Hello and welcome to another edition of The Final Cut. It has been a while since I did the regular column thing but here we are and I’m slowly starting to get back into the swing of things, and what better way than a good old fashioned rant just like the old days!
The one thing that really irks me about the professional wrestling business is when a promoter blames everybody around them for their own faults, mistakes and errors and refuses point blank to stand up and admit that they messed up and should take some of the blame.
Step forward Mr. Len Davis, promoter of Real Quality Wrestling.
I had never heard of Len Davis before he launched his Real Quality Wrestling promotion here on the rainy shores of the United kingdom, but I have been informed that his company, Spectrum Multimedia, did a lot of taping for various other wrestling promotions up and down the country and in some countries in Europe.
Before Len Davis started promoting shows at the prestigious York Hall building in Bethnal Green, a venue that is synonymous with not only professional wrestling but boxing (it is considered one of the premier boxing venues in the country), he promoted in towns such as Bognor Regis, Brighton, Chelmsford, Clacton, Eastleigh, Hampshire, Horndean, Waltham Abbey and many other areas all in the space of about a year.
Now any sane person would immediately sit up and question as to why a wrestling promotion that was looking to run regular shows in one place would have moved around so much in such a short space of time, apart from me nobody has.
When Real Quality Wrestling moved to York Hall, a venue I should point out that is very easy to get to and is within spitting distance from not only at least SIX main bus routes but also TWO main train stations, they announced monthly shows and a TV deal with The Wrestling Channel, things were looking up for the wrestling fans of London and British wrestling as a whole.
Fast forward to June 2007.
The details for their June 2007 show were promptly removed from their official web site and replaced with “TBC = To Be Confirmed”, this got many wrestling fans on the Internet guessing about whether Real Quality Wrestling were ceasing business or not. they did eventually release a press release revealing that they would be leaving York Hall and moving to the outskirts of London to Colchester.
Why are they leaving York Hall?
Len Davis has publicly claimed that Real Quality Wrestling were forced to leave York Hall because the area was bad for pulling in the wrestling fans and he was losing money hand over fist by having very low attendances.
Bethnal Green, and London as a whole, is a hotbed for wrestling, always has been and always will be. It is very easy to get to for fans outside the town with three train stations and about twelve buses all going into the heart of the town. York Hall is not hidden away in some backstreet either, it is right out on the main road with giant red lettering for all to see.
The reason Real Quality Wrestling failed there was because they did not advertise the shows correctly, plain and simple. If you put on a wrestling show and you only tell a handful of people on the Internet and do not advertise the show in the actual town you are promoting then how do you expect it to be a success?
In the time Real Quality Wrestling promoted at York Hall I only saw one advert in only one of the local newspapers (we have several), only one banner which was constantly ripped down and the lettering faded from it so nobody knew what it was about, and maybe one poster. That is simply not good enough.
We have plenty of supermarkets in Bethnal Green and surrounding areas, how hard would it be to stand outside one on a Saturday morning and hand out some flyers to the kids with their parents? How much hassle is it to ask the pubs and shops around the town to put up a poster or leave some flyers? Obviously it is too hard for Real Quality Wrestling because they never did any of it!
Len Davis blamed York Hall and its staff for not doing their best to help promote the shows, he blamed the fans in the town for not coming out, he blamed the Internet for not turning up, he basically blamed everybody he could think of so that he could remove the blame from himself.
After speaking to several people who live in the vicinity of the Colchester Arts Centre, the venue that is housing the next Real Quality Wrestling show, I have been informed that Len Davis seems to have learned absolutely nothing from his lessons at York Hall.
So when he fails at the Colchester Arts Centre and decides to move on to another area of the UK I wonder if he will still blame everyone around him, just like he did at York Hall?
I do appreciate what Len Davis did by attempting to run monthly wrestling shows at York Hall, some of them even had running story lines and very good matches, but he really did shoot himself in the foot when he failed to take the time to advertise and promote the upcoming shows.
Ask any serious wrestling promoter and they will happily tell you that the three most important words to putting on a wrestling show are advertise, advertise & advertise.
Until next time.
Why not check out my blog over at www.deansaliba.com, you can also read my old articles and interviews which are posted up there.
