Billy Corgan Says Wrestling Needs To Be Updated To A 21st Century Consumer

In an interview with The Charlotte Observer, NWA owner Billy Corgan said that he thinks that wrestling needs to evolve and be updated to a more “21st century” type of consumer. Here are highlights:

On how he got into wrestling: “Not at all. I was really into it when I was a kid. Around the teenage years, I fell out of it. It wasn’t something I thought I’d ever come back around to. In the late ’90s, I started paying attention to the Attitude era with The Rock and Stone Cold (Steve Austin), and the war between the WWF and WCW. I started going to some of the events, and was allowed to go backstage. I started talking to some of the wrestlers, who were so intellectual about the business.”

On what the NWA means to him: “You could argue the Mid-Atlantic was not only the most important, but the most influential. It had a lot of what became WCW. It bears mentioning that the McMahons (who own the WWE) were part of the NWA. What a normal fan constitutes as pro wrestling stems from what the NWA built. If you want to own something that has history, the NWA was the only thing that you could point to. Yet it was so devalued in the marketplace. It was both a restoration project and it tied together all that history under one roof. A history that is distinct from what is the hegemony of the WWE. The NWA allows me to tread into the historical.”

On where he sees the NWA heading: “It has a lot to do with the changes in the marketplace. If you look at what Marvel was valued at in the ’90s before the comic book movie craze kicked in — wrestling is similar. There’s a deep lineage, and a contentious fan base. Wrestling fans are some of the most engaged (people) on the internet. That’s playing into wrestling’s hands. Having the IP of NWA, you have a destination and a continual content driver. Wrestling is cheaper to produce than network TV. Changes in the business in the ’40s, ’50s and late ’60s (and beyond) always coincided with TV viewership.”

On if he sees things heading out of the arena more: “My argument there is that wrestling needs to be updated to more of a 21st-century consumer, as far as they connect to storyline. The most successful TV now is episodic, running six or eight episodes. I think there’s interest in growing a wider swath as to how you promote the matches and do off-grid promotional build-up. The way UFC had build-up. We’re also in the age of spoilers. At live events, there’s always someone tweeting. There goes the element of surprise.”

On where he sees the industry heading: “Every day it’s a moving landscape as to who is setting the agenda. You have money being thrown around and opinions as to what’s going to be the future and what fans want to see. Wrestling was like the circus 40 years ago. The big attractions were the Andre the Giants. I was just at Wrestlemania, and the biggest match of the night was Kofi Kingston and Daniel Bryan, two six-foot guys. It’s more about the ability to tell a story in the ring as opposed to the giants of the earth.”