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If ever someone in the wrestling business could sit there like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary, it's likely Wrestling Society X producer Kevin Kleinrock, who watched his concept for a new professional wrestling company grow from notes on his computer all the way to a national TV debut on MTV on January 30th at 10:30 PM Eastern, all out of a chance comment to DVD production company Big Vision Entertainment's CEO Houston Curtis, who was on his way to a pitch meeting with MTV Executives.
"The seeds were planted in August 2004, a little bit of time after I had finished with XPW (Rob Black's Xtreme Pro Wrestling) and had started with Big Vision Entertainment. I kind of had this idea for a modern-day version of Rock and Wrestling, kind of a punk rock pro wrestling organization. I jotted the ideas down and made an outline of what the organization was going to be and saved it in a word document in my computer and let it sit there for about a year. In August of '05, Houston Curtis was going into MTV to pitch another program. I said to him in passing, "Someday if you get around to it, I have an idea and maybe we can take it to MTV. He said, "What is it, now? What have you got?" So went over it and he really liked it and we went through putting together an official pitch to MTV. We went in and pitched this show with the other show. It was later that day that we were told they wanted to do a pilot. We did that pilot in February 2005 and we sat around for quite some time waiting to find out what the state of the project was. I think it was July they let us know that they wanted it for the full season, and here we are."
Wrestling Society X will feature a number of names that will breaking through, in terms of focus and exposure, on a national scale for the first time, including Jack Evans, Matt Sydal, Teddy Hart, Ruckus, and The Human Tornado, among others. To die-hard independent wrestling fans, their talent and work ethic is well known, but to a national audience, it's a whole new world for viewer and performer alike.
"There were certain people that we knew would stand out - Teddy Hart, Jack Evans - we knew they would stand out and come through for us. Guys that blew people away, especially on the producer's side were guys like Scorpio Sky. Human Tornado and Matt Sydal made impressions at the original pilot taping and definitely came through when we taped the series. Josh Abercrombie and Nate Webb worked great as a team. A lot of these guys still have so much ability that they still haven't showcased yet and we have a lot in the tank as we move forward to more and more seasons....I'm very thankful that we were able to put this core group of performers today. You've got names that the world has never seen before, guys like Joey Ryan and the Disco Machine, a team that was absolutely magic on this show. Jack Evans, Matt Sydal, M-Dogg 20, Scorpio Sky, Teddy Hart - we've got this roster that I feel, pound for pound, is the best roster in wrestling period. Three months from now, when you take the average person in America, if you sit them down and let them watch a broadcast from us, a broadcast from TNA, and a broadcast from WWE, people will choose our roster as more entertaining overall because of the in-ring style and personalities that we have. I know that the wrestling fans - the Ring of Honor fans, the WWE and TNA fans are going to gravitate towards these personalities and I'm excited to see how non-wrestling fans take to them."
Of course, with new talent being exposed nationally, what's to prevent larger companies from raiding talent left and right and leaving WSX without key players moving forward?
"Everybody who worked the taping is under contract. It's a contract that MTV has approved and MTV is pretty good at making sure they can retain talent that they want to retain, the same as any other television project that they are involved in. We encourage the talent to work for independent groups and we're hoping they get more work because of their exposure - guys working for Ring of Honor and Pro Wrestling Guerrilla will still be able to work there. The contracts prohibit appearing on other television shows. it would be nice for some of these guys who aren't wrestling full-time to become fulltime wrestlers because of the WSX exposure"
The Wrestling Society X series, billed as taking place in a "secret, underground bunker" will focus on exposing new names, high impact wrestling, violence and highspots, meshed with musical performances. All within 30 minutes. Why such a dramatic departure from the traditional wrestling TV format?
"The format of the show is dictated by the fact that MTV does half-hour shows. We knew walking in that in all likelihood we would be lucky getting a half-hour...It was a little bit nerve-wracking and even now sitting here and seeing what we put down on tape - a half hour does go by really fast. However, when you watch WWE or TNA, the majority of their matches are five minutes of less. WWE does the majority of their matches every week and the majority of the matches on Impact don't go more than five minutes. Our goal was to make a better five minutes, a more action packed five minutes. We want to bring this new style of wrestling, a style we think is going to translate the MTV audience, pop culture, people who aren't watching wrestling now and today may not have even had a desire to watch pro wrestling....It's only a half hour. It's a lot easier to give up a half hour of your day or your life then it is to give up two hours for a traditional WWE broadcast."
The faster, impactful in-ring style of the company is planned to be one of the benchmarks of the Wrestling Society X series, according to Kleinrock.
"We're kind of betting on the fact they when [viewers] see this show, they see this in-ring style, this fast paced nature of the show; when they see we don't have any segments where guys stand around in the ring and talk for fifteen minutes at a time or that our show doesn't open with a half hour of non-wrestling action, because we can't afford that time, that people will hopefully really take to the show."
But how can a viewer expect to get a "wrestling show" when there are going to be musical guests and performances every week, on MTV no less?
"The music really is a small component of the show. Every week's episode opens with a band on stage finishing a song, they are already most of the way through the song by the time we open live on them. So you've really got less than a minute of live music playing. The music catch from there on out is that the lead singer or other members of the band will join our host on commentary for that week, which will provide many entertaining moments on commentary. We were blessed, Zakk Wylde, who was on our pilot did a really good job with some frat house humor that the average 12 to 15 year old would probably really enjoy. When we got to the series itself, I was blown away by how happy we were with the commentary from most of the musical acts. We had a number of hip hop acts and they were all completely into the show and into the action. They were really good at putting over the wrestlers and the style. We had a couple of acts like Sparta who grew up as wrestling fans and talked on commentary about growing up in Texas and watching World Class and the Von Erichs. It was a really good experience. Good Charlotte are really big wrestling fans and a number of others had their own experience with wrestling watching growing up. None of the bands are calling moves but are providing unique color commentary."
With the debut on January 30th, WSX becomes the third wrestling promotion to have national television coverage since 2000 when WWF, WCW, and ECW battled for ratings nationally. Without MTV picking up WSX, national coverage would never have been an option for the company out of the starting gate
When asked about the creative process and input of MTV as the Wrestling Society X concept and series evolved, Kleinrock noted, "MTV pretty much has a say overall. We came to them with the storylines and the characters. The only time there was ever a question was when it became a question of standards and practices - was this going to be too racy? Was this going to come off too extreme - the only time they ever really got involved in the creative side is if they thought standards and practices were going to have an issue with it. There were very few times where they came up. There's not one character, not one piece of talent that we showed them that was rejected. They've been extremely supportive. They were a little bit concerned about the number of wrestlers we were going to bring into the series. When they saw the list, they were worried about the sheer numbers while only having a half hour show. When they went down the list and saw we have managers and tag teams, they were very supportive and didn't ask us to change anything. They wanted to make sure that the show was spectacular and that wrestling fans and non-wrestling fans will be blown away by what they see. There were some, for lack of a better term, stunts, that surpass what has been seen before in WWE or TNA. It's going to open a lot of people eye's."
So what were MTV's concerns when it came to standards and practices? Blood? Violence? Explosions?
"The biggest issue that standard and practices, and everyone at MTV has - and it's understandable. The concern is, 'How easy is it for some kid, some viewer, to replicate what they are seeing?' They don't want us swinging light tubes. Understood. An exploding casket, however, is not seen in the same light on the same scale of sheer violence of swinging a light tube; a kid's not going to be able to get an exploding casket in their backyard. That's their concern. It doesn't come from a sake of wanting or not wanting something to be seen on television, they have real series concerns. They've lived through a number of lawsuits from kids watching and imitating "Jacka**" and similar things, and it's just their set of standards that the entire network lives by. It doesn't matter if it's a wrestling show or "The Real World." It's just a standard of rules that everyone has to live by."
So what does that mean for the actual product, since it's marketing itself as an underground, gritty viewing experience?
"The standard [MTV uses] is how easy is it for someone to replicate it. That's what we have to look at when it comes to stunts and violence. It's not a whitewash WCW using cotton candy as weapons by any stretch of the imagination. It's definitely got your mix of extreme and your mix of entertaining in-ring high flying action. We give a little bit of each in each episode, the extreme violence and the excellent high flying technical in-ring wrestling. I think we accomplish that. Most episodes were laid out that way."
As WSX moves closer to January 30th, Kleinrock and Big Vision Entertainment wait to see how the wrestling fandom reacts to the latest entry in national television.
"It's kind of an amazing experience, starting out on national television. It's not the norm for this business and not the norm for anything I've ever done, so it's very exciting."
Wrestling Society X's official website can be found at www.WSX.MTV.com.
Mike Johnson can be reached at Mike@PWInsider.com. The next edition of WSX Prelude will focus on the performers and characters involved in the forthcoming Wrestling Society X series.
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