Crazy Manny Praises FITE’s Value to Indie Wrestling, Talks IWS Partnering With FITE

IWS founder Crazy Manny recently discussed the company’s new streaming partnership with FITE and how the platform is important to indie wrestling. Manny spoke with Fightful’s Jeremy Lambert & Stephen Jensen on The Spotlight about the streaming deal, and highlights are below:

On IWS partnering with FITE: “It was late November, early December, [GCW Owner Brett Lauderdale] is a really good friend of mine. I’ve known Brett for a long time, since he was a ref back in CZW. For the longest time, we’ve been talking about doing a show together, the schedules just never really worked out. We said, ‘We can do this in March.’ I knew that our live events, nobody puts on live events like we do. The production, the attendance, it’s very rare you see that in indie wresting. I knew that FITE would get blown away. If you watch the live tweets, so would the fans. ‘What the hell is this? A WWE atmosphere with deathmatch wrestling? This is incredible.’ I knew that was the night to go all out and that was the night that would get us the streaming deal.”

On the success of the show leading to the deal being signed: “The downloads on FITE for the replay went completely off the wall. I spoke to Brett and was like, ‘Who is the guy I have to talk to?’ He gave me the President of FITEs info and he was like, ‘Hell yeah we want you on here. This is the kind of product we want on FITE.’ The deal came through.”

On the value of FITE to independent wrestling: “If you like to support independent wrestling, I’m going to be real, I’ve been involved with several streaming deals. I’ve been involved with streaming deals since the very beginning. FITE Plus actually takes care of the wrestling companies. They actually make sure you get some good money out of it. They help out, they send the LiveU 300s, which are very expensive units, to the event so you can stream. They offer a lot of info. They are the one true company. If you can get on FITE Plus, you’ve made it because they do care about you as a company. I talk with the top people there. Many other companies, from television companies to smaller streaming platforms, people get annoyed with you or don’t talk to you. I’ve been on television, I’ve had several television deals, a lot of people don’t even want to sit in a room with you. These guys, the top people there, they speak to you, they take their time, they help you out, and they make sure you get paid well. I give them big props,” he said.