Oh, hi!
I got back from New Orleans a day or two ago, and I drew for the contest yesterday. Squared Circular Logic reader and AAW fan Samantha was our lucky winner. Thank you to her and to the other four people who entered the contest. Samantha is the new, proud owner of a WrestleMania XXX program, a/k/a the program from the one WrestleMania worth a damn. But, yeah, five people entered, giving them each a 20 percent chance of winning.
Look at me. Five people read my words and I spend $30 on just giving stuff away to one of them. Then, as if not to be outdone, I spend hours writing this column those same five people might read, and for what? For love of the game and nothing more? No, because if I’m going to do something, I am going to do it right.
Which leads me to today’s column…
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I know, I know. I’m slackin’. The conceit of devoting an entire two-thousand-word column to a small, regional, independent wrestling promotion such as an AAW, is finding topics juicy enough to convert into full column length. I could, at the risk of “burying” “everybody,” talk about the last couple shows, and how I felt they weren’t up to the high standards AAW has built for itself the previous handful of months and years. I could, at the risk of coming off lazy, uninspired and ill-prepared, generate another “top five” list, or something similar, wherein I preview tomorrow’s show. I could write about anything I like, really, but the fact that I can’t think of anything that stands out to me to write about, maybe that in and of itself is a topic of conversation?
AAW has many strong suits, but generating buzz for its product is not exactly one of them. The company keeps its Twitter and Facebook well updated, announcing matches as they’re signed, providing fans information on where to attend the shows or purchase them on DVD or MP4, but that’s it. And, soon as that sentence was inked, I could already hear a few distinct voices echoing, “Whadya mean that’s it?!” Well, it’s 2014 and social media is its own beast, one for which you can take college courses, and if I am being honest, there are about a hundred billion things AAW can do to increase its presence (and all around availability) online, thereby creating buzz for the shows, for the wrestlers, for the company on the whole.
The more people you have talking about your promotion, the better, so let’s start small and let’s start there. Now, I am never satisfied. Maybe AAW is cool with the number of fans they have buying tickets or attending shows. Maybe AAW is satisfied with how many fans are picking up shirts at intermission at the Eagles Club, or online at Pro Wrestling Tees. Maybe AAW is content with how many DVDs and MP4s it moves, at the shows or on Smart Mark Video. Maybe, maybe not, but that doesn’t matter because it can be so much better. Fifty DVD sales could be 75, or 100, and easily. I don’t know the exact sales figures, but all you have to do is know how to sell yourself, and that money, that hype, is yours. Social media is a powerful tool, one that should not be underestimated or viewed through an ignorant lens. I mean, no offense to Danny Daniels, who runs an outstanding promotion, but there is an inside joke about how little he tweets and uses social media. But that’s no laughing matter.
So let’s go ahead and call that Rule #1: Make yourself available. Right now, AAW’s social media plays too conservatively, and, I don’t believe I’m saying this, but too professionally. There is a decided lack of edge to it, a decided lack of personalization to it, and that can be fixed by putting a face to the company name. Simply put, Daniels needs to step up, take ownership of his company and start connecting with fans, other promotions and potential sponsors. Big boss Jim Lynam does a decent job of it, why can’t Daniels? His profile reads, “Just one of the guys who helps make AAW one of the best indys around,” which is true as it is humble. But nowadays social media is so intertwined with the products and businesses it represents that anybody not taking full advantage, and not posting at least once or twice a day, is doing themselves, and whatever entity they represent, a grand disservice.
Think about how many indy wrestling companies run out of Illinois alone. Off the top of my head, there is AAW, Resistance Pro, DreamWave, and I hope and pray Chicago Style Wrestling is still a thing. That’s four companies in, what, a 100-mile radius? There’s got to be tons more. Now, step outside Illinois and look to the Midwest. The Quad Cities and Iowa have a scene, St. Louis has a scene, Cleveland has a scene, and driving a bit farther up the road, Toronto definitely has a scene. Thinking about it like that should scare the pants off you, or at least make you ask yourself if you are doing enough. Or if you could be doing a little more. Competition is stiff as it’s ever been right now and we’re reaching a saturation point where fans must pick which company they want to support on which day. Beyond the “regulars,” you’re trying to talk the casuals in the door, and the company that will do the sweetest talking will be doing it over their social media.
Speaking of sweet talk, let’s remember the audience social media is speaking to, and that’s the youth demographic, for the most part. We’ll say the 35-and-under crowd. I have no doubt there are people older than that checking the AAW Twitter page, but they’re likely not thinking about it the same way a 16-year-old boy who just attended his first show is thinking about it. Two different types of people, two different ways of using their social media, with the youth being more into it, having more time to spend on it, making it a bigger, more influential part of their lives. Adults past a certain age have had to reverse adapt to this technology since they didn’t grow up with it and absorb it like the kids are currently doing. For the older crowd, imagine how special you felt in the ’80s when you got to be among the first to use the Internet. You probably were pretty good at it, at least back then. And now, it feels like there is so much more to keep up with, mostly because there is. That’s why Rule #2 is Get Younger. Not Drake Younger, too late for him, but I will explain.
In order to appeal to a youth, you have to think like a youth. Hard, I know! So I’m here to help. I think like a child already so I’m totally the best person to talk to about this. Kids are, in a word, frenetic. The children of 2014 are so distracted, receiving so much sensory input from every possible avenue, that they need constancy. Consistency. You know how you tell yourself you hate those kids who are always on their cell phones? Well, just what the heck are those kids doing on their phones, anyway? Twitter. Facebook. Social media. Hello.
Simple fact: Kids check their phones probably a hundred times more a day than do their adult counterparts, and you can thank conditioning for that. So, then, would it make sense to keep radio silence as the owner of a growing, evolving wrestling company? What does that show new fans? Lack of presence on social media makes you look like you don’t care. Literally every wrestling company worth half a damn keeps their social media updated on the daily, and has a figurehead with presence. AIW co-owner John Thorne is fairly present on Twitter. You might like him, you might hate him, but he connects with his company’s fans and detractors on Twitter every single day, and that is crucial. He doesn’t let his buddies take the heat and he’s put a human face on that company, which is how it’s supposed to be. I personally can connect better with AIW than AAW because in the back of my head I realize it’s real people running that company, with real availability. If you love your company, if you live and die for what you’re doing, then prove it by taking it to the people who pay your bills. Think of it as spending your money at a “mom and pop” shop rather than Walmart; at least by patronizing the former you know where money is going.
But back to the facts. Would it make sense that the only original content you feature on your entire Twitter feed is announcing matches or posting the YouTube link to the AAW TV show on MaddyGTV? No, no, absolutely not, that’s nuts, you’re crazy! No, one thing AAW can do is just interact with fans more, figuring out what they want to see instead of just giving them another Jimmy Jacobs/Shane Hollister main event with no build, no gimmick to separate it from the first two matches we’ve already seen from them, and no excitement going into it beyond the initial excitement we already have in watching those individuals perform. In Rule #3: Ask the audience, AAW would be reaching out to the people who buy the tickets, to the people who pay for the the “Sweet Jeebus!” T-shirts, to the people who populate Smart Mark Video, or hit the wrestling forums or Reddits to talk about upcoming shows. Right now, AAW is not reaching out to anybody and I feel the company has internalized to the point where the divide between “us” and “them” (management and the audience) has never been wider, deeper or more pronounced. I visit Reddit and the forums, and nobody is talking about AAW, and why? No reason to. The company must provide the reason, and it cannot alone be, “These two wrestlers are good, you should know that.”
Just posting more, um, “human” kinds of tweets and Facebook status updates would go a long way. Asking people who they’d like to see booked, what matches they’d like to see, new merchandise ideas, ideas to better production, et al. Study Beyond Wrestling’s Twitter feed and take some notes. Or even Ethan Page, who is already on the roster and is a social media baron in his own right (he’s 24; makes sense). Even something basic as, “Tomorrow is AAW’s Point of No Return 2014. What are your favorite moments from other AAW Point of No Return events?” Just by asking that one simple question, you are giving power to the people who should already have it, and once that power is in their hands, they will feel good, they will feel loved and they will feel, obviously, empowered. You want your fans to feel as if they are in control, at least somewhat, or at least you need to create the illusion that such is true. Or even half-true.
WWE is kicking so much butt right now because the fans feel like their voices are finally, finally being heard. The Superstars they want to hold the titles are holding the titles. The Superstars they want to see getting pushed are getting pushed. The corporate brass is listening to the fans and responding, and it’s already produced them a lot of publicity and a lot of money, and there is no reason that same logic can’t be applied to every wrestling company, big, small, “shindy,” whathaveyou. In general, independent wrestling promotions should be bricking their pants, for they no longer can say WWE isn’t trying. No, this is the indys worst nightmare: A fully capable, fully realized WWE finally trying 100 percent, and when they do, goodness, are they the best in the world.
My final rule is Rule #4: Further branching out. I didn’t have a good name for it, so bear with me. What made WrestleMania work for me was just how much meat was on the bone. With the advent of WWE Network, the company was more than happy to put out tens of hours of programming hyping WrestleMania XXX alone. There was so much additional content being published that fans had but one thing on their mind going into the Show of Shows: That what they were about to see was going to be awesome. And it was. WWE hyped the hell out of all of those matches, even the multi-competitor Divas match. Everything made sense, everything had backstory, everything had purpose. It was a sincere reward to the people who eat up that kind of stuff, and it baffles me why a company with as much potential as AAW isn’t doing similar.
Social media is a heck of a promotional tool, which can be used for more than just retweeting everybody; it could be used to promote just about anything — from those aforementioned T-shirts, to matches, to original content linked elsewhere, particularly AAW’s website. I find the website also lacking in original creative output, but that’s not so much the fault of AAW. I understand the people working for that company have day jobs, have families, have all that, but you know what? They also have friends, they also have peers, they also have fans, they also have resources and people more than willing to help out and volunteer and donate their time free of charge, just to make that place stand out. AAW, for example, needs more hype videos. I just caught a SHIMMER hype video promoting this weekend’s shows, and I never, ever see that from AAW. Are you really telling me you can’t throw Page an extra $50 to put you together some promotional videos, which you could then tweet out and further promote?
AAW just needs more meat in general. This is a promotion that sees itself as the opposite of a PWG, for the most part, where the focus is heavy on story development, character progression and dynamics — between fellow wrestlers, wrestlers and audience, etc. This isn’t a “dream match” federation where finishers are kicked out of every twelve seconds to the point of exhaustion; no, every match has meaning and purpose and progression. Which I love, don’t me wrong, but AAW does nothing with it beyond what you see on camera. Tomorrow’s show features a match between Kyle O’Reilly and Alex Shelley, which is huge in any context, in any ring, and quite frankly, a match that big sells itself.
If you have ever found yourself repeating what I just wrote, slap yourself across the face, because you are settling. Oh, the hype for this match is pretty good? It could be better. It could be bigger. Right now, O’Reilly vs. Shelley is known to only the people attending the event, if that. If I had to guess, I’d say maybe half the people planning on going to the show tomorrow even know this match is going to be a thing. Announcer Phil Colvin asked the question if the match had ever happened, and he got some good responses before confirming that it is a first time matchup. Bells should be going off when you hear that, and you should be promoting this as a dream match, as a first time seen anywhere. Talk about it once, talk about it twice, and keep talking about it until people on the west coast know it’s happening, until people in Canada know it’s happening, until you start seeing yourself make money off that one match alone, because that is an actual possible reality.
On top of that, you should also be either piecing together a quick video to promote it, then tweeting out the video, or just whipping up a little blog post previewing the match. Generally speaking, the more build you can supply for a match, for any match, the more excited a fan is going to be. Am I excited for Shelley and O’Reilly? Yes, but only because I like them individually. I think if I knew why the match was happening, or if I had thoughts from the two on the match and how excited they are for it — SOMETHING — then this company would see its stock shoot up even further. Put some meat on that bone for those hungry enough for it.
AAW has a real great thing going, and I am honored to be able to write about it for this website, but if I’m being absolutely honest, they are a good wrestling company that is holding itself back from being great, or even the very best. I believe in them so much that I do think they can be the best company in their world for their budget, and the requests I am making are not very difficult or costly to satisfy. All I’m looking for is more effort. You want honesty? I spend more time pushing and promoting this damn company on my own than anybody I know, and probably most anybody you know, because I love it that much. Perhaps too much. And if I learned anything from my own sense of slacking, it’s that you can’t be a slacker and be a thing people want to spend their time on, or with.
Effort, man. You have to put in the effort. And from here on out, I am going to do just that.