies that are promoting and the talent that they showcase. "Territorial war" is a dead concept -- nobody controls the market anymore.
As a wrestler at this level, when the topic should arise and I'm talkin' rasslin' with someone outside our business, inevitably when I reveal that I'm a wrestler, they'll ask "Oh, like in the Olympics?" When I tell them, no it's not that style of wrestling, they'll ask "Oh, like the WWE?" To the casual wrestling fan, or to folks that are only peripherally aware of wrestling, there are only two levels of wrestling:
A. WWE, and
B. Not WWE
The general public and the media look at independent wrestling as "wrestling's minor leagues", and are hard pressed to distinguish one promotion from another. They don't know how many circuits are active in one city, let alone the country. These people have no idea how large the wrestling community is or how many men and women are active in this industry across the country. By all means, we should take pride in our product and take advantage of any opportunity to promote our brand, but not at the expense of another promoter's product.
In a November 20, 2000 column in the Winnipeg Sun entitled "Bickering promoters don't help", Don Callis addressed this topic very well:
For as long as I can remember, promoters of all manner of importance have been fighting over wrestling. When Vince McMahon revolutionized the business in the early 80s, taking talent and territories from the old school promoters and breaking up their little feudal system, you could see where a few feathers might get ruffled.
What I don't understand is the ritualistic self-flagellation of the small time promoters who engage in wars of words and otherwise with other similarly disenfranchised wrestling groups. What's it all for?
When I started out for Tony Condello in 1989, all you had to do was mention the name of some other local promoter and Tony would go off on a vitriolic tirade lasting well into the night. Many times I was told that anyone that worked for the other promoters would "never work for us again" - only to see wrestlers move freely from promotion to promotion without fear of censure.
Many promoters want loyalty, but are unwilling to pay for it, being under the delusion that they're running a "territory" and are big time in all ways but payroll. I'm sorry, but loyalty to one promoter, if he is not paying you a salary, does not put food on the table.
That's why I laugh when independent promoters fight among themselves over "business". All you have to do is venture into the depressing world of wrestling message boards on the internet to realize that there are too many people out there with too few brain cells and too much free time. How about this for a message: Go read a book.
Invariably if there are two or three wrestling promotions locally, they are drawing roughly the same 100-200 hardcore fans to all their shows. Instead of fighting over those fans, who will come to the shows anyway, the promoter who gets off the Internet and reads a book would figure out that they should be going after those people that never come to live local shows. If there is any money to be made, that's where it is.
Condello, who is as wise as he is old, once told me: "When you start to believe your own B.S. you're in trouble." Methinks that when small promoters feud like there's millions of dollars at stake, they're falling into the same trap.
Almost all small time promoters promote for the same reason that many of their wrestlers perform; they love the wrestling business. It's an admirable quality, and perhaps if the promoters would simply concentrate on fueling that very enthusiasm instead of engaging in useless feuding over a few shekels, everybody's business would improve.
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This column captured in print what a lot of guys in wrestling locker rooms had discussed for YEARS up to that point, and while Callis was talking primarily about the ridiciulousness of what was happening in Winnipeg at that time (to which the promoters involved paid no heed, believe me), I think that this is something that we see even today. Winnipeg is still the same -- with each promoter paranoid about someone trying to break down their empire. I have recently been engaged in a lively debate about this same topic about the scene in Saskatchewan, I see it in Alberta and yes, sadly, I see it very close to home on the west coast.
A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to catch an ECCW card at Bridgeview Hall. Don't forget, for four years I wrestled for that company, including a 14 month run as ECCW champion, and a later reign as NWA Canadian champion. I wrestled with and/or trained many of the guys that are thrilling audiences there today. Still, while most were cordial, there was still a very strong you vs. us attitude. At least ten guys opened the conversation with "So how's All Star going?" like All Star was a company of my own creation. Most were very cautious about the implications about being seen talking to someone from the "competition" and after a quick hello quickly retreated, others still were less friendly than that.
Vancouver is a city with more than a million people, when you consider all of the various suburbs that comprise the greater Vancouver district. With that great a population base, I fail to see how promoters each drawing only 200 or 300 are stepping on each others' toes, especially with different show formats, almost exlcusive talent rosters, and dramatically different approaches to promotions.
Before one declares "war" on the independent level, consider what that word really means. Is that what any of us really want? Remember the motto "All's fair in love and war". That opens the door to all kinds of nastiness that in the short term might prove to benefit one company or the other. But what are the long term impacts to the business and how it is perceived in the "real" world?
For those of you in the business, spend less time looking over your shoulder wondering what the competitor is doing to make a dollar in the business. Use that energy to focus on building your own brand, build your own customer base, and effectively promote independent wrestling ... and make money.
Vance Nevada