The Ride Home
Dallas Danger and Brian Logan sit down and discuss in Q & A form "Making the Towns" podcast.
The Ride Home
WFS: A Therapy Session- BONUS EPISODE
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A million-dollar wrestling dream sounds like an easy ride until the real world shows up with contractors, delays, and a building you can “float a boat in.” Brian Logan and Dallas Danger finally sit down to tell the behind-the-scenes story of World Fighting Showcase (WFS), the pro wrestling promotion we built to feel like a modern product with old school territory rules. If you’ve ever wondered what it takes to launch a serious indie wrestling brand, run TV tapings, and create a roster that looks legit on camera, this conversation gets honest fast.
We walk through how WFS started, why television and streaming content were always the goal, and how we tried to reconnect the Smoky Mountain-style TV territory from Knoxville all the way to Beckley, West Virginia. We talk about our creative standards: unique looks, no copycat gear, athletes who can plausibly win a fight, and a presentation that respects the audience’s intelligence. We also dig into the mindset that kept us moving when everything was on fire: the “feed the monster theory,” or doing real work toward the goal every single day.
Then comes the saga that nearly broke us: the promised home base building. Flooding, budget overruns, missing plans, unreliable labor, and local backlash turned the centerpiece of the plan into a year-long drain on time, money, and health. We share what we learned the hard way about running a wrestling promotion, why some partnerships didn’t fit, how the pandemic forced a reset, and why we’re still proud of the footage that’s finally reaching more fans.
If you watch the WFS matches on YouTube, we want your honest take. Subscribe, share the episode with a wrestling fan, and leave a review so more people can find the story and the work we put into it.
Bonus Episode Kickoff
SPEAKER_02I am your champion. Oh man, that's classic. I love it. I'm gonna climb that ladder of success all the way to the top. Hello everybody and welcome back. This is the special bonus episode of The Ride Home. We're gonna be talking about the world fighting showcase today. I'm your host, Brian Logan, along with my best friend and pal, Dallas Danger. Welcome, Dallas. How are you doing today?
SPEAKER_01I'm doing well. You got a little I don't know. You got a little weird there at the end of the day.
SPEAKER_02Did I get weird? It felt weird. It really felt weird, but I'm working, I'm working, I'm I'm workshopping some things here. You know.
SPEAKER_01Hey, I'll allow it. Okay. I'll allow it. Well, I'm doing all right. I'm doing okay.
SPEAKER_02I mean, that might not be the fit for every week as an opener, but it worked for this one. It's the one we're going with.
SPEAKER_01Well, it might be fitting because this could get weird quick.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's gonna bring up a lot of uh interesting feelings and uh a lot of memories, probably. And um Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Our love-hate relationship with this promotion and the wrestling business at this time period.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, absolutely. It's gonna it's gonna be it's gonna cover some ground for us, for both of us. But I know for me personally, it's gonna bring up a lot of not so pleasant feelings and emotions and thoughts and memories. So um, yeah, let's I mean, I mean, I guess let's get into it.
What WFS Was Meant To Be
SPEAKER_02Well, the WFS, the World Fighting Showcase, was a pro wrestling territory that me and Dallas owned along with uh Eric Lester, and uh we promoted from Knoxville, Tennessee to Beckley, West Virginia, and uh one of the goals that we'll get into was TV. We were creating content for the internet for streaming, and we were creating content um on brick and mortar television stations. One of the things I wanted to do is put the Smoky Mountain TV area back together, something that had not happened since 1995. People had had bits and pieces at different time frames, but we wanted to put the TV area from Knoxville straight through all the way to Beckley completely connected. That was one of the things we did, and we wanted to also offer a better climate for the boys to work in. And that was one of our emphases was the culture of the promotion. But uh, how would you describe to somebody who doesn't know what it is, what would how would you describe the world fighting showcase, Dallas?
SPEAKER_01Ooh, that's a really good question. Um I mean, I think you really did a good job there, but from a from a creative standpoint, I my goal once I took over the creative side of WFS was to I I wanted modern wrestling, but with old school fundamental presentation. So the guys were modern and they talked like modern wrestlers, and they they portrayed themselves on social media like modern wrestlers, but it was all packaged like an old school territory, like the like Smokey Mountain Wrestling, you know. We you know, to to kind of get myself into the proper headspace to do this, I was watching um, I didn't have a lot of time. I I knew I wouldn't be able to get even an entire episode in, so I didn't want to start with episode one. I so I said, I'm gonna watch the last episode we ever aired, which I think was 29. And we were in Dandridge, Tennessee. We were promoting a big event that never happened, but at the time we thought was gonna happen in Dandridge, Tennessee. But a lot of the footage that we aired in like our commercial for our streaming channel at the time, that was all shot in West Virginia, Bluefield, West Virginia. And we also there was one promo that I saw for a TV taping that was gonna take place in January of the following year, was in um I believe Moorhead, Kentucky. Yeah, which I didn't even remember that's right.
SPEAKER_02We obviously never got there, but um Melina has suggested that that's where the missing four episodes went. That's where you had it pre-written. Um, real quick, I was putting the episodes up. We thought we had more episodes than we did, but I remembered stopping at another at the number we stopped at, but he had notes for uh another TV taping. And that would have been the Moorhead one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that's true or or what. Um the math doesn't math in my head, but but it's okay. It's fine. We don't need to uh take up time here, you know, talking about that. But but that's how I would describe it, you know, is is I wanted I wanted a modern looking product um with modern production and uh boy did we have that. Man, you were on your A game. The intro and the um the um the Horner Cup commercial was just great. Yeah, it looked amazing. Um thank you. But but in order to accomplish that, you know, I wanted guys that looked the part. I didn't want anybody that didn't look like they had any business in a ring. I wanted guys that looked like athletes, at the very least. The very least, I needed you to be able to look look the part, man. I just I just needed you to be in shape to some degree. Didn't matter what shape that was, but I needed you to look like you were an athlete or a guy that could win a fight at the very least.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like you were putting more than effort.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that was my main thing. And the rest, you know, we could work with. But yeah, man, modern wrestling was with some old school fundamental um, you know, presentation.
SPEAKER_02Well, and one of the things too is we didn't we had one of a of a certain character of guys. Unless you were a tag team, you couldn't have another gimmick that somebody else was doing. And and by that I mean black tights. You couldn't two guys wearing black tights that weren't uh specific to their gimmick, like say some of the enhancement talent, they weren't gonna wear the same color. Everybody had to be an individual, everybody had to be recognizable, and everybody had to have their own thing going for them. Whatever that might be, you know, big, small, indifferent, good, bad, ugly, cute, whatever. They had to have something unique to them.
SPEAKER_01One guy in a cowboy hat, for instance. I was I was big on that. Yes. I was big on that. Not everybody was gonna wear cowboy hats and and be, like you said, be super similar. Um we we we just we we wanted to operate like a bigger company. We didn't want to operate like an independent where you got to just come in and do whatever you did, um and and that just be okay. You know what I mean? We we we wanted some control over what you were doing and who you who you were, how you presented.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. I mean, that was super important to us was for us. We had a vision, and the product was gonna look like our vision. And and I think it did. I think we did a great job of that. I remember uh turmoil, I think, I think it was turmoil. No, it was it was when we did the American Heavyweight title, whatever we called that show. And I remember coming out to the to the um announcer table right before the matches started, and I said, look at that, look at the ring, and you're like, yeah, it looks good. And I was like, No, no, no, no, look at it. And you looked at me like I was nuts. I was like, it looks like a toy. It looks just like a ring you would buy as a kid, except it's life-size and it's metal and it's real. And that's that's the way we looked at it. We wanted everything to be larger than life and special.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. It was kind of I don't know. I mean, the ultimate goal was to be like mini WWE.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01Um, you know, I mean, we're we're kind of just we just hit the ground running and we haven't even touched on, I mean, I I had a note in a format for this, but um one of the key elements to WFS was we were supposed to have our own building.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_01This is where we this was gonna be our base, but it was also gonna be a place where we could hold events and sell tickets and have matches. Um I mean, yeah,
The First Taping Went Sideways
SPEAKER_01I mean, I don't know. Do you want to just get into the building?
SPEAKER_02No, let's start from the beginning. Let's let's start at the very beginning and work our way to that. Let's not put the cart before the horse. Um okay. I had started WFS before ever meeting Dallas. Uh, the first incarnation. And uh I was working with some people, and um, their vision and my vision didn't match up. So we go to have the first TV taping, and it was mispromoted. There was not very many people there at all. I mean, very seldom people, I mean, not a lot at all. And um we had so much equipment, everybody got tired and quit helping me put up equipment. So I'm rushing an hour before the show trying to get everything up because I had all this lighting and TV cameras and monitors and stage dressing and all this stuff. And we ended up getting 26 town promos, you know, for the next show, one by each guy, and we got no film of the matches because it was terrible. We couldn't get the lighting to work, I couldn't get it up in time, and the fans were coming in, and it got to be bell time, we just had to have a have a show. So the first WFS show, we got no foot. We're a TV company and we got no footage. So I after that I took some time off because I was very frustrated that one, I'd put all the money in and didn't get anything in return as far as film. Um wanted to switch out some of the personnel because obviously if they can't help me put the stuff up, then I need to get people that can because that was one of the problems of why we didn't get film, is we didn't have everything assembled, and they just got tired and quit. At that time, uh I got asked to do a bar show and uh in Kingsport, and I went over and did that, and somehow I ended up running the bar show. So we decided to run the bar show as WFS, and then that is when you got invited to come over and we met, correct?
SPEAKER_01Um so the bar show that we met at was not a WFS show.
SPEAKER_02Okay, it was RCW, right?
SPEAKER_01Maybe it was um oh gosh. Josh something.
SPEAKER_02Josh Cody.
SPEAKER_01Josh Cody.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_01And you were that that's the thing too, is I'm I'm just now I'm I'm now remembering that the original idea for WFS was different than what it would become because you were trying to do business with a lot of different companies and promoters.
SPEAKER_02Right. We were trying to create content and garner content for the strip for a streaming channel that I was running, and that WFS was going to be like a governing body, and we were gonna tape other people's shows and integrate champions in it, and we were just starting trying to do that. So I was working with Josh Cody, he had had me come over and work the bar show and had me film it. So we brought the stuff over and uh I think we streamed it live to Facebook. I think that was the first thing we did was was straight to Facebook.
Meeting Dallas And Finding The Vision
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so that was how you and I met. Um you this show was being promoted as we're gonna we're gonna air it live to Facebook. And um Lenny Stratton had shared some of the posts about it. Lenny Stratton was a guy who wrestled on the show and uh was uh sort of my first in to wrestling. Um we were buddies, and um, I just reached out to him and said, hey man, um who's running this show? Do they have commentators? Do they need an extra commentator? And he said, I'll I'll find out. I'll I'll check, you know, I'll see what I can do. And turns out you you or Eric or whoever he spoke to initially was like, Yes, absolutely. That was me. Tell him to show up, tell him to show up.
SPEAKER_02Because I was looking for uh a commentator because Shane Matthews was my commentator, and we had since parted ways, and uh I was desperate to find a commentator because I needed Eric to do other things and uh wrestle for one. Uh so he couldn't definitely couldn't wrestle and commentate at the same time. And we were gonna do some of this in post, but if you're going live to Facebook, you kind of gotta have live commentary to go with it, or it's gonna be very boring. Uh it'd be just like any other show that goes live. And uh so I was like, absolutely having come, it was a godsend. I I had, you know, you didn't know this at the time, but you were hired at that moment, just by default. Because I had nobody else. So thank God you were good. I mean, you could have been terrible, you still got hired.
SPEAKER_01So, yeah, so um, so I come and do this show and I work with Eric Lester. Um and it was it was alright, you know, it was a little awkward because I was doing I don't remember the direction, but I was I was the color guy, but I wasn't really a colored guy. It was sort of like we were just both the lead guy. We were just sort of sharing lead commentator duties and um more of a conversation.
SPEAKER_02More of a conversation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was very conversational. Yeah, yeah. But after after the show, um I I don't know, man. I'm I I feel like I'm completing a lot of things.
SPEAKER_02No, okay, so basically we we were shooting promos, and we because I was making a uh a show of this that didn't just air on Facebook, but was gonna air on the streaming channel. So we needed to do intros for the whole event. So we had you in the hallway, and uh you were getting ready to do your No, you're you're conflate.
SPEAKER_01Now you're conflating because this was this was a bar show. You're you're you're and you do this a lot. This is how I know you're conflating.
SPEAKER_02Because I run them all together?
SPEAKER_01Yes, but because uh later on there would be an evolution show where we had to do a lot of pre and post tapes.
SPEAKER_02That's right. That's right.
SPEAKER_01So I don't even that's where the that's where the that's where the I gotta get home, I've got baseball to watch.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if you want to be my the famous last words, if you want to be my friend, we don't do second takes here. Um this is a business. If you want to be my friend, come to my house and watch baseball with me. Other than that, we're we're working here. We're not trying to have friend time, and I think you like that.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, yeah, for sure. Um I I definitely took you up on that and started showing up at your fucking house to watch baseball. And you never left. You're still there, but but at the bar show, we had a you and I had a conversation where you were like, hey, you're in, and sort of started laying out the vision. And I remember several things about it. One of the things I remember is thinking while you were laying out the vision and what you had already done, and what you were trying to do moving forward was that it really matched some notes I had in a notebook about kind of how to do this correctly. And what I thought would be the right way to create and start and sort of build a new promotion in territory. Um I mean I was just kind of getting to be involved in any way that I could. Right. Because to this point, I had worked a little bit of TV with evolution, but I really was just kind of disillusioned with my place and my opportunities in pro wrestling up to that point. Just because being a non-physical participant, there wasn't much for me in the way of work.
SPEAKER_02Right. Um because a lot of times, you know, these promotions would have their their guys and then they would stick somebody else in there based on their availability. Or they would force it, and this is when it was really bad, they would force, say, a three-man booth when they didn't need it and someone always got left out. Um, or they just would be last thoughts of commentary when it should be one of your first thoughts, because that's the guy that's explaining your stories to everybody. They weren't really putting effort in your storyteller.
SPEAKER_01And uh and I think you feel in the taping if they were taping at all. You know what I mean? I just there just wasn't much for me, but I wanted to do TV because I believed that without without TV, there wasn't much point in doing wrestling in the first place.
SPEAKER_02Right. And I agree with that. That's that's the moneymaker. That's that's your calling card, that's your commercial. That's how you get out to the masses and get your product established over and create revenue. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01And and I think we really hit it off over really just at the heart of it, that belief that there was a certain way to do this correctly. And to find someone who not only believed that, but had the means to kind of do it. You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02Like to actually just like to have the stars light up and have the opportunity, the knowledge, and the means to do it, that very seldomly happens. Um and uh we were blessed at that time, and I'm just gonna go ahead and say and lay it on the table. I got uh a business investor that ended up giving me a million dollars. And I had that to make this work. And we were getting fur, you know, we we had high expectations. We were gonna run a lot, and we did run a lot. Um, we were gonna run a lot more. Um as we ran into stumbling blocks along the way, we didn't realize how many we were gonna actually run into, which was at every corner. But in the beginning, when me and Dallas met, it just clicked. You know, he came over that day to watch baseball with me, and we talked, we I think we watched a couple games that day, and we just talked about everything, and then you started telling me about that notebook, and and I know I personally was like, oh my god, there's at least one more person that understands and had this thought on his own. And if we tweak his thoughts and we calm uh calm down my thoughts, this might be a real, real good working relationship. And and it turned out it has been. It's been the best uh creative wise that I have been in my whole life is us being uh creative partners together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. Um absolutely. But but you know, at this at this bar show where we met, you tell me about the building. Because that was sort of the centerpiece of the whole idea, the whole game was this building. And it never really came to fruition. And we'll get into that plenty.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we have a lot, a lot of problems, a lot of lot of problems with that building. But uh we'll get to that here in this episode. We will. Uh we'll tell some of that a little bit. But uh we started booking towns, we started booking um some of the local towns that would do real well. Uh Greenville, which people might laugh and go, huh, Greenville's never drawn. I work shows in Greenville and they did great. Bo had said this town either does great and sells out or you don't have anybody at all. We were in the middle. But we did uh and I'm not our first taping, but one of our first few tapings there. And it did okay. Um, but we were looking for buildings that had been run before in areas that had been neglected, and we wanted to set up a tour.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. While we're while we're waiting for this building to get finished and we can really get things going.
SPEAKER_02And then I started started setting up the brick and mortar TV stations. Um, I want to say, was CYB the first one we were on, or was it Knoxville? I think it might have been Knoxville.
SPEAKER_01I don't know, but you're jumping way ahead.
SPEAKER_02Okay, all right. I'm gonna jump ahead.
SPEAKER_01Because initially there was just the idea to to work with all these promotions, create the governing body kind of model. And you know, that was kind of what I liked was there was gonna be this opportunity to do a lot and work with a lot of different people and a lot of different buildings and a lot of different promo promoters and um it just to me was gonna be this chance to really for lack of a better way to put it, give it a go. Yeah, we'll go at this, for me personally.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So um that was really cool. You and I hit it off, and you know, I got brought into the fold as uh as a commentator. Um it gets a little blurry for me when certain things started to happen just because it went from you and I talking every now and then to more and more and more over time. And yeah, so I don't know where you kind of want to go from here in this conversation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we okay, so we we started having meetings and discussing everything, and I had uh told you about a theory that I want to share with a lot of people, the feed the monster theory.
Feed The Monster Theory
SPEAKER_02And uh can you tell them what that is?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely can't explain the feed the monster theory, and I'll put it into context for everybody.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so you have taught me that there is this hypothetical monster that you have to feed. And the way you feed the monster is by doing some form of work towards your ultimate goal every single day as much as you can. And some days you're gonna do a lot, and some days you're just gonna do a little if you're doing something every day in order to fulfill whatever it is you're trying to do. To do whatever it is you're trying to do. And if you feed that monster every single day, even if it's just a little bit, that monster is gonna stay happy, that monster is gonna stay fast happy, and um it's never going to try to turn on you and eat you because it's because it's being fed, and it's being taken care of. And when you have a big event, or you have a big thing of some description, it's not gonna go poorly because the monster eats you. And I have adopted that and tried to live by it ever since. Yeah. Um so I hope I did a good job of explaining it was perfect.
SPEAKER_02It was absolutely perfect. Exactly, it is. The uh I find that in and it's nobody's fault. Most people don't know about the monster, but now you do. I find that in in wrestling, a lot of promotions, probably about 75-80% of them, the monster eats them. Now, you may have a good reason on why you didn't feed the monster, and feeding the monster is, you know, doing Facebook ads, or uh, you know, writing TV when you don't feel like it, or editing something today instead of tomorrow, or calling that building, or calling 12 buildings, uh, doing something, anything that that that you don't put off. And I find that a lot of promotions put things off and then they want to make excuses like, oh, they're tearing my posters down. No, they're not tearing your posters down. You just didn't feed the monster because you were you were messing around and you you were talking about being a wrestler instead of actually doing the work. And we try to teach that to everybody that that that we work with to work harder and feed that monster. And me and you became a master at keeping the monster away. And I live that way through my whole life every day, too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you know, it doesn't mean that things are always gonna go great all the time. It's just it just really is about putting yourself in a position where when things don't go exactly as planned, you are more prepared. Yeah and you you are in a better position to react and deal with the negatives of again whatever it is you're doing. Um, but it really works in the wrestling business because I mean there's a lot that goes into running a promotion, and especially if you're doing TV and you're running multiple towns and multiple states and multiple areas, um and dealing with multiple different personalities and people and sponsors. There's just a lot, yeah, it's just a lot. And if you don't feed the monster every day, that's when the monster eats you and you lose your mind, and things just really start going bad, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, on a regular basis, and it doesn't take long for things to go bad enough that that it that it gets that it gets awful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you just want to quit. Yeah, and that's or you have to quit. Or you have to quit, and that's not something that you know anybody wants to do going into uh any venture, wrestling or anything. You know, you have these grandiose ideas and dreams, and the last thing you want to do is to have it all blow up in your face. And you know, being mindful of the monster is is a great way to stay on the the right path. And we and because of that, we started having more conversations, and we have started having formal meetings, and we just started working more. And uh, you know, you I gotta say this right now, I know I'm really jumping ahead, but I just want to say it and then we'll we'll get back on track. But the quickest rising in any company ever, you went from the commentator hired just because you were a warm body to owning the company.
SPEAKER_01In a short period, short period of time. Short period of time. It didn't take long for me to just take on more responsibility. Um yeah, I mean it just it it it evolved and and turned into a whole nother thing for me very quickly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you had well, you had the right attitude of, okay, so this guy over here dropped the ball. Well, okay, I'm gonna pick up the ball and do something with it. Sure, I'm playing with 12 other balls, I'll just juggle. You know, so you you were really good at that. And that was one of the reasons I I wanted you around, was because you weren't a blamer. You weren't an excuse maker. You were a let's get this done thing. If anything, you're a let's not talk about it and just move on, kind of guy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, I mean, uh I yeah, I appreciate that. Um you know, it and and for me, it was just it was it was all about again having the opportunity to do anything in wrestling because it was it was it was gonna be more difficult for me because I wasn't a wrestler, and I honestly didn't want to be a wrestler. Um I did didn't take long for me to realize that was not the case. Right. Um really at the end of the day. So I wanted to be involved, I wanted to do something, and finding out about WFS and getting involved um in the early stages like idea gave me an opportunity to do a lot of cool things. Yeah, and um I just was at a place when you and I met, Brian, that I didn't know if that was out there. I just didn't, you know. Um so yeah, so it was cool to to it was cool to meet you, it was cool to get involved in it, and it was cool to do a lot of the things that we ended up doing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we did we did do a lot of cool things, work with a lot of good people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, a lot of people, and a lot of people, and a lot of people that I'm happy to know, and um to have gotten to work with and and get to know at the level that I do know them.
SPEAKER_02Um you know the dirty white boys and the Tim Horners, they were they were so crucial for what what they they they came in to do a little bit and they left by doing a lot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Man, we're just all over the place today.
SPEAKER_02That's alright.
The Building Plan And Reality
SPEAKER_02It's cool. Let's go ahead and change gears and let's talk about this building a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02So my go my thought process was that it was going back to Bo and the Samson Center. He had a good little deal there. If he would have just owned that and it would have been a little bit bigger, and he could have promoted wrestling and stayed there and grew his product and done everything. And then I'd OBW had done the same thing up there with uh the the little TV station or the little TV studio in Jefferson, Indiana, later moving on to Shepherdsville, uh, and WWF bought it for him, and it was a bigger complex. And I'd always heard of Jimmy talking about that if Smoky Mountain would have had a building, that that's what he would have done was build a place that was like an entertainment center for wrestling. And uh that's what I wanted to do is I wanted to buy some property, put up a building, and have that be our weekly run, just like I had done with Apex. We haven't talked much about that, but we will on on the two podcasts. Um I wanted to run weekly as a TV show and one spot town that week with a reduced ticket price, and then branch out from there and sort of have that as the headquarters and the home base. Except this time I wanted to do it the size of an armory. And that's what I did. I went out and I bought some property and I purchased a steel building, a huge steel building the size of an armory, put it on the put it on the property, and we were in the process of getting it built and everything, and the problem started. Um go ahead and tell you some of the problems, or what you got anything on that, or where do you want me to go with this?
SPEAKER_01No, no, but because I I I need people at this point to really realize that like the majority of the by the time I came around the problems have really started. So for me very little I had very little to do with the the the building in any form because most of my time as a part of WFS I don't know. Most of what I did had nothing to do with that.
SPEAKER_02Yours was cleaning up the mess that I was trying to deal with stopping the mess.
SPEAKER_01So you just you go in as as far into the weeds about the problems and what what ended up happening uh with that building, um because because I I I most of what I have to say about WFS has nothing to do with that door.
SPEAKER_02Okay, all right. Well I bought the building and uh bought the property and trying to find a reputable company that was willing to put up the building was it was a prefabricated steel building, and it was huge. Um I'm trying to remember the square, it's something like 3,800 square foot or something. I don't know. It was big. I don't I don't know if the square footage is right. I don't, I'm not, I'm not a carpenter guy, as you're about to find out. Um, you know, I had one company which was a really, really good company here, and they wanted a million dollars just to put the building up. And I was like, well, you can't do that. That's my my entire budget. Um, and then we paid like 200 grand for the building, and I paid 55,000 for the um property. And so this is a major, major uh real estate deal. So I found I found the company to come in to pour the slab, and we had contracts written up for everything, and I want to state that I had I had a contract on everything. Bought everything with ironclad. The first problem we had was is the contract guy or the concrete guy subcontracted the the job out to other people, and they wanted to do things their way, not the way he had entered into the contract. So I had an argument with this guy for moment one. He was in charge of the concrete and the parking lot excavation, and the parking uh lot was supposed to be two-thirds of the property of the building was going to be another third. Well, the concrete people didn't they did a wonderful job, but they didn't do the job I was promised, and I wanted the job that I was promised. So I had it out with this guy to begin with, and then he hired his dad to do the parking lot, and they only did half of what we had discussed. I mean, we actually went out in the parking lot and walked down to a tree and put our hands on a tree, and I said, I want the parking lot to end at this tree. Um well his dad decided one day he was done working and left the project, and we ended up with half a parking lot. So I got rid of all those guys. We got the company in to erect the building. Um, first thing they did was lose the directions on how to put the building together. I had to hunt down another copy because the concrete guy had taken them to Kentucky and left them up there and couldn't give them to the other guys. This whole time I've learned that when construction workers say they're going to start on X day, they really mean X day plus two months. That was a big, big shocker. Um, because when I I went down there on the day they're supposed to start, and nobody showed up, and nobody showed up for weeks later. So they get the they get the building put up and everything, and then the property floods. Come to find out that this was the property was a big farm back in the Great Depression. And over the years it was cut up and got smaller and smaller, with the family of the original owner getting some of the property, then it being Sold off for people to build houses on, so on and so forth until you get down to my property. Well, some point in the 60s, the Army Corps of Engineers put the highway in, and it was right off the highway. Great location in a wonderful spot. It was in Newmarket, Tennessee. There's nothing in Newmarket, but it was 26 miles from Knoxville. It was uh 19 miles from Morristown, it was uh like 12 miles from Dandridge, uh, had a good population, nothing to do there but go to church. This was a great location until it flooded. So what had happened was when they put the uh the highway in, they put a drainage system that drained all the water of the highway off into my property, and it completely flooded. Well, this year was one of the years we had one of the hundred-year rains, and it came and the entire building, you could float a boat in it. It just flooded. And we had building materials in there, we had uh mats to go around the ring that was in there, um, just everything. So at that point, we had to wait for everything to dry out, but the company that erected the building said they were done. They wanted their $50,000 and they were out. And I was like, the building's not finished, I'm not paying you. And I ended up hiring this other guy, his name was Gary Glasgow, and he came in to fix everything. And I met with him, I liked him, I thought he was the guy, and he turned out to be an ex-con and a crook and a liar, and I paid him $60 something,000 to finish all of this, and he never came back to work again. So the building ended up, uh he he ended up hiring one of my wrestlers to come down there, so we put up some fo walls and the area inside. They they mapped out where the showers were gonna be and some office space and the concessions and all that. And it was gonna have we had to buy all new um building materials, all this. So this whole project was running over budget by double. And then Gary takes off, won't have anything to do with us, and uh the whole building was just an albatross. And it got so bad that we couldn't get it open, I couldn't spend any more money on it, and we I ended up having to sell the building, and I ended up selling it to um uh uh an equipment managing company that turned it into a garage. Of course, they had the ability to come in there and reroute the water off the highway and all this stuff, and they did great. And and I turned I I I turned a small profit on that, um, very, very small, like 10 grand. So basically, I I I got nowhere and wasted a year or so of my life and it nearly killed me. And I will never deal with construction workers ever again. But with all that being gone, we had based all of this TV, all of these buildings and everything on the dream of getting the TV station, wrestling school, slash venue that was going to be our home base open, that everything was going to go around it. So at the time we were basically piecemealing as many shows as we could together to keep it going, to keep the TV afloat, and still deal with the loss of the building. It was just it was disastrous and it was heartbreaking. Um so that's the bad story about the building. And then Dallas's job was to come in and basically run the company while I was losing my mind and my health dealing with this building.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was uh it was it was in shambles. I mean, it was just um and and the potential was really great, but you know it just never it just I mean to to put it I mean long story short, it just it just wasn't meant to be. No, it wasn't for that building, for that location in that building to to to get finished and and to to host wrestling and house the the business. It just it just wasn't meant to be.
SPEAKER_02No, it wasn't meant to be at all. I mean, the neighbors revolted. They blamed me for their yards getting uh watered, even though it was from rainwater. I mean, it seemed the EPA got involved. I mean, it seemed like everybody was mad at me in the town of Newmarket. Um the the town mayor was mad. I found out there was a county mayor. You know, it was just it was just the biggest disaster of my entire life. And uh, you know, the best day with it was getting out from under it. It was it was just not meant to be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um
Flooding Contractors And Selling Out
SPEAKER_01so I come into the picture, we're we're running some shows, we're working with some other promotions, and just kind of doing what we can while all this is happening with the building. And um, you know, there's a lot of different timelines merging together, uh, so it's hard to keep for me to remember what
Evolution Merger And Tape Library
SPEAKER_01exactly is happening when in relation to other things with the building. But um the the company that I had done TV with Evolution Championship Wrestling, uh, we end up merging the two companies. Um I don't know how much of that you want to get into.
SPEAKER_02Uh I had an on Evolution was running. We were using most of the guys. They had uh a bunch of buildings that they had ran. They were an established product, they had a video library that was extensive. Um, and I'm gonna talk about that here in a minute, too. Um and they were established in the Johnson City area and had a following, and it was perfect for us to buy them out. The promoters were looking to get out of that, but they wanted the company to still run and have the boys still have somewhere to work because it was one of those deals that basically the promoter was tired of promoting, but he knew that if he shut down, a lot of the guys wouldn't work again. So we took as many wrestlers from them as we could. Um, we took some that didn't want to be there and ended up not being there very long. Um, but it was a perfect merger for us. We got another set of uh ring and equipment, we got the TAFE Library, which is, like I said, is extensive. Unfortunately, with the way the rules are on YouTube, because of the time period they use so many real songs, I can't get it approved on YouTube. So I have this wonderful library of evolution TVs that covers a lot of ground. I think there's over 180 episodes, plus big events and random shows here and there. And we have yet to figure out what we're gonna do with them. We will figure it out at some point, but we have them, they are saved, and we'll figure something out, but they won't be going on YouTube. But the merger between the two companies was was a very good deal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um, yeah, so we're we're running some shows, we're doing what we can. Um things are going the way they are with the building. Um I think where things really sort of got I don't know. We're we're we're where things sort of line up to what ended up happening with WFS and um and and and the bulk of the footage that is now on um YouTube was was was what happened surrounding the pandemic in 2020 and how we sort of came out of that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we
COVID Reset And Bar Pressure
SPEAKER_02uh we just spoke about the the bar event, and when Josh had left, I had took over the bar and I had got a deal with them, and we booked shows for a year. But then the pandemic happened, and everybody, you know, we stopped like everybody else did, and we stopped as long as we could, um, which was good. It was a good we as a company needed a breath of fresh air to not shut down, but just to get our ducks in a row. Um so while we couldn't conduct business because of the pandemic, it was very good for business because we were we were fixing the problems that we had and we had time to do it. Um but this bar basically had uh reopened and they couldn't get bands in there because the bands weren't touring. So they basically told me you have a deal with us and we expect you to honor it, and you need to have shows and you need to start them really soon, and you need to do your whole contracted um deal with us because you basically you're gonna be the entertainment for a year. So we had no choice but to start running shows again, at least at that bar.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so to sort of bring all this, I mean, uh we're we're talking about a lot of different things happening. So basically to bring it all in together, um when COVID hit, we kind of knew the building was done for at that point. It wasn't gonna happen. So we were needing, like you said, this this reset. And COVID gave us that opportunity. In addition, it sort of positioned us financially with some of the things that were going on in that regard to be able when the bar sort of pushed us back into it before we really were ready. But they push us back in, and I basically say, well, if we're gonna be back, let's just be back.
Rebuilding TV From Knoxville To Beckley
SPEAKER_01Let's do it. Let's do what we've talked about. Let's let's start doing let's start filming TV and put this territory back together, like we said we were gonna do from the show. Let's put the Smoky Mountain TV territory back together. So we get with stations, we reestablish the Smoky Mountain TV area from Knoxville up to Beckley, West Virginia.
SPEAKER_02Nonstop without any break.
SPEAKER_01Right. Our TV is on from Knoxville to Beckley with no interruption. And we start doing some TV tapings, and um, you know, I'm I'm doing the booking, I'm writing the TVs, and um when I tell you during the the the break, during the time when nobody was doing anything during COVID, I watched so much wrestling, and a lot of it wasn't very good because I was trying to find the one guy on every show that fit what we were looking for. That looked apart that had some kind of legit background, whether it was amateur wrestling, whether it was some martial art, whether it was it didn't matter. I mean, I mean, whether it was just being a college football guy, you know what I mean? Uh a college football player that was in wrestling now. And they had to have something like we talked about that made them unique that we could turn into sales at the gimmick. Whether that was you know, I don't know, yeah, you know, Matt Con had the Reaper game. We could we could merge that to that in in different ways. You know what I mean? Um you know, with with Crash Cassidy. He was our former football
Talent Standards Look And Production
SPEAKER_01guy, so it was the the the the the the classic footballs New Jersey's you know the jerseys, you know, it it just had to be it had to be marketable in some way that we could turn into merchandise sales. Um so we we get this roster together and we're we we do it, man. We we we we produce you know six months worth of TV. Each every week. You can tune in whenever your time slot was where you lived, or if you were on the streaming channel, you got it early and you got to see it that way. Um then we're running, you know, um we're just running as many shows as we can. And I also convinced Brian that we don't need to be everything needs to be under our umbrella. We don't need to be trying to do business with these other promotions anymore because that wasn't getting us anywhere. Nobody wanted to do things the way we wanted to do it, and that's okay. They didn't have to.
SPEAKER_02They real quick, let me let me jump in on that. The problem with that was they wanted to do stuff when we were giving them stuff. They didn't want to do things when we were trying to get things back out of it. And we we found that to be an ongoing story. And and and some of the guys were good, had meant no ill will, were cooperated as much as they possibly could. It just wasn't a good fit for them. And some of them were dicks and just took, took, took. Um, there were more good than there were bad. Um, but it just didn't fit us at that point to be going and spending money on other people's events when we were having our own.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. There was no reason for us to be using anybody else's promotional name. Um it just all needed to be under our umbrella to me at that point. So um we put this roster together and and we did it, man. And and that footage, I'm so excited for that footage to be accessible in a way to as many people as it is. Um because it's because it never has been before. You know, we we we if you if you didn't watch, you know, um through your through your local network affiliate that we were on, or you didn't you know pay the monthly subscription to or the yearly subscription to to to the um streaming service that it was everything. Um you didn't see it. So I'm excited for this to be out there. I'm excited for people to see what we what we spent a lot of time on. Um and and I hope people like it because I think it's pretty good for what we you know you mentioned a million dollars. By the time we really got into it, that that was gone. Yeah, that was had that had been spent. Unfortunately, a lot of it on that building project that never got finished and became what it could have been.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um we were operating off of other money, you know. Um so we were we were on a budget um to a certain degree. Um but I think for what we had access to as far as talent, um I'm very proud of the guys that we that we went with. Um for the most part I think they I think they um are are good wrestlers, good, good, good workers, man, and good um good talent. Um a lot of those guys have come even further since, you know. Um I laugh because I saw some of the guys in the camp. He's gotten in much better shape. And I thought he was in pretty good shape at the time, you know, because again, that was part of the deal. You had to look apart. Yeah. Um and and and man, some of those now look the part even more than they did then.
SPEAKER_02Well, they're men now. They went from being kids to being men, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, that's true. A lot of them were just getting started. Um, we're just we're live, we're literal kids. So uh yeah, man, I'm I'm excited to hear what people think of this footage because um we worked really, really hard. And um it took a lot out of us.
SPEAKER_02A lot, a lot. It it nearly killed me. Uh I collapsed twice during during this time period, just walking through the house and just collapsed. Um But we had we had great guys and guys that wanted to be there for the most part. Uh 99% of them wanted to be there for the most part. And we helped the guys, you know. We had guys that come to us and say, you know, we'd be like, hey, you need to get a tan. And they're like, well, we can't afford it. We can't afford a tanning, but we'd pay for the tanning bed so that they would look the part. We were all about getting rid of excuses to make the product look better. We had a in-house seamstress uh or or tailor, I guess would be the right word. Um, you know, Todd Rowe was great at making costumes for everybody, and we made sure that everybody had new gear that that didn't look like your buddies' gear across the room unless you were a tag team. The the product visual was super important, the lighting, the um the graphics, the intros, the the video packages. It still had an old school feel with new with new guy looks, but it had something that was updated, and we were so far ahead of our time with all of this. Um you're just now seeing some of the the Indies, the super indies doing some of the stuff that we were doing. I mean, we talked about going on Facebook, nobody was doing that. They would go they turned their camera on and let it go live. But to have an actual show with intros and everything streamed, my father-in-law watched the show that night in uh Oak Hill, West Virginia, um with us in Kingsport. That was pretty cool. Um and we just we were very happy with the product, the matches were competitive. It was the men fighting men, the world fighting showcase we fight strong. And we believed in the we fight strong and the men fighting men. We wanted it to look real. We wanted it to suspend disbelief to where it didn't insult the customer, to where they could sit back, get immersed in this world, and just enjoy combat sports entertainment. And uh we did a great job, and that's all Dallas. Dallas spent All those hours writing. I was incapable at that point. My mind was just fried with everything that I had gone through. It was the hardest thing I'd ever done. Again, the biggest failure in my life, but I've learned from it. I'm glad that it happened because I learned something from it. But uh Dallas was a godsend. He was working his tail off and writing his heart out with all these guys and finding these guys. He would just find these guys. It's funny, he would find a guy and he would be like, Do you know so-and-so? And I'd be like, Yeah, I trained him.
SPEAKER_01Connor. That happened with Matt Connor. Yeah. Um, I was watching, um I don't remember the promotion, but they I had access somehow. I mean, any any wrestling I could find. It didn't matter where, because I knew I knew that we would find a way. If the guy was willing to make the drive, we'd find a way to make it work.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um if if both if both parties, if if if the guy and us were interested enough, we would find a way to make it work.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we we would we would work out the the the little problems. You know, well, I can't come for what everybody else comes for. Well, what do we need to do to where it's cheap and affordable for us, but important and sustaining for you? And we found the guys that wanted to do it so bad that they would make deals with us so that everybody was taken care of and everybody was happy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. And and Matt Connor was one of those guys. I just I saw him and I said, I said, he fits. He he and he wasn't on a lot of the TVs because it was challenging. You know, it was hard for him to make the trip uh down from Pennsylvania, and it just didn't work, and that's okay, you know. But but when he was there, uh he was he was so valuable. But yeah, I saw him, I saw him, and I was like, hey, I found this guy, Matt Connor, the Reaper. And you were like, Yeah, I trained it. And I was like, what? And you were like, Yeah, I've got stuff in there. He was a part of this from the start. Yeah. It was supposed to be, you know. So so that, you know, that was yeah, it just but it but it was one of those things that worked out. And I wanted to say, you know, you and I, you know, talking about the visual part of it. The visual aspect of it that was so important to both of us. And we had we had conversations about stuff that I just don't know that everybody that was operating at the same level as us had conversations about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, we had countless conversations about color too.
SPEAKER_02I was just gonna say color. Color was a big thing to us. We had to make sure everything was standard, and when there was a big event, we had to have uh new aprons and turnbuckle pads and to look like it was bigger than it was.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but but we we had so many conversations about what colors to use for what stuff. But um it just yeah, man, it just we worked so hard. We worked so hard and we just uh for years for years I felt like you know
Pride Heartache And Lessons Learned
SPEAKER_01it just it will I don't know. I don't know what I'm trying to do. It just wasn't it was hard for me to accept. It's been hard for me to accept the the lack of success we had. Um getting it out and and getting getting getting getting getting an investment from the fans, you know, because um we've worked our tails off, and we worked our asses off. Day in and day out for so long to just just to produce it and just uh um just to do what we need. And so uh I just it's hard for me to accept that there's so few people that at this juncture know about what we were doing. Um so it's cool, it's cool to be in a place now where I've I've accepted that and I've I'm at peace with it, but it's also cool that we have a a platform now with with the YouTube channel and with these podcasts to talk about. Well, and put it out there for people to see.
SPEAKER_02And this is the first time we've really talked about it because I don't I don't talk about it. Um I know he doesn't we we make comments every now and then, but it's like, oh yeah, remember that, that's funny, or you know, we have never really got down to nuts and bolts. So if if this conversation sounds rough, it is rough. We've never we've never talked about this stuff, and it was a big chunk of our life, and it was so important, and it we tried so hard, and um, you know, we got opposition from everywhere and everything. Um, you know, the boys we didn't hire heard about how good it was over here and didn't believe it. Thought that we were making it up, and therefore it couldn't be good. And uh, you know, fans getting them in the door, once they got there, they loved it and they came all the time. But getting them into the door because they had heard something on the internet was like pulling teeth. Because so and so had said this, and they weren't sure. And I reached out to every one of them personally. If I saw somebody was online and was disgruntled, I would give them free tickets. Everybody loves free tickets, and they would show up and then they would continue to come. It was it was a good product. We just had so much opposition, but I think a lot of that opposition came from the pandemic because a lot of people were sitting around and they didn't have nothing to do. People were sit losing their minds sitting at home, um, you know, scared, not scared, bored, you know, not knowing what to do. And so I we had a lot of opposition with a lot of different factors between construction workers and um other other industry things. But I would say the biggest problem we had was trying to run a business during the pandemic and shortly after the pandemic.
SPEAKER_01I I don't know. We had opposition before the pandemic too. I mean um it just you know it I mean it it it the building and and the promotion at large, it it really just boils down to it wasn't meant to be. No, it wasn't how I that's how I think that's just how I have to look at it. You know, um we worked really hard, we had a lot of fun, um but we also had a lot of headache and heartache, and um you know, it it just it just wasn't meant to be. It just has to it just has to come down to that. So um, you know, it it it it it it's I'm proud of the work we did. I'm proud of the footage that's out there now um on the YouTube channel, and I and I I think we've rambled on enough today about it, but I hope people will um appreciate the work that went into it because we really did put a lot into producing that footage and um I think it I think it's pretty good.
SPEAKER_02It is personally. I do too. I think the matches are very competitive, I think they're uh uh shown in a great light. I think the stories are very good, and I think people will be pleasantly surprised when they watch the TV episodes and the big events that are all on YouTube, and we just hope that uh that you take the time and and try it out and see what the world of WFS is all about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh couldn't agree more. Uh uh I hope if you're listening to this and you're finding out about WFS for the first time. I hope you'll watch the matches and um give us your honest opinion. I mean, I really want to know what people think.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, good, bad, and different. If you thought it was the shits, tell us it's the shits. We'll read it on air. We don't care. Um, you know, it all was you know, we it I'm proud of it. And I learned a lot of life lessons that I obviously needed to learn. Number one, I'm not a good promoter. I'm a pretty good finished guy. I'm a real good guy at creating content and getting it aired. Um, but I'm not a good promoter. We we that's one thing that was my fault, and I can own up to that, and I and I haven't promoted since, and I don't think I'm gonna promote again. I mean, never say never, you know, in this business. I never thought I'd wrestle again, and here I am wrestling all the time. But uh, you know, I I'm proud of it. I'm proud of what we did, I'm proud of the camaraderie that we have between the WFS boys and us. It's it I I always talk about the Smoky Mountain boys had a relationship that was very special. OBW guys were the same way. There was a lot of kinship involved with Smoky Mountain and OBW, and I think the WFS crew, we're we're a good we're a good bunch of boys, and we're all still pretty tight, and I think that's great.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Uh I again I couldn't agree more. Uh yeah, I think it I think it's a good place to wrap this up.
SPEAKER_02All right. I think it was too.
Sponsor Plug And Closing Words
SPEAKER_02We will talk more about WFS when we get into it in the journals, and we'll actually talk about matches and and stuff and not just be an overview. We'll we'll get into the to more of the uh WFS saga when we get to it down the road in the journals. But today's show, this bonus episode, was brought to you by W Energy Drinks. Use promo code YOURCHAPIN at checkout. W Energy Drinks, zero sugar, no artificial colors or flavors, no secret formulas, no hidden ingredients and gluten and sugar-free. It promotes clean, smooth energy, sharper mental focus, and unique flavors, everything from cherry limer to beach and peach, and there's so many on the website. Ready to mix anytime, about 150 milligrams of caffeine per serving, shipped worldwide and made in the USA. Go to dubby.gg and use promo code YOURCHAPING for 10% off. Also, follow us, find us, and do everything on socials. If you go to IamYourChampion.com, right there on the homepage, scroll down. There are a bunch of buttons there that will take you to Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and X. And we don't have to tell you all the handles because all you gotta do is click on those buttons and go on there and uh give us a follow or a find. But definitely go to YouTube and subscribe and hit that bell if you want to get notifications. But please subscribe. We've had such a great outturn on people subscribing, and we want to keep that up so we can do some live stuff. Thank you for sharing this with us and listening to us ramble on about the world fighting showcase, something that was a labor of love that sits very well in our hearts, but also disappointing at the same time, but something that I wouldn't give up for anything in the world. For Dallas Danger, I am Brian Logan. This has been uh recorded by Three Crows Entertainment at the Three Crows Studio in Morristown, Tennessee. And remember, I am your champion. I am your champion. Oh man, that's classic. I love it. I'm gonna climb that ladder of success all the way to the top.