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The following interview was conducted Monday evening 10/21.
Mike Johnson: I guess the first question is, what is your response to the embracing of the NWA Powerrr series thus far online.
Billy Corgan: We've just been blown away. We certainly thought we would do fine, but the numbers and the feedback from the fans has just been overwhelming. I mean, we're 20 times further along than we thought we'd be at this point. So, it showed that the last couple of years investing and working with different companies and building relationships in the business have really paid of. Word of mouth got around, and certainly, to AW's credit and of course many others, New Japan. What's called this alternate universe, this non-WWE universe professional wrestling is kind of kicking into another gear. We're able to ride that wave at the same time as well.
Mike Johnson: You are someone who invested in Impact wrestling and it didn't go well....
Billy Corgan: $1.83 million, Mike, if you want to be specific.
Mike Johnson: Okay. $1.83 million. You had to legally pursue to get it back. Hopefully, you did get it all back.
Billy Corgan: I got it all back. Yes, I did. Every penny.
Mike Johnson: So, my question is, had not you had to go through that trial by fire, how different would your involvement in professional wrestling be right now? Before we talk a little bit about NWA, I just want to talk Impact for a second. Had things worked out there, do you think you would be in a similar position today as you are currently, or do you think your involvement of wrestling would have probably changed or been finished by now? How much of that story and the negative that came with that story ended up becoming this positive for you? And how different do you think your journey in professional wrestling, as someone who wanted to create and cultivate their own company and create their own vision of what wrestling should be....how different do you think it would have been if the Impact thing had worked out?
Billy Corgan: That's a really great question. I think one piece of data that's important is that, and it goes back to the court case that I was involved with against Impact or whoever it was. It was very complicated. Dixie Carter was certainly involved. The numbers as far as the debt of the company at that point were vastly under-reported. And so, if I had managed to take over the company, it would have been a far more complicated mess than I could have ever imagined. And so, along those lines, it's hard for me to imagine I could have ridden out the debt. That said, let's just set that aside, and let's just play fantasy booking. I felt that, because I'd been there almost two years, that I understood the culture, I understood the talent. And I felt I could very quickly pivot towards something that's similar to the vision of the NWA. Where it doesn't match up is that the thing you cannot really wrap your arms around until you're in it and until you feel it every day is once you take on the historical legacy of the NWA, and you start to really embrace what that really means to so many wrestling fans and how it's commensurate with the vision that I had already, which was that traditional wrestling will always work. I don't care trends come and go, but the idea of telling a good story, making people want to see it, and cough up some of their hard-earned money, which I certainly respect what that's all about as someone who had to sell tickets for many, many years as a performing artist. Once you can put those pieces together, I think the NWA has offered an opportunity that TNA never could have offered me. The attraction, and I'll be quick about it, the attraction for me with TNA was you were buying a culture that had already spent probably an excess of a $100 million in gross monies to build the infrastructure, the office, the relationship with vendors and stuff like that, and having to start the NWA literally from scratch. That's a very expensive proposition. So, there was a wisdom there. But as far as the culture of that went I think it ended up being just perfect that we ended up with the NWA.
Mike Johnson: So, the first show before we even see anything in regards to talent or matches or even the format of the show, for me as a viewer, the second I saw the bright blue and the yellow colors and I saw the background with the podium and the NWA logo in black and white with the Georgia outline of the state, I looked at it and immediately I was like, "Oh my God, it's Memphis. It's 6:05 wrestling. It's everything that I miss about old school professional wrestling when I was a kid where it felt like you were watching something unfold before your very eyes, and all sorts of chaos could unfold. You had tried different elements over the last couple of years with 10 lbs of gold. At one point, Dave Lagana was following you around and releasing mini documentaries almost every day about you and different things that were happening with you on the road. The version that we see with NWA Power now, how much of an evolution did it go through creatively before you settled on "Let's do studio wrestling for the 21st Century"?
Billy Corgan: Well, I pitched the idea to Dixie Carter of taking over, I think it was... What was their B series? Was it Xplosion?
Mike Johnson: Yeah, Xplosion.
Billy Corgan: I said I could do Xplosion cheaper than we were doing it in Universal if you let me do a studio wrestling. I couldn't sell that internally no matter how hard I tried because I think at the end of the day there was never any real desire to let me take over the company creatively. I was simply there to be a chip that they can play for networks and/or money if they needed it, which of course turned out to be true. And Impact Wrestling continues because I created the bridge to get it from A to C. I've been pitching that literally probably for the whole the end of the last four years, and even with other companies that we worked with we talked about doing a similar concept in combination with their talent with the idea that we'd have a small NWA roster that we could integrate with somebody else's talent, and then produce it a show, because as everyone can understand, producing studio wrestling is an economical thing. I thought, well, given meme culture, the way people consume content, the idea of a hothouse effective content on the fly, letting great promo people do their own business, not getting in there on every line and every period and comma, combined with the economics was something I really wanted to do, but the Ten Pounds of Gold series did illuminate for us over the last couple of years, and then, the series that Dave and I did called 30 Days, which was around some of my musical stuff. It illuminated for us very acutely that content culture is moving very, very fast these days, and you really have to be in the 24/7 business of content as you know with your site. People just consume content and if they want it, they want even more of it. So, it becomes about quality and it becomes about consistency. So, we learned a lot that maybe you don't see necessarily on screen, but it has a lot to do with how we got there.
Mike Johnson: You mentioned the energy of letting good talkers go out and just talk. To me the selling points of this has been the old school feeling of a Dave Marquez or a Joe Galli holding the microphone while somebody's talking. They're not just talking into the cameras, but they're also talking right to the audience because it's such a small confined space, but that feeling of this isn't completely scripted. When you watch WWE in its worst moments it's like watching high school kids doing Shakespeare without understanding what Shakespeare is supposed to be. The points feel off. The verbiage is odd. You feel people speaking in ways that they're not comfortable speaking. Talk about what sort of leeway creatively there is between, here's the idea for this segment, and then they go out and they produce it and perform it. Talk about what it's like formatting the show versus scripting it in WWE or Impact or in other companies. We can say "Oh there's creative freedom." But as the person who owns the company, break down what that creative freedom truly means for the performers.
Billy Corgan: Sure. Okay. So, let's just pretend we're talking about an imaginary wrestler. I would pull that wrestler aside, and say "Here's what we're trying to accomplish. Here's where we're going. Here's the in and here's the out. You're on your own." And literally, we're not even giving people time to use.
Mike Johnson: Really?
Billy Corgan: We're letting them run free. Absolutely. The only sort of stopgap measure is, we tell Galli or Marquez, "If you think it's going long, you pull the plug on the fly." But that's it. So, if an Eli Drake or an Aaron Stevens or a Nick Aldis is on fire, they can run as long as they want to go. There's limits on our talent. Literally, the only thing we've said is let's try not to curse, because we don't think that's necessary for what we're trying to get across. But beyond that, talent has literal freedom as long as they're within the lanes of the angle.
Mike Johnson: So, as we record this I believe we just passed or we're about to hit the one year anniversary of Nick Aldis' as the NWA champion. Over the last couple of week of NWA Powerrr, especially their first episode, I felt like we watched him ascend to a new level, almost like picking up the sword, men like Harley Race and Lou Thesz and Ric Flair in the past held, as that traveling champion who defined everything, who carried that lineage and defined sort of the base level for the entire promotion. Talk a little about Nick Aldis and his importance with the NWA, because this is a guy who is at one point on the fringes of the business after it's run with Impact. I feel like you've been able to get more mileage out of him with far less television appearances than he ever had before in his career than Impact ever did. Where it was always like, here was this guy who was always on the cusp of something with Impact, and for whatever reason, it never happened...and maybe, again, these are negatives that turned into positives for you, but when Nick Aldis walks out on TV on NWA Power, I feel like, "All right. Here's the star. Here's the champion." And it's a totally different feel, and a totally different vibe. Talk about his involvement in the NWA and his growth as a performer and on camera and behind the scenes and why he's become such an important cog.
Billy Corgan: Well, I think what we have to point out is that not every talent fits in a particular system. I've been on record labels where my skill set was not appreciated, and I was literally shoved out of the way for what I would deem lesser talents. Certainly talking to Nick, he's been in that situation a few times where he felt like he was getting over, and for whatever reason, politics or personal things or whatever, he just didn't get that opportunity.
Billy Corgan: In this case, we said to him, "Look, Nick, this is really on your back. And this thing will lift with you, and you tell us which way you want to go. We're partners in this." And we've really booked the thing together. It's just as much his vision speaking from the lens of the talent in the ring, the talent on the microphone. He's giving us his real-time feedback on what he thinks is working, and we built the company in many ways in his image. To his credit, I think he realized the opportunity and saw that he could mold himself in the frame of an old school champion. The way he carried himself and the way he saw himself as having to be the figurehead of the company, literally, and I think he's been able to sell that vision to talent. I think it shows. He's set a tone that I couldn't of manufactured. I mean, I could sit there and tell you all day. He's the kind of guy I wanted. And I couldn't even have told you two years ago that he's the guy I wanted. But now that I look back and I see the way Nick's carried himself, the match with Cody at All In, the match with Cody at NWA 70, I think these are going to go down as really historic moments when people will look back and say, "That's really when the business changed." And it took someone of the depth, talent, knowledge, and real appreciation and respect for the business to even understand what kind of moment he was in. I can't say enough great things about Nick. I mean, he's made me proud. I'm proud to be in business with him. The future's bright for him, and I hope he's with us for the duration. But certainly, he deserves the biggest stage in the world with where he's at right now.
Mike Johnson: So, as someone who has been so immersed in professional wrestling culture and someone who loves pro wrestling so much, let's get your analysis on how you feel the first couple of episodes have gone. Looking back is there anything that you feel already, like, "All right. We got to tweak this for the future"? To me, I feel like that first episode was one of the best initial debut episodes for any brand that I'd seen in a long time. I felt like there was a different energy from everything else that's out there right now. But I'm curious for you, was there anything you'd like to tweak or anything that you'd already seeing, like, "All right, we could do this, but maybe turn up the dial a little bit on comedy, so there's a little bit more levity" Or, "Maybe we need some more packages?" Was there anything that you weren't happy with and what were your thoughts on the shows as they've been post-produced and released?
Billy Corgan: Sure. Well, starting from a negative to a positive, I think we probably tried to do too much in that we taped four shows per day in the two days. So, we taped eight and we quite possibly could even get a ninth out of it considering some of the content that we have in the can. And we're kind of make it up as we go along. I say that in the best sense of the word. We didn't really understand how the audience was going to play into it. We weren't sure whether the things that we thought would work were going to come through the screen, and I think we bet on some really talented people who showed up in the moment and really delivered. To the credit of the people at Georgia Public Broadcasting, some of those people had never been to a wrestling show, much less shot a wrestling show. They were thrown in the deep end as far as the camera angles and sonics and stuff like that. I think for us it's more technical, but we are very excited and proud that we took this great gamble and bet, and it just kind of clicked. Again, it goes back to people like Nick. It goes back to people like Eli Drake. Them buying into what we're trying to accomplish. I think the locker room followed them as well.
Mike Johnson: One of the things I did want to ask you about is the talents that were specifically chosen because you had talents who were around who were veterans, and you have talents who, like a Caleb Conley, who's been around but has never really had that one moment where the audience has kind of seized upon and said, "All right. That's a star." His work is great, but he's never been put creatively in that sort of position where he has that platform. And you've got names like Trevor Murdoch, Ken Anderson, Colt Cabana, and some of these guys and some of these women have had their moments, and then kind of disappeared into the fringes of the business. How did you go about assembling the roster and finding that sort of balance between someone that a casual viewer may remember from a previous run elsewhere, and having newer, fresher faces that the board is kind of clear. You can create and cultivate and manage and try to help them grow like a Ricky Starks. How did you find that balance for the NWA Power series?
Billy Corgan: I think in this regard, I'm very much a Paul Heyman guy. I think Paul Heyman particularly with ECW showed that there was a lot of talent in the market that he was able to, by repackaging them, or booking them in a particular way that maybe supported their skill set. I like to think I'm that type of booker. When we talk about a talent, bringing in someone like a Trevor Murdoch, to me that's a no-brainer. I say this with all due respect, it has nothing to do with his past. Now, it certainly had something to do with the fact that the business hasn't gone for him the way maybe he would have liked. I don't think of it like that at all. I see a super talented guy who knows exactly what he's doing in the ring, and really, in many ways has been underutilized. So, I think it's to our credit that we can show quite quickly why somebody like that has been underutilized.
Billy Corgan: Nick's another example of somebody who's been grossly underutilized, which is kind of laughable when we consider the work that he's done for the last two years. And Nick was quick to point out that he was in Main Events in TNA. He was a champion. But like you said, and I certainly felt as a fan watching back is he never really got his just due. So, what we try to say to every talent coming in is like, "Look, we're going to give you your best opportunity, and if you start to get over, no one's going to stop you. This company is built for talents to get over. The greatest credit we could have in the next few years is that some of the talents that we work with will go on to brighter and bigger pastures because we've been able to show the world that the talent that we see is right there and it just hasn't been necessarily packaged or supported in the right way. We tend to look at it maybe like a New England Patriots. We're looking for the talents on the market that are undervalued, but we know their value, and we know if that properly supported they're going through the camera like they should. So far we've been pretty right. We're very excited about that.
Mike Johnson: My biggest fear watching the show has been, "All right. Here's Ken Anderson. He's got a spotlight again. Here's Trevor Murdoch." I know Rock n Roll Express is going to be on and Molina. Maybe the Rock n Roll Express isn't the right example for this or the right talent to point out, but my fear almost immediately was, "Okay. Someone's going to see them, and they're going to see what they're able to do, and it's going to click in their head, and a light bulb's going to go off. Oh yeah, they're out there. Especially right now where there's a nuclear arms race for talent, someone's going to seize upon, "Oh, we can bring Ken Anderson in. Oh, we can bring Trevor Murdoch back." And even if they're not utilized in the same manner, but it's another warm body that we can use, that we could utilize. Is there a fear that by giving these talents the sort of spotlight that you're giving them, that maybe you're setting yourself up for long-term frustration where you start to lose talents over the course of different tapings?
Billy Corgan No. We're not really particularly worried about that. We did have an incident where it was a few months ago, where we had a company steal a talent from us that was under contract. I was considering pursuing legal action. I went to a lawyer and the lawyer said, "You absolutely have a case." We decided in that case not to because we hadn't launched yet and really didn't want the adverse publicity because it would just seem like more drama shit show. To many casual observers, it's like the last time they heard my name involved with wrestling was suing TNA. So, what we've done since is we've shored up our contractual situations. We made it very clear to talent what our expectations are in regards to the contracts. We take those risks just like anybody else does when those deals are up. We're not particularly worried. We have our key talents. I think they're pretty easy figure out who they are. I think as long as we feel we're all in this business faithfully, under the letter of the law, that our expectations are pretty realistic. We don't have a billion dollars to spend, so what we have to do is we have to offer something akin to a professional franchise that says, "Look, when you come in here, you will have a great experience, and when you leave, you will be worth more in the market than when you came in." And so, if we lose people because we can't afford the value that we've helped build into them, I think it will ultimately just be to the credit of the NWA. So, we're not particularly worried about that.
Part two will be posted Tuesday morning.
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