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13 Wrestling Culture and Money: A Look with Mark McDowell
234 Plays2 years ago
This episode of Dial It In features Mark the Mad Dog McDowell, half of the American Bulldogs tag team and co-owner of 3X Wrestling in Des Moines, Iowa. Mark talks about how he started his career in wrestling - from watching Bulldog Rob Brown with his grandfather to researching training camps and attending shows. He then explains the training process, which he compares to high school, as well as how wrestling is not "fake" but a form of on-the-job training.
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Dial It In Podcast is where we gathered our favorite people together to share their advice on how to drive revenue, through storytelling and without the boring sales jargon. Our primary focus is marketing and sales for manufacturing and B2B service businesses, but we’ll cover topics across the entire spectrum of business. This isn’t a deep, naval-gazing show… we like to have lively chats that are fun, and full of useful insights. Brought to you by BizzyWeb.
Links:
Website: dialitinpodcast.com
BizzyWeb site: bizzyweb.com
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Dial It In'
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to Dial It In, a podcast where we talk with interesting people about the process improvements and tricks they use to grow their businesses. I'm Dave Meyer, president of BusyWeb, and every week, Trigby Olsen and I are bringing you interviews on how the best in their fields are dialing it in for their organizations.
Defining Success: Happiness vs. Money
00:00:24
Speaker
One of the real treats of this job, Dave, I think that you and I get to experience all the time is that there's a million different ways to make a living in this world.
00:00:35
Speaker
One of the things that I've always thought is the people who are really successful, they're not always the ones that make the most money, but they are the most happiest because they've gone after something that they're really passionate about.
00:00:47
Speaker
Would you agree with that? I would agree 100%. So I thought, you know, we should really spend a little time blowing that out a little.
Meet Mark 'Mad Dog' McDowell
00:00:54
Speaker
Our guest today is somebody who's certainly entirely passionate about his business. He actually has a day job as he works for an envelope manufacturer, but his non-day job, he runs around in tights and he is known in a number of different ways. I know him as Mad Dog.
00:01:15
Speaker
He's one half of the American Bulldogs tag team, and he is a co-owner of 3X Wrestling in Des Moines, Iowa. Please meet my friend, Mark the Mad Dog McDowell. Hey, Mark. Nice to meet you. Hello, everybody. Nice to be here. Thanks for joining us, Mark. I've known Mark for a long, long time and Mark is
00:01:41
Speaker
Really one of the good ones who is not only a professional wrestler, but he's a promoter. He's an owner and wrestling is a world unto itself in terms of culture and in terms of money. So I think Mark is uniquely equipped to kind of help us look at something that's completely new to a lot of people. So Mark, let's start with this. How did you get into becoming a professional wrestler?
Mark's Wrestling Inspiration
00:02:09
Speaker
I'll start way back when watching the TV with my grandpa, I was watching cartoons and then all of a sudden he switched to all-star wrestling, which was based out of the central States and the Minnesota and Iowa and Missouri and kids city area. And I was like, I was all mad cause I want to watch cartoons. And then, and then I saw bulldog, Bob Brown come out yelling at some little ladies and they're throwing cans of
00:02:35
Speaker
Food or whatever Adam and then from then on I was just hooked with the pageantry of it all and stuff So as far as me getting into the actual wrestling world, I believe I was stationed in leadsville, Louisiana at Fort Polk at the time and The tough enough series on MTV had come out So you always you know, everybody knew about pro wrestling, but unless you actually knew somebody never really thought about how to actually get into the business
00:03:03
Speaker
So I kind of opened up a whole world for me thinking of how to get into it. So I start, you know, internet was still fairly wasn't new, but browsing and stuff was fairly new to everybody in the early 2000, late 90s. So I started looking up training camps and whatnot. Yeah, I found a blood throne from one over in California and some over in Atlanta and even some here in Iowa.
00:03:29
Speaker
the quality better than others. I think in Iowa, I saw they were training some basement and they're wrestling in bowling alleys in Marshalltown, Iowa with no ring in sight. So I was like, I don't think that's the path I really wanted to go down. So as I was getting closer to the end of my enlistment time in the, in the army, I decided I was either going to go to the power plant or another place in Atlanta or go back to
00:03:54
Speaker
Upright University and get my degree which ultimately I figure was the best idea to do and finish out playing football and track and all that stuff. So in 2005 I graduated and I went back to Des Moines and started working and stuff. As an athlete you're used to a certain regiment of food and working out and all that. So I started getting fat. So I figured I needed to start doing something again.
00:04:21
Speaker
So I started looking out and I found a little promotion called three X wrestling and it just started out and I looked online and everything looked like professional and everything and nice, nice show. So I finally caught one and I was pleasantly surprised to how, how, how good it was actually. And it just the involvement in the more intimate feeling to it than going to a bigger show in an auditorium.
The Theatrics and Risks of Wrestling
00:04:48
Speaker
I tracked down their trainer and asked him about it and it took me about three or four shows and I finally got into a ring with them and I guess the rest is history, so to speak. So I trained for roughly six months or so and then I started getting into battle royals and then they started getting me more involved into the other wrestling matches and stuff and kind of worked my way from there.
00:05:11
Speaker
The training itself is kind of like high school. And then once you're out here, you kind of have to figure out what you want to do and latch on to certain wrestlers and their styles. And it's kind of like on the job training from then on out. So I think the first question that everybody who doesn't know about it is sort of the cliche question of, well, wrestling's fake, right? And it's not. What would you say is a better way to describe it?
00:05:39
Speaker
Every time I get asked that question, it says you can't fake gravity. Everything you see for the most part is real, but there is a little bit of smoke and mirrors, obviously. But really the only thing that you might consider fake is maybe some of the punches and kicks, but some of those punches and kicks get away from you too and they turn real pretty quick.
00:06:05
Speaker
I like to think of it as improv theater or action theater. It's all a big show. Nobody comes and tells you that Tony Stark and Thor and Iron Man, all of them are fake. Everybody knows it's a show. But the athleticism and the dangers in that ring are fairly real. So what are some of the injuries that you've gotten over the years? Because you're in 15 years.
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'm pretty fortunate as far as injuries. I think the worst thing I had was a toward pectorial, but I happened in the gym, but I had to wrestle in the ring with that as well. A partial tear in my back. Other than that, just, uh, things and bruises and stuff, you know, but I, I've seen some pretty bad ones as far as dislocation of ankles and hyper extensions of link, uh, ligaments and joints and all that stuff. So it.
00:06:56
Speaker
I think the scariest one, somebody did this ridiculous move on a wrestling, on a boxing ring that really has no gift to it. And, uh, basically a piledriver to your neck is what it was. And that kid had carried out an ambulance and thankfully, thankfully everything turned out right. He was okay, but that was probably the scariest one I see.
00:07:16
Speaker
Wow. That would be terribly scary. I would imagine that a lot of this in order to create the maximum drama and I absolutely can't fake gravity, but you can make it look really cool. How much time do you need to spend to bring out the pageantry? Do you practice together? The show isn't the only time you see each other in the ring, right?
00:07:46
Speaker
Um, yeah, that is true actually. Cause a lot of these guys were all over the Midwest and further out. So sometimes you don't see anybody until you actually see them in the ring. Um, when you're training, you're basically, you know, how to, you're going to fall three ways. You're going to fall on your back, fall on your face, or you're going to flip over and then you're gonna follow your back. So there's really only three ways that you're going to end up falling. So it's a matter of getting that into a muscle memory.
00:08:15
Speaker
and the feel of things to make sure that you're safe and your opponent is safe.
Improvisation and Trust in Wrestling
00:08:21
Speaker
Sure. I think the wildest situation when I was wrestling down in Kentucky somewhere and we were brought in and it was completely old school where the good guys were in their own separate locker room and the bad guys were in their own separate locker room. I didn't see these guys until I actually met in the ring and it was even more wild because the top face and the top bad guy were on the same team
00:08:44
Speaker
And we were facing them. It was totally wild. But like I said, yeah, you got it. A lot of it's based on feel and a lot of it's based on, you know, what you do. And you just kind of, they know what they do. So we just kind of do it. That makes sense. Absolutely. Can you explain what calling it the ring means? Basically what I just said, but it's a lot of it's based on feel. There are some.
00:09:13
Speaker
some maneuvers or string of maneuvers that everybody kind of knows. It could be called the international spot, the universal spot of that nature. And you kind of go on that. But after a while, it's just, you kind of listen, it's very much a dance partner. You kind of listen to what they say. And a lot of it's based on feel and you just kind of do accordingly what's going on in the ring.
00:09:40
Speaker
And if you're good at it, the most important thing for you is safety of the other person. Right. Got
Transition to Co-Owner and Promoter
00:09:50
Speaker
it. So how did you go from being a wrestler to being one of the owners? I was probably two or three years in and from the get-go, I noticed like their posters were okay, but it was very much MS Word type of thing. And I graduated with an MIS degree and then
00:10:09
Speaker
last six months of school I didn't want to graduate early so I just picked up graphic design real quick. So I figured there was a spot I saw that needed help so I offered that help so I started doing their posters and their graphic work which turned into their web design work and all that stuff so I wasn't part of a lot of booking decisions and stuff but I was very well integrated within the group. So one of the original owners had
00:10:37
Speaker
Got to a point where he was busy with home life in his career. And so he decided to sell to another guy. And then, uh, it kind of worked out that way. And then there was another guy that was in, he was a ring announcer. He moved to Wisconsin. So his shares needed to be sold.
00:10:55
Speaker
So I bought his shares and just kind of continued to do what I was doing. It got more involved into the marketing aspect as well, and trying to get that to blossom. So to get the word out, that's about a year or three or four that I got involved in. Then it just blossoms were there. I got more involved into the booking and the business and getting the venues and.
00:11:18
Speaker
in the ring crews, the logistics put together and the production values and all that stuff. So I just kind of got in where I fit in and let it blossom from there.
Logistics of Wrestling Shows
00:11:28
Speaker
What all goes into a show? That's a wide open question, so I want to lead you through it a little because you can't just decide you're going to have a you're going to have a pro wrestling show. You're going to need a ring, right? Great. Do you guys have one? Yeah, do you guys have your own ring?
00:11:48
Speaker
We do. We're pretty fortunate. We're pretty all inclusive where we can handle pretty much every aspect that we need to. A lot of promotions aren't that lucky. And a lot of times it's a one-man show, which seems crazy to me just because he takes a whole village to put one of these shows together. So tell us a little bit more about that. What all goes into behind the scenes, just getting ready for a show?
00:12:19
Speaker
So I think the first part of it is you have your booking and talent aspect and a lot of it's dictated my money, I suppose, and reputation. We were lucky that we were able to build a network that involved pretty much the entire Midwest area and beyond and grew our reputation as being professional and whatnot.
00:12:42
Speaker
So you build those networks and you try to get groups of cars together, you know, four or five people from one area, and you have your local people as well. You can try to integrate that as best as possible, dictating on what type of show you're putting on. If you're getting a paid show, maybe you have a little bit more money so you're able to reach out a little further. Or if you got like a local show that doesn't have a big budget, so you kind of depend on
00:13:08
Speaker
the local guys as much as possible or the trainees that you might have available to you. So once you get that together, then you have to look at your logistics and equipment as far as your ring, your sound equipment. If you have production equipment and the recording of all that put together and that leads into different, that would go into number three would be your support talent.
00:13:33
Speaker
Which you have your referees, your ring announcer, your bell keeper, your, if you're, if you're recording it, your commentators, and then your ring crew to put it all together. I mean, there's quite a lot of components to that ring and it's all heavy and cumbersome and whatnot, and try and figure out the logistics of getting it there as long as everything else. And that's, that's building set up. Right. Building set up. Yeah.
00:14:02
Speaker
promote the matches. Wow. And then you book a group of talent, let's say on any card, a card is, is what, eight to 10 matches overnight overnight. Um, that's pretty long. We're closer to six, six to eight, eight on the heavier side, but there's definitely shows are 10 to 13 and then you're an hour or three or four and the audience is tired. Wow. People are starting to leave.
00:14:29
Speaker
or WrestleMania, which is like a nine day thing now. Two days. Yeah. So and typically what I you try and do also is you try and get a really big name person just to sort of bring folks in, right? Yeah, especially initially, like we
Crafting Stories in Wrestling
00:14:48
Speaker
just started our shows back up after the pandemic. We brought in the Hall of Famers Ricky Morton and Swacker Luke just to kind of draw the interest of maybe people that aren't die hard.
00:14:59
Speaker
fans in the area and try to get them to come as well. But you have to put on a solid show to get these people to come back and try to give them a hook. At the end of the show to get them to come back and be interested in following your product and continue to follow it.
00:15:16
Speaker
So for those who haven't experienced a pro wrestling locker room, and I think you mentioned this a little earlier when Dave asked you about, you know, setting up the match ahead of time, how exactly does that go down? Cause these guys may have, may or may not know each other, but they're expected to go out and tell a story about how they really hate each other and they really want to kick the crap out of each other. So what goes into that? Honestly, as your Booker,
00:15:42
Speaker
in promoter you got different angles that you want to set up sometimes maybe it's just one show or maybe it's three or four shows and string that together but as far as a normal everyday match comes in you get a couple guys together and sometimes it's based on who's available and you think you put the best match out or sometimes there's a little bit more thought involved into it that you think for those bigger angles but for the most part there's obviously a
00:16:13
Speaker
As the greener you are, the more out that you are to try to, to line up everything and dictate the whole match from start to finish. As you get older or more experienced, you really kind of figure out the beginning and the end. And then like I said, you know what you do and those guys know what they do. So you just kind of do that and then tie it back in together into the two, into an ending for that. So.
00:16:38
Speaker
For sure. A lot of it's, a lot of it's improv. I'd say probably 80% of it with 10% being the front and 10% being the ending way you would kind of plan out. But you hear about guys like Macho Man, who obviously is a very much legendary veteran. And I think they say he used to have a journal and he would script out the whole entire match.
00:17:01
Speaker
Wow. Like Dave, Randy Savage. Yep. Yep. I know. Okay. All right. Just guys like Rick flair and Ricky steamboat that wrestled seven days a week or eight days a week, eight times a week doing the same match, but in different territories. So you just have that magic green in the back of your head and you just kind of go through it, you know, but we often find that if you get tied to a certain
00:17:30
Speaker
not in the match than a lot of greener guys. That doesn't happen, which is guaranteed. Not guaranteed to happen at some point. And then they might freeze up or something like that and try to figure out what to do next and tie it back, get back on track. Right. And you mentioned you have a beginning and an end. And usually the beginning, I would imagine, sets the story. I see from your page that you have two classic finishing moves. Do you make sure to always get those in there for the dog pound and the rabies shot?
00:18:00
Speaker
He tried to, but I don't want to dictate my match or the story that we're telling. Sure. Can you explain what those questions are? The doc is basically a double hanging choke move that transitions into a spinning spine buster. Oh yeah. And then the, my classic move, the rabies shot is basically a belly to back suplex.
00:18:24
Speaker
which I transition and roll over into like a rock bottom. Oh my God. Yeah. That sounds like very many people kick out of that. Yeah. So for those who don't know what it is you just said, you're basically throwing a guy down or jumping on top of him, right?
00:18:43
Speaker
Well, yeah. So, and you're not a small man by any stretch. So when we talk about the difference between fake and versus stage, you're throwing a guy down at six, three, two 90, and then you're falling on top of him. There's, there's no way to make that. No, I remember, uh, I gave my trainer that move for the first time and he's like, yeah, that's pretty bad. There really is a finisher.
00:19:10
Speaker
Nice. So I know this because I've known you for a long time. Your involvement in owning the promotion is the family affair too, right?
Family Role in Wrestling Business
00:19:21
Speaker
Your wife works within it too. What does she do?
00:19:25
Speaker
Right. And she takes part of that operations aspect, whether we're all busy doing our thing in the ring backstage, getting everything controlled. She takes care of the front as far as make sure the tickets are taken care of, merchandise is taken care of, concessions, if we're doing that, is taken care of, any sort of a customer problem that comes up. As far as like recently we had an ADA situation come up and the guy needed the chairs. And so you got to make sure that's all taken care of, you know, make sure everybody's
00:19:56
Speaker
take care of the fans and audiences within respects of good business practices and the law and all that fun stuff. Sometimes you have commissioners come in or food inspectors and all that stuff. She's basically the first one that tackles that and tries to solve that or having to bring any of us back to the front. I said you're 6-3-2-90. She's maybe 5-1.
00:20:24
Speaker
I think she's at a five, two and a quarter or something like that. Yeah. Five, five, two and a quarter and he knows, but man, she does, she doesn't run that or that show.
Revenue Streams in Wrestling
00:20:31
Speaker
So I counted four different ways that you can put, you potentially make money off of a show. And tell me if I got this right. You're selling tickets, general admission tickets, selling VIP tickets, which involves a meet and greet, right? And a little bit more money and a little closer to the action. And then everybody has gimmick merch. Yeah.
00:20:54
Speaker
Explain what your gimmick merch is to somebody who doesn't know what a gimmick is. Well, generally, we have our own merchandise within the company, which has t-shirts and everything like branding, trademark-type merchandising. And the wrestlers have their own as well. Sometimes, based on the venue, they have to give up percentages of that to the house or to the promotion in itself. And then
00:21:20
Speaker
You have eight by tens or sometimes even resell like WWE toys or anything, anything that you might think that you could sell to a wrestling fan. We try to offer that as well. And one of the things that you kind of pioneered and that got taken off in other places is paying to have your, somebody would take my, your, your smartphone and then you get your picture taken with the wrestler.
00:21:48
Speaker
And you see that a lot more now than you did. But that was something that was pretty unusual for you. So with all of these different ways and all of this money going around and moving around, and you're in the back trying to sculpt a match, you ostensibly don't get physically very, very hurt with a guy that you just met a half an hour ago.
00:22:12
Speaker
It was probably a very nice gentleman, but you're gonna go out in front of a crowd and tell everybody that you hate them and then start beating on him. What does the trust factor have to be for that to work? Generally, you kind of get a sense when you're talking to them or whatnot based on how experienced, how comfortable they are. Sometimes a person might come in with a
00:22:38
Speaker
with a history or a rap or something like that. You generally try to give everybody the benefit of the doubt at first, but you've also got to protect yourself as well as others too. So it's kind of a combination basically. I don't get thrown around too much. So obviously my position is a little different than maybe your average sized wrestler, but they have to come in and trust me too, because I'm going to be throwing them around a lot.
00:23:05
Speaker
So you kind of get a feel within the first, first couple minutes of that match. If you haven't worked on before, met him before or know of them. I think one time there's a, I remember when I was very first couple of years in the business, I wrestled a guy named Eric Cannon, which is up in that Minneapolis area. And he's involved with that first wrestling at the first music venue up there in Minneapolis. And he wanted to give me a brain buster. And this guy's maybe 200 pounds at best.
00:23:35
Speaker
And I was, you know, 290 plus and stuff like that. And to give him basically a vertical suplex and dropping me on my head. And I was like, you know, I trust you. And that went a long ways with him and me and he came through and he didn't kill me. And so it worked out and I built a trust from them. So it's often built on time. A lot of times you kind of guard yourself until you figure out that you can't trust that individual.
00:24:05
Speaker
Sure. Well, and plus just from the business of it, you know, you've got you've got all the guys in the back, you've got Corey, your wife up in front, kind of running the show and then everybody's getting a piece to set this at the other thing.
Trust in Wrestling Partnerships
00:24:19
Speaker
How does that, how does trust go into the business of it? Not just the actual performance of it. Right. Uh, everybody has their own piece of the business and the pie and you build trust over the years of
00:24:35
Speaker
I'm just doing those businesses, putting those shows together, so you gotta make sure that everybody's doing their part and trusting that they're doing it, essentially. As far as between the promoters and the wrestlers over the years, some guys are more dependable than others. Like you said, there's different ranges where people do it full time and some people are doing it on the weekends or whatever, and they have other obligations and stuff.
00:25:02
Speaker
and sometimes you run into where your daughter is sick or they've got to work overtime or or some of that particular nature and they're not able to go to your show and some people give you 48 24 hours notice and some people give you five minutes notice so over the time you kind of they build reputations of how dependable they are or certain things obviously we're all people we understand that things come up
00:25:28
Speaker
But the show does go on and not necessarily we totally understand why wrestler A had to do this particular thing and not make your show. But at the same time, you got to make sure you got dependables. So it's kind of like we understand and we don't hold you fault for anything, but we can't depend on you to be here. So we have to book wrestler B instead. So.
00:25:52
Speaker
Things like that do come up with your understanding and stuff. You know that the world's not going to end either, you know, but you still got to put on a show together and make sure you got enough people to do so. Wrestling is especially something that's built very much on reputation because there's this old school idea.
00:26:10
Speaker
of kayfabe that you mentioned earlier where the bad guys were on one side, the good guys were on the other side. They all knew each other behind the curtain and everything was fine, but out in the real world, you had to pretend that you really didn't like the other guys. That's where that... Can you see it a little bit? That underscoring of reputation management still holds true, right?
00:26:34
Speaker
Right. And you'll see that during intermissions and whatnot. You're going to not going to see some, well, you shouldn't see it. It's somebody that just beat the heck out of each other for 12, 15 minutes. And all of a sudden they're both hanging out at the merch table, sharing a hot dog and try to sell a t-shirt. You still got to keep that, keep the magic alive, so to speak.
00:26:55
Speaker
So I know you guys are coming out of COVID and your heyday. How many shows were you running a year? Oh, we were in the average of 20 plus 20, 25 shows a year between our monthly show in the morning. And then, uh, if we were doing a show outside of the morning or we're doing a paid show, a festival,
00:27:23
Speaker
school celebration, any sort of thing like that. So that kind of doubles up, which a lot of those paid shows were kind of what we depended on to help pay for our normal Des Moines shows as well. You're hoping every show is successful and financially successful. Yeah. Yeah. What's one of the best memories you have as a business owner of something that just was just really extraordinary that happened in the ring?
00:27:53
Speaker
Oh, man. As a promoter, probably the best show feeling that we had was for a local high school that was doing a fundraiser for their local wrestling school and the whole community came in and filled that stadium or gymnasium. There was, there was probably a little over 500 people or so.
00:28:21
Speaker
But it was all a bunch of kids, they're all enthusiastic, all very happy to be there. And I believe they raised over about $17,000, I think, for that missing room. That was very much fun. And even on the flip side, there was a local kid down South in Iowa that had lost his leg to a form of cancer.
00:28:45
Speaker
So we were able to book a zack gallon which was a one-legged wrestler that went through the same thing and he was a kid and
The Thrill of Performing
00:28:53
Speaker
he came and wrestled and he won the belt and got the picture with the kid and the whole family community was there and that was very much a good a feel-good moment have a scenario.
00:29:05
Speaker
So 20 times a year before the pandemic, you were promoting, booking, putting up money for arenas, just for God's sake, chair rental. Bring in guys in like on average once every two and a half, three weeks. That's a ton of work. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean,
00:29:33
Speaker
and we all most of us all have 40 hour jobs you know change the desk during there and rush and do whatever you could do your lunch hour and then after work do what you had to do to get it done uh yeah just so you did all that just because you love it in essence i guess just being part of something being
00:29:55
Speaker
You're not you're not just stuck to the average 40-hour work working for the man type thing with some a little different Brings you to other places you won't wouldn't necessarily Go to or meet people you wouldn't necessarily need and and sometimes meet some of your childhood heroes and stuff. So it's it's very much some very extra to your life that it brings but
00:30:19
Speaker
a great enjoyment when you're making all those little kids happy and their parents happy and just putting on a good successful show and just everybody leaving happy and having a good time is very much a fun feeling. And in wrestling, when you have everybody in the palm of your hand in a match, it's very much like a drug. That's why you see a 70-year-old Ric Flair still wrestling until he dies because it's very, very much addictive and it's very hard to give up.
00:30:47
Speaker
And in your mind, you know, I'm turning 48 this year, but you still feel like you're 18. Your knees will disagree with you here and there, you know, but it's something very, very, very much hard to give up. What are some people you've gotten to work with over the years that were childhood heroes for you? I mean, besides me. You know, the time that we did met with Perry Saturn was a very fun time.
00:31:15
Speaker
seeing some of them. I spent some time with the hacksaw, Jim Duggan, that I always remember, meeting Rick Flair, Mick Foley, Kurt Angle. Spent some time, went to dinner out with Ricky Morton, hear some of the stories that he had. You know, I've, I've met quite a few of them and I'm very fortunate to have done so. It's about the only one I think I haven't really met was Hulk Hogan, which was my ultimate hero back, back in the day. But maybe one day, he went down to his shop one time and
00:31:45
Speaker
didn't catch up with them unfortunately but uh but it's great and realizing you know they're all just they put on the same pant leg as you do you know in the morning when you're getting dressed but some of the stories they have are very extraordinary.
00:32:01
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. So I know you as one of the good ones and as a promoter, where your word's good. If you tell somebody that you're going to come to the show, you're going to get X amount of money. You're going to give them an envelope with X amount of money. What are some of the ways that promotions go bad? If your word isn't good. There's a couple of scenarios that comes to mind down South. I think
00:32:31
Speaker
He was just a young kid that probably could really consider it a fan. He might have been a promoter by name, but he didn't have the skills to be able to accomplish that or the funding to be able to accomplish that. And he had a show. He didn't have a ring. He was renting it. And I think they came in and he didn't realize that the ring wouldn't fit in the venue that he had booked. So he was unable to use a ring. So he was, he didn't have a ring for a show and then
00:33:00
Speaker
He, I think the biggest name he had coming in was abyss from, uh, yeah. And a bunch of, uh, the, the local guys that don't, don't, don't know if this isn't a world wrestling entertainment level talent, but he's a known guy and he's, he's a serious, that's a serious name. And so short story short, to have a ring, he didn't have money to pay guys after he paid the ring. And it just snowballed from there.
00:33:30
Speaker
and I think he had pre-sales or something like that too. So he did that, so his name went complete mud. Then he kind of, to do some shows afterwards and he contacted us for the ring and it pretty much turns to you have to prepay for everything because nobody trusts that you're going to have the money afterwards or even do a show. So quickly people got the message and they stopped taking bookings. I think probably maybe the
00:33:57
Speaker
other extreme of that, maybe like an Ian Rotten that used to run down south. I think he had a big kind of like a hardcore type scenario shows and he built up a bad reputation of maybe not paying people or not putting people in safe, safe environments and such. And so I think people still work for him because he had a name. I think he worked at ECW way back when here and there.
00:34:28
Speaker
People just kind of became a running joke type of scenario. So he was more into the blood and guts kind of thing. He was just not very good practice. Like couldn't go fund me things up there to try to get money for shows again or stuff like that. Just not, not very reputable. And I don't think people eventually just didn't want to work for me. You mentioned that you started with three XW as a trainee. You guys still do training, right?
00:34:59
Speaker
We haven't the last couple of years because of the pandemic and some other stuff. And it's very much a commitment. And it's a couple of times a week for pretty much the old Saturdays and everything. And as I've gotten busier and family has gotten busier, it would probably take a lot for me to get back into training again, but never say never. And you still have to come up with facilities and stuff like that.
00:35:27
Speaker
Right now, training is pretty decent in Iowa, especially when you have current WWE star, well, I know him as Tyler Bloch, but Seth Rollins and the Debut carry in. They have classes booked up every eight weeks and they've got a nice CrossFit facility and stuff like that. So that's kind of harder to compete with, but we still did.
00:35:53
Speaker
we still produce quality wrestlers that still wrestle all over the Midwest now. So we're very proud of our program, but it just, it's a very much a big commitment outside all the commitments that you have other wrestling yourself and running a promotion and working family itself. So you definitely, definitely need to set up the time, the program to be able to do it correctly. Some people just take your money and put you in a ring and telling you to wrestle somebody other than
00:36:22
Speaker
create a broken foundation. Somebody else has to fix down the line if they want to actually continue and be able to be trusted as a wrestler in the Midwest. Or literally a broken anything at that point. Right. Right. So from the business standpoint, if your word's not good, pro wrestling is a great way to lose a lot of money fast.
Financial Challenges of Promotion
00:36:48
Speaker
Oh, for sure. On either end, I mean,
00:36:51
Speaker
It's very much a gold sink, if you will. Even right now with AEW and Tony Khan, which is considered probably the second biggest promotion here in the United States, I don't think they projected to make any money like several years into it. They like these new football XFLs and stuff like that, a lot I'm predicting.
00:37:15
Speaker
They're not making any money in the first three or four years. But obviously at that level, the money is a lot bigger than what we're talking at an independent level. But it's very much it takes a lot of money to be able to do anything. And the return is definitely not guaranteed. What are some of the things that you've learned from owning the wrestling business and being in the wrestling business and that have translated into your day job, your 40 hour a week job?
00:37:45
Speaker
I have actually learned that wrestling is almost more real than dealing with real business people. We always said wrestling was carny or whatnot, but dealing with some of these other people, you quickly learn that maybe that's not the case. But as a profession, my real job, I work in procuring raw materials and I do planning and scheduling and engineering for an envelope manufacturer.
Wrestling Skills in Business
00:38:11
Speaker
So reaching out and doing
00:38:13
Speaker
little, working with little or nothing in the wrestling has learned as transverse for bringing savings to my real job. I think I saved 200% last year of our yearly savings goal into that. So bringing some of that stinginess and looking out and trying to find the best deals, whatnot has really kind of
00:38:37
Speaker
came over and you know dealing and talking trying to convince somebody that wrestling is a good idea in their venue or their town or their school has transitioned into into the sales aspect of my job as well and just dealing with people and dealing with all sorts of situations learning to be flexible and not committing to one thing and turning around and turning into a good thing you know thinking on your feet and just being
00:39:05
Speaker
constantly moving and evolving. I think it really translates well into the business world.
00:39:13
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Dave, did you have any questions you wanted to? This has all been fascinating. I think especially on the last round when we were just talking about the things that you brought into your corporate world, the entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to read and know and perform with other people at a high level has got to be a huge leg up in anything.
00:39:39
Speaker
So I'm super excited to have met you Mark. And thank you for joining us today. It was my pleasure. I had
Attending 3X Wrestling Shows
00:39:46
Speaker
a lot of fun. If people wanted to come to a three XW show, how do they find you online? Uh, we have our website, three X wrestling.com. And then you can also find this under three X wrestling, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and all, all the social media platforms. We have a presence in, uh,
00:40:08
Speaker
And we were very much looking forward to starting out the year. And we started off with bang with two big shows already. And we look forward to getting back into a monthly timetable. Well, let's make sure we promote your next show. When's your next big show? Where is it? Unfortunately, we don't have a confirmed date yet, but we're looking probably about March area at Woolies in Des Moines. It's a really cool music venue. And we had a band.
00:40:37
Speaker
in that first show and it went really well so I think we're going to continue entertainment during the intermission with music as well, bring back that rock and wrestling angle again. Love it. Mark Maddog, thank you so much for joining us and keep dialing it in buddy. Sounds good.