Steve’s View #135 – The Greatest Time to be a Wrestling Fan

It seems over the last decade indy wrestling has really expanded to every corner of Southern California. When SCU first started, Los Angeles and Orange County is where the majority of shows took place, with EWF and IWC being the only ones to run regularly in Riverside/San Bernardino and CCW then WCWA having San Diego. That’s not to say there weren’t the occasional shows in other areas, but there would be seemingly 50 shows in LA/OC for everyone in San Diego, and anything in Imperial County was unheard of.

While there are still plenty of shows in Los Angeles and Orange County, it’s nice to see four promotions running regularly in San Diego, regular shows in Imperial County, shows in the high desert area, Vendetta Pro still going strong in Santa Maria and a Cen-Cal Pro running in San Luis Obispo. No matter where you are in SoCal you don’t have to drive far to check out indy wrestling, which can do nothing but build more fans.

In the past there seemed to be a lot of fights between promotions as well, which is pretty silly. Not to say that there aren’t issues today, but I think most promoters have realized that another strong promotion in their area helps them rather than hurts them. No promotion is running every week. Having another promotion in your area isn’t going to steal your fans, those fans are more likely to go to both shows, and the fans the other promotion created are likely to go to your show. The only time there is any negative effect is when two shows in an area run on the same night, even then if the shows target audience is different enough, the effect is negligible.

This is a great time to be a wrestling fan. With indy wrestling hitting new levels of popularity it is easier than ever to get to a local show. There is wrestling on TV every week night. Things like the WWE network, New Japan’s app, Fite TV, and especially YouTube making accessing wrestling easier than ever. Overall wrestling may not have the popularity it did in the late 1990s, but for a wrestling fan there has never been a better time in history.

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Not only is wrestling more accessible, at least locally it seems to be a boom period for talent, at least locally. I’ve mentioned it before where I’ve said that right now feels like the early 2000s when you had wrestlers like B-Boy, Samoa Joe, TJ Perkins, Rocky Romero, Lil’ Cholo, Frankie Kazarian, Joey Ryan etc. starting out or really coming into their own locally. Over the last few years we’ve had wrestlers like Eli Everfly, Mike Camden, Danny Limelight, Anthony Idol, Douglas James, Ju Dizz, Thunder Rosa, Archimedes, and D’Marco Wilson among others hitting the scene. I don’t think there has been a period with so much good talent appearing at one time since probably 2000-2003. Now its not fair to compare this generation to the older one, as no one knows what will happen, but the potential is there.

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FCW announced that B-Boy would be facing Douglas James at the next FCW show on June 18th. It goes without saying that this match has the potential to be great, but I want to focus on something else. When B-Boy was coming up there were a lot of wrestlers who were veterans, pretty much in the role B-Boy is in now, that would not have wrestled this match. I know there are guys who wouldn’t wrestle B-Boy back then as they were worried about helping to build someone up who is going to take a payday from them or worried that they might have a bad match and hurting their reputation. I give B-Boy a lot of credit as he has always been willing to work against pretty much anyone and actually wants to help build other wrestlers up. Originally the match was scheduled to be B-Boy versus Scorpio Sky, which would have had match of the year potential going in. When Scorpio Sky informed FCW he couldn’t make it, B-Boy could have had his choice of opponents, and FCW would have brought someone in to replace Sky, but he asked for Douglas James. I’m by no means saying B-Boy is the only wrestler who will work up and coming guys, but he has done it regularly over the years.

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Speaking of FCW, they should give Thunder Rosa and Holidead a raise. They both did an awesome job of promoting their match and the show through social media by building their feud through videos.

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I’m really looking forward to EWF’s 20th anniversary show this Friday night.  I can’t wait to see Frankie Kazarian and Scorpio Sky renew their feud, but I think Adrian Quest versus Rocky Romero is going to steal the show. SCU will have live results and reports from the show both on the site and on Twitter @socaluncensored.

I’m also looking forward to seeing some people I’ have seen in a long time at the show, and the fan get together afterwards.  If you are interested in going to the fan get together afterwards it will be at Norms at 501 N. Azusa Ave in West Covina. More info is on the message boards.

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This is the first time I’ve written a Steve’s View in a little over twelve years. I wasn’t planning on bringing it back, but I had a few things that I really couldn’t fill out an entire column with and with Jay Cal stopping his column, I figured why not. I may occasionally have a new one, but only when I have stuff that can’t fill its own column. I’m currently working on a few historical pieces. The first is an article on the Fabulous Kangaroos that I should have up in a few weeks.

This week’s shows:

5/5: