start me up!

Lessons learned from CAPW "Night of Legends"

Here are the basic results from the Cleveland All-Pro Wrestling "Night of Legends":

• Ironman won the "King of Cleveland Gauntlet" battle royal
• Jake Crist & Nevaeh def. Robby Starr & Lexi Lane (pictured right) in a
  mixed tag match
• Nigel McGuinness def. Matt "MDogg-20" Cross
• "Wildfire" Tommy Rich and "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka went to a double-countout
• Super Hentai won a three-way dance with the Aftermath and Sharkboy to defend the CAPW Jr. Heavyweight title
• Johnny Gargano & Josh Prohibition def. Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin
• Conrad Kennedy III (AKA CK3) def. Chris Cronus to defend the CAPW TV title
• Luna Vachon def. Jessicka Havok in a ladies' hardcore match
• Doink the Clown def. Lord Zoltan
• Da Munchies and JT Lightning (pictured 2nd left) def. Carlton Kaz and Q&A to defend the "mythical CAPW six-man tag championship"
• Rick Steiner def. Buff Bagwell
• Faith 'n Nothing (Christian Faith and Vincent Nothing, pictured second right) def. Southern Comfort (Tracy Smothers and Chris Hamrick) to defend the CAPW Tag-Team Championship
• Jason Bane (pictured left) def. the Blue Meanie in a "barbed-wire baseball bat match" and won the CAPW Championship

But I have observations as well, based on the card and my assumption that pro wrestlers are almost all entrepreneurs by nature.

• Rich and Snuka are getting too old for this, and they look it. Plus, neither wanted the other guy to win. Funny thing is, Smothers is as old as they are, but he's not afraid to be knocked to the mat. Even the referee knocked him down once! But the lesson here is that an entrepreneur cannot be a "one-trick pony." I saw Snuka sitting in the back throughout most of the card, trying to sell autographed photos of himself, and the photos weren't very good. Not personal, not action shots, and Snuka didn't reach out to the fans. Nobody owes an entrepreneur a living. We are only as good to our customers as we are right now -- not as we were (say) 30 years ago.
• Smothers did the same thing, selling photos, but he reached out to the fans, riled up the crowd excellently during his match, and cheated gratuitously. That, plus the bumps he took, suggests that Smothers is a better marketer than Rich or Snuka. And probably a better buy. Luna Vachon even adds to that marketability, for her part, by carrying her match all through the arena. And Doink, though his best days are in the rear-view mirror as well, at least knows to reach out to the kids with the clown gimmick.
• Again with the photos: Bagwell and Steiner sold photos with fans in the ring during intermission. (At that time we didn't know who'd be the bad guy.) Personalizing the product. From a B2B perspective, Bagwell is a whiner, as I learned later from booker JT Lightning, but that serves as a reminder to always leave our bridges intact. Lightning likes Bagwell, but says he complains like Hulk Hogan. LOL
• The wise entrepreneur is always looking to release new products, and reach out to new markets. We might be seeing new CAPW champ Bane in the WWE before long, for instance.
• The wise entrepreneur always takes care of the regular customers while reaching out. Lightning tells me each CAPW card tends to draw the same 250 people, but they are faithful because of the way they are treated by the hard-working local wrestlers.
• Finally, the wise entrepreneur isn't stuck on any particular venue. Lightning was dissatisfied with the treatment he received from the Plain Dealer Pavilion, so he will rightly take his business elsewhere in future. Entrepreneurs are not locked into any particular vendor.

And as for you people who say "wrestling is fake," suggesting it isn't worthy of our attention, all I can say is you'd better not watch TV at all, and you better read only textbooks and your Bibles. Because everything else you read and watch is fake too. So there.

Labels: education, young entrepreneurs

posted by Ron @ 12:09 PM