wrestling / News

Scott D’Amore Discusses Wrestle Kingdom 9, GFW Working With Other Companies, More

December 24, 2014 | Posted by Larry Csonka
GFW - Global Force Wrestling Impact - Ed Nordholm - Global Wrestling Network

– Scott D’Amore recently spoke about the big Wrestle Kingdom 9 event and more. Here are the highlights…

On Wrestle Kingdom 9: “It was a career goal to be involved in an event at the Tokyo Dome. They’ve been doing it for 23 years now & there have been so many amazing moments that have happened in Tokyo Dome. Over here, WWE has always had Wrestlemania & it’s bounced all over the United States & even in Canada, but when it comes to NJPW wrestling & Japanese wrestling, the biggest events always happen at the Tokyo Dome & they always happen January 4. It’s going to be great to be a part of that. Last year, I went over & I was there doing some R&R & I wanted to see some of my students, Alex Shelley & the Timesplitters so I was able to sit there in the crowd & spend time with friends. Sitting there & watching the event, I looked at it & I was like, ‘This has to has to has to… somehow we have to get this to a North American audience.’”

On GFW Working With Other Companies: “I don’t understand why everything has to be adversarial. In some levels, as business grows, there may be a day where Pro Wrestling Syndicate & House of Hardcore & GFW are on the same level competing for wrestling fans & that’s healthy. But I don’t understand or have ever really understood why that has to be, say, adversarial. I grew up in the construction industry &, every time a job comes out, there could be an upwards of 12 or 15 of us bidding on the same job to get the same work so we were definitely in direct competition but that didn’t mean that we couldn’t have respect or decent relationships with other companies that were in competition with us. To me, if you get people who are focused on getting their own business better & focused on delivering the wrestling fans a quality product that they want to see, well, then there’s not reason why House of Hardcore, Pro Wrestling Syndicate, & GFW can’t be on good terms. There isn’t a reason why there can’t be a day where GFW can help out House of Hardcore & Pro Wrestling Syndicate can help out GFW & House of Hardcore can swoop in & save the day. Say something is going on in GFW & Tommy Dreamer does something or uses one of his many connections or anything to help each other out, & I think that’s one of the things that we’re going to try to do with GFW. In wrestling, we’ve always been very exclusive in the sense like, ‘this is our company… we’re going to do our own thing & that’s how it’s going to be. We don’t work with other people’. I think one of the biggest things about GFW is, it’s not going to be exclusion, it’s going to be inclusion. Why can’t we have a good relation with House of Hardcore? Why can’t there be ways that we can work together. I’m not talking in a sense of having Tommy Dreamer leading an invasion of Hardcore talent on a GFW TV show or vice versa… Jeff Jarrett leading a GFW invasion on House of Hardcore. In order to be able to productively work together, maybe House of Hardcore has a business connection that might be beneficial to GFW &, if it doesn’t harm HOH in order to share that business content, then great.’ Or if we’re in an area, running an event in a venue that HOH has dealt with or had a relationship with, they might be able to assist. Maybe they’ve been somewhere that we’re looking to go & they can say, ‘this is the good & this is the bad.’ That has to be reciprocal, right? HOH coming down to Nashville & Jeff was all like, ‘Here’s my friends. They do the top-rated morning show here on the morning drive. Here’s a TV contact that will do something…’ & that’s part of it. Part of it is talent & exchanging information. The biggest way we can help each other is exchanging information & part of that can be in relation to talent. If HOH has a junior heavyweight event going on & I can pick up the phone, ‘Hey Tommy.” Tommy pretty much knows everything in the wrestling business. He eats, sleeps, & breathes this business. Outside of his family, I don’t think there’s anything that Tommy loves more than this business. If GFW saw this unbelievable cruiser-weight in South Africa & Tommy hasn’t seen or heard of him, we can say, ‘Hey Tommy, you’re running this world junior heavyweight tournament… you have to see this guy.’ Open communication between different groups & promoters to me has to be a positive. It has to be a positive for business & there’s no way it’s not a positive thing as far as delivering a better product to wrestling fans all over the place.”

On Jim Ross: “I think it’s fantastic & super exciting that Jim Ross is returning to call this event. He’s the most legendary announcer in our industry’s history. I think Jim Ross can announce a chess match & draw the audience in. He’s the best storytelling announcer in the business– not just the wrestling business but in the wrestling business. The fact that he didn’t have to come back & call wrestling. I mean, he’s called MMA, boxing, & done little projects but if Jim Ross didn’t come back or call another wrestling show in his life, no one would have said a negative thing about it. The fact that he stepped out of the box & he’s coming back in… there’s going to be people who are going to be excited for this. Jim Ross had to come back & do all this prep work. He’s got to go out there & be the very best that there could be because that’s who he is & what he is. The fact that he would take time out & this event is what he chose to make that return & say, ‘Well, hell yeah, damn it, I want to call wrestling again & this is the show I want to call.’ I can tell you, from my conversations with Jim from the very beginning of this, he loved the product & he respected it. He said it reminded him of the product that he grew up watching & that he was a part of in his early years under Bill Watts. I can see the similarities between the two products but, overall, are quite different. They have the same aspects. They treat wrestling with respect, they’re hard-hitting, they’re great storytelling. They don’t get bogged down in a lot of the BS of the backstage stuff & everything else. They’re storytelling but, for the most part, it starts & ends in the ring. It’s presented in a believable way. It shows a respect for wrestling fans & I think having JR come back to call this event takes it to a whole other level. Now you have that voice that’s attached to so many memories over people’s years of the wrestling business. Everybody can go on & on with soundbytes of Jim Ross, whether it’s the boyhood dream has become a reality & any of the other hundreds of ‘Oh Wow’ moments that he’s gotten to call. He’s going to be there. It’d be easy for him to say, ‘You know what? Set up a studio here ten minutes from my house & we’ll set up a satellite link & I’ll call it here. That would’ve been cool just having him call it. But, I can tell you, from the first second that I talked to Jim Ross, there was no way he was returning to wrestling or calling this show unless he was sitting there ringside at the Tokyo Dome. For Jim Ross, on his birthday weekend, to get on a plane & travel 20 hours instead of being in Las Vega watching UFC. Instead, he’s traveling 20 hours & he’s going to Tokyo to a different culture & he’s going to deal with all the time changes & how that’s going to effect his body. He’s going to land on the ground & he’s going to start making sure everything is right & everything is set. He’s going to go out there & do what he does better than anyone else & that’s call wrestling action to tell the story going on in the ring. I think that’s super exciting.”

Credit: vocnation.com