The summer has hit full swing. The sun is hotter, the girls are wearing less clothing, school is out, and wrestling…well, that remains to be seen. June is always the transition month, as the summer never really begins for me until my annual visit to the Warped Tour. I believe this works the same way for wrestling. In July, there will be four Revolution Pro shows, a huge MPW show featuring top indy talent Low Ki vs. Super Dragon, XPW’s next showing, which may feature another appearance by the Insane Clown Posse, and others will be running. UPW should be having another outing at the Galaxy as well. For all of these feds, July has to be a key month.
Rev Pro’s most recent shows have been somewhat lackluster. While some of the featured matches have been excellent (Super Dragon and Excalibur gave us a ****1/2 star outing at the beginning of the month), the overall product has not been on par with the product Rev Pro had at the old Rudos Dojo. I think this has been a reason for the drop in attendance at shows. Rev Pro has four chances in July to get their fan base back. Four good shows would give Rev Pro good momentum going into August. Four sloppy shows will make August an uphill battle to keep the company alive. Good luck and godspeed Revolution Pro.
The name of the game for MPW is promotion. Low Ki may be an excellent wrestler, but he is not a draw in the general range of wrestling fans. The key to their success will be making their product seem appealing to the average Rock and Stone Cold fans. As much as people tend to cater to “smart” fans (who I really think are a bunch of cocksuckers anyway), the real money is in the kids who come to boo, cheer and go crazy. Getting those fans in the door will not only get good exposure MPW, but for the talent on the show as well. As for the show itself, MPW should deliver like it always has. While the last show was somewhat disappointing because of the political mumbo-jumbo with Kazarian, it still managed to impress even the hardest of fans to please (those Rev Pro marks don’t give crap rave reviews. For those who don’t believe me, just look back to the Hellkid situation).
XPW needs to get their homegrown talent over. With the Messiah as the new champion, it is possible that we may see more of this. XPW needs to take a good, hard look at their booking department, and shuffle their deck around a bit. They have a lot of perfectly good talent that gets put to waste when they have to carry guys with little to no talent at all. An appearance by ICP should help the company in terms of draw, as ICP has the most dedicated fans of almost any band out there.
At the last UPW show, it became obvious that they realized what they were doing wrong. Running in an uptight, high-maintenance manner only made for shitty environments for guys to wrestle in. The relaxed, fun atmosphere of the other night’s show made everything much more enjoyable. Even though there were some screw ups and technical errors, they did not kill the crowd or take away from the show. With Looney Lane and Cheerleader Melissa both becoming very good wrestlers (not just for women either), a feud between the two would be tremendous. If they can keep running solid matches with the Manilla Thrillaz, Evolution, newcomers the Lost Boys, Adam Pearce, Al Katrazz, Samoa Joe and Mikey Henderson, UPW has the potential to become the most complete fed in Socal. This is provided they don’t fuck the whole thing up, which unfortunately, UPW has been known to do.
Fans, this is the month to check out wrestling here in Socal. With so many shows going on, you will have plenty of chances to see the future of wrestling now. Make sure to check out a show, as you could be a factor in the making or breaking of a federation.