wrestling / News

FITE COO Michael Weber On FITE’s Impact On The Wrestling World

October 10, 2019 | Posted by Joseph Lee
FITE TV Destiny Wrestling Wrestlecade Image Credit: FITE TV

In an interview with Wrestling Inc, FITE COO Michael Weber spoke about FITE TV’s impact on the world of professional wrestling and the current boom in the business. Here are highlights:

On the popularity of MJF: “I’ve never seen anybody get such a reaction at such an early age. Again, I’ve had the experience and opportunity to work with so many different people and most of the time guys are in their late 20s/early 30s before they hit their stride. I think he just turned 23. He’s a great guy and knows how to get reactions out of the fans and he is a fairly good athlete which always helps.”

On how FITE will play a role in the new wrestling boom: “I was at WCW when we had Nitro going up against Raw and I was there all 83 weeks [laughs]. That was a pretty cool time because between the two of our companies, we actually grew the whole category – more wrestling fans. There was independent wrestling then but nothing like it is now. With FITE, GCW is a great example. They have an event this weekend and they are a great company. They’ve been on our platform for about 13-14 months now. Not to be offensive to them, but they would have never gotten a network deal. USA or TBS would have never given them a network deal. But we gave them a platform where they can grow and they’ve got a fantastic fan base.”

On companies branching out: “Companies like New Japan always had a great reputation for fantastic wrestling and we’re airing a show they’re doing from London. They’re branching out and we’re branching with them and that’s gonna be exclusively on FITE this weekend. Then in two weeks we’re doing Triple A from New York so they’re branching out. So we’re getting older, established wrestling companies that never really had that much exposure in the US until recently. We’re able to give them a platform as while they may get a network deal someday, they certainly aren’t going to do it right now.”

On what keeps the company popular among clients: “I have to have good relationships with people. I’ve made it an effort in my career not to burn bridges. But the real key to it is, our company is a technology company first and technology wins. I could be the greatest salesman in the world and have all these relationships but if our platform sucked or crashed, it would never work.”

article topics :

FITE, Joseph Lee