by Gerry Strauss
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Remember the heydey of wrestling, just a few years ago? Tommy Fierro does, because those were the days that he was promoting packed houses in Wildwood, NJ, using some of the biggest names in the business. Of course, what goes up must come down, but Fierro is gearing up for a return to the promoting game. Does he stand a chance? Read on, and find out for yourself, as we come at you with "7 Deadly Questions"... (and email me at gerrystrauss@aol.com or djg4evr@aol.com)
1) You used to be one of the more prominent and regular columnists for 1wrestling.com. Every day, you would post fantasy columns, creative ideas, and/or commentary about the WWE or wrestling in general. Suddenly, you totally disappeared from the site. Was that your decision or theirs, and why was it made?
It's simple, I started college a few months back and simply haven't had the time to write columns anymore. A get asked that question all of the time actually. I loved writing my ideas for what I'd do with WWE if I were booking things. I was getting over 400 E-mails a day at one point when the column was really hot. Almost every E-mail I'd open would ask why I wasn't on the writing team for the WWE because the stuff I was writing was actually better than what was on their TV show. I remember one of the things I wrote about three weeks before WWE did it was the Stone Cold & HHH vs. Hardy Boyz match. Stone Cold was still getting a huge reaction from the crowd after he turned heel at WrestleMania and I suggested him working against Hardy Boyz and killing them to get heat. I even wrote the stuff about him beating up LIta after the match. They did what I wrote about to a tee. There's no question in my mind that they got it from my column. Believe it or not, I also wrote about bringing back ECW into the WWE about a month before they did it. Again, WWE did the exact same angle on their show, almost to a tee. I'm sure they were bringing it back anyway, but it was still wicked close. There have been several other things I wrote about to that made it to TV. I really miss writing those columns to be honest with you. I actually had many WWE workers on a regular basis E-mailing me putting my stuff over. Actually, someone who has a lot of power in WWE was E-mailing me on a regular basis putting my ideas over. He actually has a lot more power now than he did back then. So if he's reading this right now, I'm still alive man! LOL.
2) You recently resurrected the ISPW, the company you promoted, for a show in North NJ. This show featured an 8- man tournament for the championship plus Beetlejuice (from Howard Stern's show) as the commissioner. From several vague accounts I have heard, the show, from a business sense, was somewhat of a flop and drew a pretty small crowd. Give us your firsthand analysis of the success of that show vs. your goals for it going in
It's true, the show didn't draw good at all. In fact, it flat out sucked. I can be the first to admit that. Firstly, the hotel lied to me about the height of the ceiling. They said it was 10 feet and it was really 8.5 feet. That's a huge difference when you're talking about being able to do spots and stuff like that. Well once the ring was up, if you were over 5 foot 8, you weren't even going to be able to stand in the ring. I thought to myself, "Fuck, first show back and this is going to be the shits." For those that aren't too familiar with me, I've been promoting shows for nearly 10 years now, including two summers in a row running weekly events at the Wildwood Convention Center in Wildwood, NJ. One show in Wildwood drawed 3,600 fans. I know I have to reprove myself again and can't live off of the name I made in the past. So we had to think of different ways to work around this mess, and my hat goes off to everyone on that show because they busted their asses and put on an extremely entertaining event for the very few people that did come out to the show. It was a mystery why the crowd was so low. I literally went out every day and put up posters all over the place. The building was only 5 minutes from my house and I papered the hell out of the entire area. There were a couple of different factors. I was going head to head against the World Series, that's not a good thing. There were tons of Halloween parties that weekend. Also, the business is down right now big time. People are barely coming out to pay $20 bucks to see all of the superstars of the WWE, it's really tough to get them to pay $15 to see Devon Storm and Simon Diamond, no disrespect to those two great talent. The business is just down right now. Unless you have a group or sponsor behind your show, which is what I'm use to doing in the past, outside of my Wildwood shows, it's going to be tough to draw a good crowd for an Indie show.
3)There are rumblings that the ISPW will live on in 2003, possibly with the addition of King Kong Bundy as a co-promoter. Is this true, and if so, how did it come about, and how will it work?
Yes, it's true. I recently made a gereat deal with him and we are back together again. Back in 1999, I had the same deal with Bundy and I ran over 40 live events that year. That's more than any other Indie ran that year. I had a four week special on UPN 9 news and also had a ton of magazine coverage as well. Things were great and nothing could get better. Then in 2000, I dunno, I just started to lose focus and interest as a promoter. I was watching tons of wannabe promoters ruining the area for me and the other credible promoters. Suddenly, everyone and their mother was a pro wrestling promoter. Jow Blow would run the shits of a show in a town and it would be horrible. Guess what, when I go to that town and try and get a show there, they aren't going to touch wrestling. The sponsors and schools don't know the difference between ISPW and XYZ, they just know it as wrestling. So these wannabes were killing it for not just me, but for everyone. It was so easy for me to get shows in 99 and then in 2000 I can barely get any. I ran only 8 shows that year. When 2000 was over I said "Fuck it" and just gave up. Shortly after is when I started with 1Wrestling. After the "return" ISPW show in October, which I want to forget about, LOL, I sat down with Bundy and made a deal with him for us to be partners again. I'll be honest, we had a falling out and didn't think we'd ever work together again. But Chris is a great guy and I'm very happy to be able to say he and I are partners again. I went to him and said, "Come on man, we kicked major ass a few years ago, let's do it again." Actually, I don't want to forget about the "return" show, it was funny as all hell. Ask any of the guys that were on the show that night or anyone that was there, it was a simply classic evening.
4) Looking at the card of your last ISPW show, it is obvious that you have a certain affinity for booking guys who have been staples of the NJ region for years. Guys like Kodiak Bear, Tom Brandi and Tiger Mulligan are talented individuals, but aren't exactly huge draws in todays's X- division style landscape. What is the priority system in selecting who you want on your show, and who are you eyeing for any possible upcoming shows?
Great question. Actually, that was the first time I ever used Kodiak Bear. I'm going to be doing this gimmick on my shows called "Da Brotherz" and they are going to be white guys acting black. Their manager is Mr. Cedric (Flash Wheeler), and he's black but acts whtie. It's funnier than all hell. Kodiak Bear is a 350 white man. He's now K.B. Diddy and comes out and acts, talks, and looks black. It's great. Tom Brandi is now "Brutha" Brandi and does the exact same thing as Diddy does. It's funny as hell. As far as eyeing up new talent, yes, there is some guys that I've been extremely impressed with as of late. I'll be honest, whenever I get the chance to go to indie shows, I never really watched the matches. I'd just hang out with my friends in the back. But recently I've been keeping my eye open for fresh new talent and there is a few guys that will no doubt be working on my shows in the future. One kid I'm super impressed with is Rob Eckos. This kid is only 19 years old and has the look, charisma, and he's on his way to become an awesome worker. I've only met him a few times, but he always shows me respect and is a very nice kid. Another that I'm impressed with is Josh Daniels. I don't know him personally, but I really enjoy his work. Great young talent there. Another new kid breaking in right now is Scotty Charisma, who is really coming into his own. Every time I see him work he's getting better and better. Johnny Thundar is another guy that's very underrated that no one really uses. The person that I'm probably most impressed with is a female worker from ECPW named Alura. Mark my words, this girl is going to be a big superstar in the WWE one day. She's still new, but she's picking things up really quick, had "the look," the charisma, great attitude, and a damn good worker for a female. Keep your eyes out on her. She's someone that will most certainly be on ISPW shows this year. She's a young verison of Lita.
5) You have said on several occasions that you were basically worn down by the business, and quit promoting due to the increasing difficulty to be successful. What is your opinion of Indy wrestling today? What strategies will be used to ensure that your shows are money- making ventures?
Again, another very good question. Well I will be going back to my old formula from a few years ago running the fundraiser events. With King Kong Bundy behind me now, the groups and schools love working with this guy. If you're contacting a group to run an event with them, they aren't going to know who Tommy Fierro is. But if they know anything about wrestling, they will know who King Kong Bundy is. That's were my strengths come in. I'm not going to rent out a hotel ballroom or an Elks Lodge to run events, I'm going to make sure they are fundraising events and I have a sponsor so they show will be successful. The Indies today are much better than they were two years ago. A lot of the jabronies have finally weeded themselves out of the game. That's why I decided to finally make my return to the indie scene. My hats off to Rob Feinstein, he's doing great stuff with his group. I remember Rob from 10 years ago when he use to rent a table from me to set up at my conventions. Just goes to show how long I've been around. The same guy that use to call me up to rent tables at my conventions is now one of the top indies out there today. That's great for him. I'm really dedicating myself to ISPW this year. Just today (1/2/03), I've spent all day sending out faxes to High Schools in New Jersey to do fundraiser events. I'm not stopping there. There's PA, CT, and I'm really looking to hit Ohio hard as well. That area is wide open. With Bundy now officially back into the mix, I'm really motivated to get things up and running.
6) At one point, during your 1wrestling.com tenure, you were very publicly lobbying for a creative position within the WWE. Please explain your experiences with that situation, including the application process and all interaction with Titan.
Well it wouldn't be very professional for me to give all that information out, but lets say things were looking pretty good for a while. At one point I actually thought I was getting in. I was in contact with Stephanie for a while and things were looking great and then they just sort of fizzled out. From what I hear they really liked what I sent them and were very impressed with what I've done in the business for my age but I didn't have a college degree. Well, why do you think I'm going to college right now for? Even though I haven't promoted for the last two years, I live, breathe, and sleep this business 24/7. That's all I want to do is be in the wrestling business. There's no question I want to work for WWE one day. Hey, at least I can say I was in WrestleMania 15 (I was dressed as a police officer and arrested Big Show). If I never do anything else in this business, at least I can say I was in a WrestleMania.
7) Finally, you have been around the business for many years, despite your young age. You have run shows big and small, and worked with a veritable who's who of talent. Who, in all of your years in the business, was the number one most unprofessional performer that you have ever booked or worked with, and why?
I can honestly say that there has never been one unprofessioanl performer
on my show in all the years that I've ran shows. It's all about how you
treat your performers. If you take care of the boys, they will take care
of you. Hell, I had The Bushwhackers take clean pin from "Sure Thing"
Ryan Wing, who weighed 140 pounds at the time and was in the business
a year. I've had "Flyboy" Rocco Rock (R.I.P) drive 2 hours down
to Wildwood without any notice to help me out after WWF canceled talent
from my show that week. This is also when Rocco Rock was under contract
to WCW and couldn't work indie shows. He just said "Don't put my
match in your results on the Internet." Stuff like that was super
cool. Everyone from Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, Iron Sheik, The
Bushwhackers, Gangrel, Albert, Val Venis, Steven Richards, Droz, Spike
Dudley, Goldust, Dawn Marie, Nikolai Volkoff, Afa The Wild Samoan, "Million
Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase, Crowbar, Gillberg, Fabulous Moolah, Mae
Young, Doink The Clown, Bart Gunn, Steve Corino, Al Snow, 2 Cold Scorpio,
Chris Candido, Sunny, Nova, Marty Jannetty, Jim "The Anival"
Neidhart, Bam Bam Bigelow, Demolition Ax, Tito Santana, "Hacksaw"
Jim Duggan, Road Warrior Animal, Jim Cornette, Rick "The Model"
Martel, Sid Vicious, The Head Bangers, Head Shrinker Samu, Mikey Whipwreck,
Bam Bam Bigelow, Julio DeNiro, Simon Diamond, Joey Matthews, Christian
York, Bo Dupp, Tom Brandi, Danny Doring, Inferno, Ace Darling, Axl Rotten,
Christopher Daniels, of course King Kong Bundy, and countless others have
been professioanls when working for me. I know I'm naming alot of people
but I just want to give credit to everyone that I've had the pleasure
of working with, everyone has been cool as hell.
Previous Columns:
Billy Reil
Matthew Hendrickson
Chris Hamrick
Kevin Matthews
Pete Van Orton
Rockin Rebel
Fluff Dupp
Carmine Sabia
