[Paully54]

This question is directly related to the UWD "promotion" and their "wrestlers".

Scenario:

You get 10 new students at once at your school. You know, before you start training them, that they are backyard wrestlers and have plans to run a show in a real venue and charge for tickets before they are even close to "fully" trained.

Question:

Do you still train them?

Also, if you do still train them, do you encourage them to run their own shows to gain more experience?

Or do you let them do whatever they want as long as they still pay you for training?

[MAV]

Paully54 wrote:

This question is directly related to the UWD "promotion" and their "wrestlers". Scenario: You get 10 new students at once at your school. You know, before you start training them, that they are backyard wrestlers and have plans to run a show in a real venue and charge for tickets before they are even close to "fully" trained. Question: Do you still train them? Also, if you do still train them, do you encourage them to run their own shows to gain more experience? Or do you let them do whatever they want as long as they still pay you for training?

I reserve the right to not train anyone...and have turned people away. It's one of the reasons I always tell people I run a gym and not a wrestling school. It's a mental thing; if I ran a school, I would feel obligated to take in everybody.

As to the backyard thing; I train people based on what I feel are their individual merits. I tend to look more to intelligence and a good attitude, as those are the types of guys that when they work for other promoters represent you better. Whether or not they played in the back yard wouldn't matter to me. Shit, if I looked around my house I could probably find a tape of me and my buddies pretending to be pro wrestlers on an old platform with ropes I built when I was 14.

Would I encourage them to run shows? No. What I would more than likely do is encourage them to use some guys on the show who can help organize and make it a better show. Again...I train people based on if I like their attitude and how clever/smart I think they are. Unless my judgement is off (which of course has happened before), they are probably going to figure out what they need to do to run a good show.

[Paully54]

Thanks for the reply.

Follow up question:

How do you/they decide when they are ready to wrestle on shows? Must you give them the OK to start taking bookngs?

[MAV]

Paully54 wrote:

Thanks for the reply. Follow up question: How do you/they decide when they are ready to wrestle on shows? Must you give them the OK to start taking bookngs?

I make recomendations to other promoters to use them, and that usually gets the ball rolling. If they ask me...I tell them if they are ready or not in my opinion. To me, there is a big difference between taking a trainee and having a match with him with an older guy he's familiar with who is, frankly, going to babysit him a little and sending them carefree into the wind to work with God knows who. That's not fair to other promoters or the trainee either. You owe it to all concerned to be honest.

Mav

[GrayGhost]

This is an excellent thread. Paully, keep the questions coming.

[aaron]

Ok, Paulie, let's cut to the chase here. First of all, I am posting under my real name, Aaron Morrison. As most people know, I am the guy doing the training for the UWD guys. I have never hidden from that fact. If you have a question for me or my decisions pertaining to UWD, be a grown up and ask me. Using your real name. To hopefully answer some of your questions, as a trainer, I only have so much influence over what the guys do. They were running their own shows before I came aboard. As a guy with a lot of experience both as a performer and a trainer, I can only offer my opinions for the running of their shows. Knowing they are going to run regardless of my participation (or lack thereof), I felt it would be a good thing to teach them to wrestle in a manner which would make them able to protect themselves. And they pay me a lot of money to train them. As anyone involved in training aspiring wrestlers can attest, it is not a very lucrative source of income, so to have a bunch of guys that are actually paying what they agreed to is a nice change. If you have a problem with what i'm doing, like I said, talk to me in person. I'm not hard to find. And if you want, come to a training session and see what I put these kids through. It's not playtime. I expect full effort, and those who don't give it get to sit out for the day. Question me all you want. Just be man enough to do it face to face.

[Paully54]

Aaron, I was just curious as to the practices of trainers in general. I was trying to find out what constitutes a "fully trained" wrestler who would be allowed to work on shows. I did not think it was common practice for a trainer to allow one or many of his students who are not fully trained to wrestle on shows no matter who runs the show. However, if they are paying you enough so that you do not care what they do outside of your traning, then it is very understandable. I just thought that most trainers would not train a person if he or she was going to go off and do his or her own thing. But as I said, money is money. If I were in your position, I would probably take the money, show them a few moves, and send them off on their own as well.

[hatorade]

personal opinion: if you haven't been fully trained, by a legitimate trainer or atleast a worker for years, you shouldn't be allowed in a wrestling ring

[Del Toro]

The old argument of "If you haven't been trained, you shouldn't be in a ring" unfortunately just doesn't hold water anymore.

Personally, I agree that if you're not properly trained, then you have no business stepping into a wrestling ring, but in this day and age "backyarders" have the resources available to them to run their own shows.

I think people are unfairly targeting the UWD. These guys are like alot of people who started in the backyard and had a choice to make and they made the right choice. They went out and got a very well respected guy(Aaron Morrison) to train them. We were all young and stupid at some point in our lives and so were they, but they did what most "backyard" guys DON'T do, they seeked out training the right way.

If you're going to point fingers at guys that make this business look bad, then I'd point them at the people who flat out refuse to get decent training.
Buying kick pads and stealing spots from ROH doesn't make you a professional wrestler...

[Michael_R_Giusti]

Del Toro wrote:

I think people are unfairly targeting the UWD.

Well to be fair, wasn't there another semi-backyard promotion out of Nashua? WAW or something? I'm sure there are 10 others around New England. But these kids are the only ones posting on here it seems.

[aaron]

Ok, Paully, more clarification here. It's not just about the money. I'm not gonna lie and say the money isn't a factor here. It is. The training is an on-going process. I didn't just "show them a few moves and send them out there", as seems to be the general consensus. I can teach all the moves and ring psychology in the world at the training facility, but the guys still need to put it to use. It was the late, great Chris Candido who told me that you need to work to put that stuff together. As I have stated in the past, it is a work in progress. Some of the guys are further along then others. But the simple fact is, they are running shows, and if I can make them better by teaching the guys how to wrestle, I will. I don't agree with everything that happens, and there is still a lot for me to teach, which is the main reason i'm selective about who I bring to other shows. But as I have stated many times, my training sessions, whether UWD or at Landry's school, can be visited and observed. And to address Mr Guisti, who makes the decision on who can promote their shows here? By your own admission, you got into the business the same exact way. And quite simply, these guys have a very sound business plan. Build slowly, making constant improvement on the product. If it rubs you the wrong way, don't read their posts, and don't attend the show.

[Michael_R_Giusti]

aaron wrote:

And to address Mr Guisti, who makes the decision on who can promote their shows here? By your own admission, you got into the business the same exact way. And quite simply, these guys have a very sound business plan. Build slowly, making constant improvement on the product. If it rubs you the wrong way, don't read their posts, and don't attend the show.

No argument here my man. Part of my motivation for chiming in was, well, the teenager attitude. God I hate that rebellious stuff. Though I am pretty sure in this whole discussion I communicated that I support their endeavor, and advocate growth. Except just not at the admission prices they have. If they leave it as is, hey such is life. Personally if I knew more about a couple of them, I'd be prone to invite them to a show.

Otherwise... (addressing everyone now) I've been seeing that whole "if you don't like it, don't read it" lately. But I mean... it's a discussion forum. This is where talking is supposed to take place, right?

[aaron]

Ok, Mike, I can see your point about the teen-ager stuff. It pisses me off when guys associated with UWD do that, and I have asked them to lay off of that for a while. Normally, I might be inclined to agree with you about the cost of tickets for the show, but as has been stated in the past, people pay it. Just last weekend, I attended the 80's wrestling show in West Springfield, and the cost for that was $12. Most indy shows are charging around that amount, so to me, it isn't that unreasonable. Whether those of you who have been around for a while agree with it is another discussion. Simple fact is, these guys are trying to run a regular show, and they want to improve as they go along. I'm simply a hired gun brought in to help with the wrestling side of things. And Mike, this is not directed to you, but to the people who are obviously trying to question my integrity, no matter how masked the questions may be, at least be adult enough to question me face to face. I'm not that difficult to find.

[Paully54]

Aaron:

Whether or not they still backyard or not, I don't think it changes the biggest topic here. Do you think it is right for these partially-trained students to be running their own shows? How is that not bad for the wrestling business?

[Michael_R_Giusti]

Fair enough, brother.

[Slamtech]

Sorry to be late to the party:

Actually, Johnny Royal and I went through this scenario when we started training the gang at EWA (not the Heresy one, another one) in 2000. We took about 20 of them and started training them. That dwindled very quickly to about 10 and then 6-8.

They ran a couple of shows while they were training with me. But the environment we had created with us trying to be professional weeded out the pretenders from the wrestlers-to-be.

Did I encourage them to run their own shows? No. But they would have run them anyway. I also didn't stand back and say "Fantastic job, guys" at everything they did. They were under clear supervision by myself and Mr. Royal and did a great job listening to me. Even the "superstars" who wanted to do their own thing realized it was better to listen to us than end up injured.

I think that lasted 3-4 months and then I insisted that everyone had to be training at a legitimate school to wrestle with EWA.

Now I have my own school/promotion, so it's easier to make the decision who's ready and who's not. Hope that answers your question.

Bob

[Paully54]

thanks Bob, very informative. I had always wondered about new recruits.

[MAV]

Paully54 wrote:

Aaron: Whether or not they still backyard or not, I don't think it changes the biggest topic here. Do you think it is right for these partially-trained students to be running their own shows? How is that not bad for the wrestling business?

1) So long as they aren't doing completely stupid things...I've never been overly concerned about some kid playing in the back yard pretending to be a wrestler. Is it dangerous? Yes...and so are a lot of other things kids do. Some of these youngins and their skateboarding hijinks seem a lot more life threatening than most shit I see them do playing Raven/Tommy Dreamer next to the pool.

Kids are always going to be kids. Life does not come with a roll bar and/or seat belt. What pisses me off is there are plenty of tapes out there with kids smashing each other with light bulbs, chairs, etc...WHILE THE PARENTS ARE WATCHING.

2) Running "shows" in the backyard or as the WAW does, up in a gym in Manchester, NH...so long as they don't promote themselves as pros-there's not really much I could do to stop them in the first place. Again...I think it's stupid, but they have the right to do it so long as they don't promote their show as "professional". That's when they reflect on what I do in a negative light. If someone goes to watch what is supposed to be a "pro" show at an American Legion featuring under aged, untrained "wrestlers", and I come in 3 months later with the same label-Pro Wrestling-that reflects badly on me.

3) Knowing full well that the UWD guys are going to keep running shows with whatever training (or lack thereof) they have...Aaron Morrison may as well try to teach them some stuff that keeps them from killing each other, and perhaps even improve them to the point that when other promotions come into the area-promotions that Aaron will likely work for-don't suffer from the item #2 comparison.

As for people who can train them...they couldn't do much better than Aaron, who is a very overlooked worker who unbeknownst to many has helped train probably dozens of wrestlers out of the Springfield/Western Mass area. The guy genuinely CARES about the guys he's helping train...which is a damnsight more than a lot of "trainers" can legitimately claim.

Mav

[DanBarry]

IMO, If they attempted to run their own show, the would be let go from the school.
Having a bunch of kids attempt their own show with absolutely minimal knowledge of wrestling in general is ridiculous. All it will lead to is partially trained people being hurt.

[Michael_R_Giusti]

MAV wrote:

2) Running "shows" in the backyard or as the WAW does, up in a gym in Manchester, NH...so long as they don't promote themselves as pros-there's not really much I could do to stop them in the first place. Again...I think it's stupid, but they have the right to do it so long as they don't promote their show as "professional". That's when they reflect on what I do in a negative light. If someone goes to watch what is supposed to be a "pro" show at an American Legion featuring under aged, untrained "wrestlers", and I come in 3 months later with the same label-Pro Wrestling-that reflects badly on me.

Not adding more, just wanted to second that point. Here here.

[maddogms]

MAV wrote:

As for people who can train them...they couldn't do much better than Aaron, who is a very overlooked worker who unbeknownst to many has helped train probably dozens of wrestlers out of the Springfield/Western Mass area. The guy genuinely CARES about the guys he's helping train...which is a damnsight more than a lot of "trainers" can legitimately claim. Mav

Just seconding Mav's opinion on Aaron and his skills as a very qualified trainer, plus he's a great guy.

[enforcer]

DanBarry wrote:

IMO, If they attempted to run their own show, the would be let go from the school. Having a bunch of kids attempt their own show with absolutely minimal knowledge of wrestling in general is ridiculous. All it will lead to is partially trained people being hurt.

What he said.

[aaron]

Ok, Paully, here is hopefully some more clarification. I am a person who was hired to train some guys in the art of proffessional wrestling. My opinion on whether the UWD running shows is right or wrong is not the issue. It is obviously something that bothers you, so by the thinly veiled attacks to my integrity,i am led to believe you are either a wrestler yourself, or someone who is/was in training. The fact is, I work hard training these guys, they work hard learning. Making the decision as to what a "fully trained" wrestler is is an impossibility. No one stops learning until they stop wrestling. It's not my decision whether they run shows or not. Fact is, I don't agree with everything that is done. But I don't agree with some of the things that Bob Evans, Maverick Wylde, Dr. Heresy, or Sheldon Goldberg do, and in my opinion, those are the best indy promoters around, and people who I respect tremendously. I care about wrestling, which is why I agreed to train these guys. They did not show up at Landry's school, as you falsely implied. They approached me with an offer, I weighed the money, time commitment, and took into consideration that they would be running shows with or without me training them. If I can help make them better wrestlers, thus protecting the business, then I don't think I made the wrong decision.

[Paully54]

aaron wrote:

My opinion on whether the UWD running shows is right or wrong is not the issue.

I think that is the issue. Its a slap in the face to real wrestlers and real promotions in my opinion.

[El Kabong]

Vote for Paully54 in '08

Train or stay the fuck out of the ring.