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Former promoter Joel Goodhart of the old Tri-State Wrestling Alliance (TWA) appeared on the IN THE ROOM podcast this past Tuesday, June 23, 2015 with Brady Hicks, former WCW wrestler The Stro, Kathie Fitzpatrick, Derrick McDonald, and Jordan Garber. This show can be downloaded at both vocnation.com and thebradyhicks.com. Check it out as Joel, now a manager with the ECWA, offers his thoughts on the TWA's growth, Rasslin' Radio, his flawless record of zero no-shows, and his current association with the East Coast Wrestling Association. Plus, Joel dispenses advice for aspiring promoters, and offers his memories working with Abdullah The Butcher, The Sheik, Bruiser Brody, Eddie Gilbert, Cactus Jack, and the late Buddy Landell.
Here are some highlights:
The Tri-State Wrestling Alliance Legacy:
We wanted to bring in some of the best talent from across the country, develop some young talent at the local level ... There's all stories about why I had these supercards ... The reality was we created something that really ran about 2-1/2 years. To this day ... 23 years later, we're still talking about some of the matches that we had. We created something that ultimately became the ECW, that ultimately became the Attitude Era. All I simply did was take the best of what was out there. I took Memphis Wrestling, I took World Class Wrestling, I took Pacific Northwest, I took the old Georgia wrestling, the old Florida wrestling, and brought to the Philadelphia area the best of the best ... One of the sayings that we had as an organization was that everyone who came to our show, at some point during the card, got a front-row seat. I think that's kind of where the business evolved. Where the ring was no longer holding people and the action was outside the ring versus inside the ring.
On Wrestlers' Size Being a Detriment:
The one thing that I've learned about the independent wrestling community is a lot of these guys are just phenomenal athletes, phenomenal wrestlers, but unfortunately they're not 6'4", they don't have a television look, so they never get the push that they deserve ... There's a lot of guys with a tremendous amount of talent that will never get the television push because the gene pool wasn't there for them. It doesn't make them bad wrestlers. They're phenomenal wrestlers. I can watch these guys ... do things that are just phenomenal, but they'll never get the push they deserve.
On How Independent Wrestling Should Be Viewed:
When you look at the business of professional wrestling ... These [indie] shows are phenomenal. The talent is phenomenal. These guys and girls are busting their butt. They don't get paid a whole lot of money. It's more for the love of the sport. But everyone who claims that they love professional wrestling, they will only go if there's 2,000 people in the building [or] it's the return of some wrestler from 15 years ago. There's a lot of people who aren't into the sport of professional wrestling. They're into a specific wrestler, they're into a specific style of wrestling. This whole concept of Family Friendly doesn't mean that the show isn't good. In fact, I would actually argue that some of these Family Friendly shows are better than some of the shows we did ... The professional wrestling fan who doesn't come to the professional wrestling shows, quite frankly they're not the kind of fans that they think they are.
IN THE ROOM airs live, weekly, Tuesday nights at 9 PM ET on the VOC Nation Radio Network (vocnation.com / thebradyhicks.com). Join Brady Hicks (Pro Wrestling Illustrated contributing writer), as well as The Stro (WCW's Maestro), Kathie Fitz, Derrick McDonald, and Jordan Garber as they run down all that's going on in wrestling, and sit down with some of wrestling's top stars.
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