Insight with Chris Van Vliet - Billy Corgan: NWA is in the same conversation as WWE & AEW, TNA lawsuit, Dixie Carter, music

Episode Date: February 13, 2020

Billy Corgan chats with Chris Van Vliet at the NWA Powerrr tapings in Atlanta, GA. He talks about why he bought the NWA, the decision to make Powerrr look at feel the way it does, his fallout and lawsuit with TNA, what Smashing Pumpkins fans think of his love for wrestling, the future plans for NWA, why he says the NWA is in the same conversation as WWE and AEW and more. A huge thank you to our sponsor Bet Online! Use the code BLUEWIRE at BetOnline.ag to get a 50% welcome bonus on your first deposit.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's Chrysmania, brother. That's a great question. Look at you, man. With the powerful questions. Woo! This is the Chris Van Vlead Show. Chris Van Bleach Show. Ladies and gentlemen,

Chris Van Bruns. Welcome back to the CVV show. And if no one's told you yet today, you're awesome. Not just because you're listening, just in general. You're awesome. Yeah, this episode is brought to you by betonline.ag and untucket. And let's be honest, 2019 was a banner year for professional wrestling. A.W was announced and then started TV in October.

WWE made history when a women's match was the main event at WrestleMania. Tessa Blanchard became the number one contender for the Impact World Championship and then became the first female to be the world champion. That was in January, but she became the number one contender in 2019. And on October 8th, NWA Power made its debut. You've heard me say it before, but it bears repeating. This is the absolute best time to be a pretext. pro wrestling fan and subsequently the best time to be a pro wrestler as well.

The fact that we've got options to watch wrestling every single weekday is so exciting. And in this chat with Billy Corrigan, who's the owner and president of the NWA, we dig into why he felt now was the right time to bring it back and why they decided to bring it back in the way that they did with the look and the feel of the show. Hey, if you could do me a favor, could you just leave a review? you on Apple Podcasts, that'd be so, so helpful. We're going to keep shouting you out on every single episode as our betonline.ag fan of the week. And betonline.orgie is your online sportsbook expert. Use the promo code blue wire, all one word, for a 50% welcome bonus.

And these reviews are really what's been helping the show grow as much as it's been growing. And thank you for subscribing as well. You're just helping to spread the word about the show with the interviews that we've been having. and I see your tweets. I see your Instagram stories. Thank you for tagging me. Thank you for letting other people know that these interviews exist. This interview comes from Old Danjo.

O-L-Danjo. Old Danjo. It's titled Only Wrestling Podcasts that puts out multiple good interviews in a week. Chris gives great interviews consistently. Only wrestling podcast I listen to every week because he's got diverse interviews, not just the same guests as all the others. I will continue to listen.

and pass on the word to other wrestling fans. Well, thanks, old Danjo. I think we just passed on the word to everyone and all the wrestling fans that are listening here. And thank you for the kind words. The idea here is to try to do as many different interviews as possible. And the goal is an interview a week, but we've had so many interviews recently

that we're pumping out two interviews this week, three last week, at least two next week. So, yeah, we're just going to keep putting these out. and I think that if we keep putting out two a week, simple math says we'll get to at least 100 interviews. I believe if you do the math, that's 104 interviews. Yes, 52 times 2 is 104. So there you go.

That's the betonline.ag. Fan of the week, remember to use the promo code bluewire, all one word for your 50% welcome bonus at betonline.org. Billy Corgan is such an interesting guy. and I'm sure you know him as the lead singer The Smashing Pumpkins or as he jokes in this interview, the rat in a cage guy.

He's also a massive wrestling fan. He worked with TNA for about a year and a half, which didn't end that well. It ended in a lawsuit, which we get into a little bit here. He even tried to buy TNA, before the lawsuit, of course. And when that didn't work out,

he ended up buying the NWA and it's storied history, which brings us to now. Him and Dave Laganah are the brains behind Power. That's with three R's, by the way, NWA Power. And if you haven't seen it, it's a throwback to the old school studio wrestling with a little bit of a modern day twist to it. I've been wanting to sit down and do this interview for a while,

and I'm so glad that Billy had the time to do this. Not only is he part of the NWA, he's still touring with his music. So, ladies and gentlemen, it's the one and only, Billy Corgan. Well, thank you for your time. Thank you for doing this. And congratulations on everything with NWA. It's really a tribute to the NWA team and the roster that we're as far as we are. It's, you know, as I said, and I was criticized in the beginning when I bought the NWA for not spending more money.

And I said, look, you can, you can throw a lot of money at professional wrestling, but it doesn't mean it goes anywhere. So having the patience and putting together the right team behind the scenes and building a roster that you can be really proud of that can execute my vision of, you know, what I think professional wrestling can be going into the 21st century. That takes time. And, and, uh, and, uh, it's really starting to pay off now. And I'm really excited and, and, uh, yeah, but, you know, the, the cool thing is, is, you can make big plans, but we're so deep in it. Like, we have a pay-per-view today. It's like, then there's just the reality of running a show and, you know, you miss as a flight and, you know, you're in that, too. So we're somewhere in there. I think there's still a lot of people that go, the smashing pumpkins

guy runs a wrestling I prefer the rat in the cage guy runs a rat in the cage guy The 1979 guy? I go with rat in the cage guy that sounds a little bit more a sinister. The world is a vampire guy? Yeah, the world is a vampire guy, yeah, I did write that. Yeah, it's been a very interesting journey.

The simplest answer I have for the idea is that when I was a kid there were three things I really loved professional wrestling, music, and baseball. and my little throwaway line here is that I've been able to work in professional wrestling, obviously, music. But I even had a discussion one point with the Chicago Cubs about maybe even being, you know, part of the ownership.

Obviously, I would have been a very, very minority state. But I think to tell anybody, hey, if you had three dreams when you were a kid and you could live all three dreams, I guess maybe if I was an Imagineer for Disney, that would do it all. because I've been very, very lucky, very fortunate to pursue the things I'm interested in. And I think what I would point to is I've worked very hard in whatever I've engaged in. So I'm not just willing to get into the dreamy part. I'm really willing to do the hard work and really learn how to be successful in those endeavors. And that's why I have so much respect for the people that have come before me in the wrestling business

and the music business because it's such a tough thing to be successful in, and particularly over the long term, I'm 30 plus years in music. And in professional wrestling side, I guess I'm somewhere in the range of seven to eight years. So it's been a very interesting journey. But I don't think people realize that you're very hands on with this. I think when people see Billy Corgan's name attached at one point to TNA, now to NWA, they go, oh, he's just the money guy. Yeah, well, you know what?

And obviously that's what Dixie Carter saw me as. I mean, I thought I was being brought into help the company, which I did. but at the end of the day, I think it's pretty easy to see that I was brought in as some sort of strange insurance policy. They could either provide cash or a chip that they could play to try to get a network deal. And that was the interest in me being part of the creative team. That's obviously water under the bridge, not that I'm bitter. But, yeah, I think, look, I don't mind, you know, Eric Bischoff once said controversy creates cash or whatever, something like that. It's wrestling.

I don't care what people think in the sense of if it's good for the product, it's good for the business that people talk smack. Totally fine with that. But at some point, I think there's a through line there that I'm a creative person. And where I'm good at is taking a creative vision and executing it on a business level. That's a bit boring. But the fact of the matter is, is I've done that now for two businesses. and it takes a lot of patience and it takes a lot of faith in your vision. My vision for professional wrestling is quite different than most people's visions.

Now, right now, people will point at the NWA and say, that's a bit too throwbacky for me or, or I like the throwback five. They totally underestimate what we're going to do. This is just our entry point. Oh, okay. Well, I'm an answer question you're not asking, but if you look at, look, we bought a 70 now, one-ish-year brand.

At some point, you have to address the elephant in the room. Why would you call it the NWA or want it to be called the NWA if you're not going to try to balance this incredible history against the reality of 2020? So you have to address the history. You have to decide how your product differentiates from all the other great wrestling companies that are currently running, minus one. And no bitterness. So I think you see what I'm trying to say.

It's, it's, it's, anyway, I don't want to blab on. It's a little bit boring. Well, do you want to be in the conversation with, right now it's WWAE and then. Wait, I'm going to cut you off. We are in the conversation. Okay. And by the way, I'm not a billionaire. We are not, we are nowhere near as funded as the other companies that are being talked about.

And Ring of Honor, who we enjoy a great partnership with, by the way, is owned by a $3 billion company called Sinclair. So Ring of Honor, AW and WW are all owned by billionaires. So to even be in the conversation without that same level of resources, that's more a credit to our hard work and our creativity. And that's exactly the way I raised the Smashing Pumpkins through the ranks of the rock business, was we had to be a better band. We had to tell better stories, you know, musically speaking.

And that's exactly the blueprint for the NWA. way. It's not that big a mystery. So if you're going to try to bring a revolutionary on some level wrestling product to the table, well, if you make the curious decision that you're going to start with a bit of a throwback feel as far as your television product, people go, well, how is that going to revolutionize anything? You have to get people's attention first. If you don't have their attention, they're not going to listen to what you're going to say down the road. And I'm not the biggest fan, and I've been very vocal about that on wrestling that by and large is driven strictly with what happens in the ring. I'm a big fan, and because I grew up in the era of promos and great personalities,

you know, great guys on the mic, including managers like Bobby Heen and, of course, Jim Cornett, that's the world that I grew up in, and I still believe in that world 100%. So I'm trying to bring that world forward into the 21st century, and I think we can do it. So if I don't believe even my heart that, let's call it, you know, the four-star, five-star Meltzer match is at the foundational core of what will revolutionize the wrestling business as far as a mainstream product. Now, right now, AEW is making a very good case that I'm wrong in my assertion, but that's okay, because ultimately they will get to prove me wrong or right, and ultimately I get to prove

my version wrong or right, and that's what makes it so compelling. Yeah. So what is it that you guys are heading towards, if this is just the beginning? I think when you look at anything that crosses over into a mainstream frame, you're looking for a balance of what makes it relevant. History in the case of the NWA is what makes us relevant, whether we can address that history and live up to it. I think you need a product that stands alone and is a bit different.

We're probably the most promo-heavy company in professional wrestling at the moment, so that's what makes us a bit different and obviously how we execute those stories in the ring. And then I think ultimately we're going to have to get younger and faster and balance what is obviously a very important movement in wrestling to that, you know, the five-star Meltzer, you know, that needs to be integrated. I was a fan of WCW in the dying days, and I remember seeing Chris Jericho and Ray Mysterio and, you know, Sugar Shane and, you know, Hoovie and, you know, these guys going on and do these amazing things. And I remember thinking, why are these guys being held back? Yeah. And here we are 20 years later. And you see, well, ultimately the fans decided that they like that more than.

So you have to integrate all, you know, basically the evolution of the business, just like I do in music, that has to be taken into account. We're not ignorant of that, but we don't think that's our foundational principle. So if we can find the balance between, let's call it, that new style, which I appreciate, but I don't think is foundational to our success, what we're really good at. And I think what we're excelling at at the moment, which is telling really good stories, and then tie it to the historical root of the NWA, I think that's our blueprint for success. And whether or not we can pull it off, acquire the resources, acquire the TV deals or whatever else we need to do to prosper. That's going to be our story. And what's great about that story is it's not to the detriment of anyone else.

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That's Blue for 20% off at checkout. That's U-N-T-U-C-I-T-com. Untucket.com. The promo code is blue. for 20% off. I don't think anybody else in wrestling will pursue the business the way we're pursuing the business. So we will either rise or fall on my idea.

And it's not like we're against the other guy. It doesn't work like that. And that's why I think we're very complimentary to the other great promotions in the business because we're not really their competition on that level. It's sort of like you like red, I like blue, and I think that's perfect. What I find really interesting is had things worked out with you in impact wrestling, we wouldn't even be sitting here having this conversation about NWA. No, I'd be broke and crying.

Because you were going to buy impact or TNA? No, I tried to buy it and I very forcefully tried to insert myself in the process. I had a legal right to do so, which is very complicated and boring and probably a podcast onto itself. And the forces that were against me conspired to defraud me from those resources. And I went to court over that. the judge didn't necessarily rule against me as much as saying, I can't rule for you now, but if you want to prosecute your case, it was never resolved in that way. And I obviously finger Dixie Carter in that defrauding, and I've been public about that as well.

What ended up happening is the case was settled and what is now Anthem impact, and I ended in that particular time on a handshake. that handshake is no longer valid. But the point of the matter is that it was resolved in a business frame, but it was never resolved sort of spiritually speaking. Because I had every right to try to take over a company that I had invested $1.83 million in. It was all on paper.

And like I said, if anybody ever wanted to do a deep dive podcast on it, it's a fascinating story on why the wrestling business has been held back for so many years because of those types of insanities and egos. and basically like a lack of gravity as far as it applies to business principles. Well, sign me up. We'll do that one next time I see you. I'll go for as long as you want to talk about that one. We'll see how fans react is this.

They're going to like this. I know this. Are you surprised that impact is still somehow in business after everything? Not at all because really is an incredible fan base. There's a very, very loyal fan base that's really tied to what was T&A. and now impact product, and I think the people who took it over benefited from that. And yeah, I used to say to people, I mean, if you think of the 14 or 15 years that TNA ran before it was taken over by Anthem, you know, easily over $100 to $200 million was spent

promoting that company, which is now called Impact, so it doesn't surprise me. You know, I have my opinions on the product, but overall, I credit that more so to the great fan base. And, you know, all of that all leads to where we are right now, NWA here in Atlanta. I think when you first bought the rights for NWA and really sat back, were you planning? Because nothing really happened for the first year or two. That's not true. I guess from the outside looking in, I guess.

It felt like that, yes. It felt like that. It was a lot of strategic moves. There was a good degree of stuff behind the scenes, including talking to impact. about things we could do. We did a little bit of business with them. We worked a little bit with CZW. We worked obviously with Ring of Honor. We have a continued partnership with championship wrestling from Hollywood. And of course we brought the title to different promotions, including tried and true in Tennessee. So it was the question of do we blow a bunch of money

to do something, something, something if we really deep down believe it's going to go nowhere, or do we try to sort of build this piecemeal? And I think where it really started clicking was building around Nick Aldus. The great bonus in that was we discovered in the telling of the story of Tim Storm and Nick Aldus that fans really, really like Tim Storm. And Tim Storm's a huge star for us. And he's an incredible job. And he's a total pleasure to work with behind the scenes.

So we got basically in trying to build around Nick, you know, Tim came along in that. deal. And slowly but surely, we put some content out, kind of got, you know, a feel for what the audience wouldn't accept. And, you know, I think, I guess it would have been a year and a half ago. We ran the NWA 70 show, which was headlined by Nick and Cody. And that did quite well. And we followed that with the Crockett Cup, which we did as a co-promotion with Ring of Honor. So we were able to prove that we could run a big pay-per-view event. We drew. We did good money. We did the biggest house ever in the history of the Tennessee Fairgrounds. I mean, when you think of all the promotions, including the NWA in the past that ran in that building,

we did the biggest cash gate in the history of the building. So we proved that the NWA had some staying power, and we had to clean up some contractual mess with some of the affiliates that were still remaining from the previous area. There was lots of things we had to clean up. And even there were still lingering legal issues from taking over the ownership as recently as like three months ago. With you being famous in your own right with a very, popular band for many, many decades. I'm sure that the wrestling fans don't care that you have this

musical career. But your music, actually, most, and I'm saying this kindly, most don't, and that's fine by me. I want to be, you know, a scene in wrestling as a person in wrestling, and I don't think I should get a special. No. But I imagine the flip side is probably, like, I bet your music fans are like, why are you doing this wrestling? Oh, very much so. Yeah. Yeah. I would say 90 to 95 percent just scratched their heads and just think it's like my weird other thing that I do, don't really understand it. And the only good thing that's happened, I would say, in the past year or so with the NWA is even the fans who don't get it, at least have come around to understand that it is valuable, it is important. And now that they've seen it have some success, they at least look at it as like, well, he's not wasting his time. Yeah.

Because, you know, getting this weird argument, like, why don't you just work more on music? And it's like, no, it's important to do other things in life. And after 30 years, I like other challenges in my life. And actually, it's helped my musical life because it keeps me fresh when I go back to, I mean, we're talking on a Friday here about I'd be back in the studio on a Monday working on new smashing pumpkins. So that's my life and I'm cool with it. How do you find that balance? You don't. You don't. Did you ever get to a point where you like maybe it's a bit too much wrestling right now? Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. Yeah. And then do you just, I mean, how do you balance it? Do you

break out a guitar and start writing music? No, no. No, you just, you just, you. You just have to make good decisions, and you have to rely on, you know, great people like David Lagana, you know, the vice president in W.A to sometimes just carry the ball where you just can't, you know, whether I'm on tour or I'm not available for hours because I'm on a plane across the country. There are times where you just have to trust the people around you to execute. I wish that I could give my full time to my musical life, and I wish I could give my full time to my wrestling life, but it's just not in the cards. And so we just try to find balance. But yeah, there's no perfect balance. Is there, is, is part of your job still consuming a lot of

wrestling? I actually, believe it or not, I don't consume a lot of wrestling and I never really did. I mean, there were times where I watched more. When I was young, I watched a lot. I watched a lot in the late 90s into the dying days of ECW. I watched for a lot then. And then probably about five, six years ago, I started watching again a lot. And I went out a lot to see a lot of show. because as I got back into the professional world, I kind of wanted to see where the wind was blowing. And that's sort of those, those times, those three different periods have obviously formed my idea of what can be successful going forward in wrestling. What would you say is the biggest thing you learn from impact wrestling that you can now apply to NWA, good or bad? What's the biggest thing you think you learned from impact wrestling?

Oh. Can now be applied to NWA? Well, two things. One is that the kind of vision I had for wrestling was only going to work with a total level of control. Navigating the political channels in a bigger wrestling company were never going to work. So, you know, jokingly, even if Vince McMahon had called me, you know, after I left TNA and said, you know, kid, I want you to come up here. And I wouldn't want to work in the structure, not to say anything disrespectful of the McMan's or how they run their business. I just, I don't. I don't. I don't want to be a cog in a bigger wheel, you know, because my vision sort of takes a sort of, it has to be applied from the top down, you know, because it goes all the way through staffing and how we run. And then the other thing I would say is that, you know, I was intimately involved and happily so with, you know, the whole deletion angle, broken universe. got to shoot a lot of great stuff with Matt and Jeff.

You know, even shot on the Hardy's property for the one crazy segment where we were, I don't know, drones. I mean, we did it all. We did it all. I can't believe the fire marshals didn't show up. Anyway, so I saw where the power of an idea can, can, wrestling is 100 plus years old. Yeah. And like music, a cynicism can creep. in that tells you there's really nothing new. And kids and great ideas can prove over and over again,

no, that's not true. You can always rewrite the rules of gravity. And so being intimately involved with the deletion angle told me that if you got a cool idea and you have great talented people like Matt and Jeff and the other people that were involved in that, Rosemary comes to mind in Abyss and Crazy Steve, you can change the world. You can turn it upside down in its head. And if you remember during that period of time, that was the most talked about thing. Oh, yeah. In professional wrestling, good and bad, as it should be. So I saw where the power of an idea can still work even in an August institution like professional wrestling. So I was able to see that at the highest levels. It's one thing to have an idea on the Indies and see if it gets over with,

you know, a couple hundred people somewhere. It's another thing to be on national television, enter the national or international debate, really see, I think our ratings that that week went up like 125%. I mean, it was rocket fuel for whatever we were trying to do at that moment. So, yeah, there was a real difference there. And the fact that the show is now, NW. Power is now being put on YouTube. I feel like actually gives you guys, pardon the pun, gives you a lot of power. Because people can watch it, sure, when it's streaming live, right at 605,

and they can watch it whenever they feel like it. They can go back through the archives. Yeah, I think now we're starting to see binge watching and people who did think it was for them are now starting to show up and then watch, you know, the season one and two. So yeah, yeah, it's exciting. I know that's something, you know, when you're talking about after I bought the company and then kind of this, what were you doing in the first year or so? I think what we were doing was trying to really ascertain whether a digital strategy or a digital base strategy could work for a modern wrestling company. Because in many ways we're a production

house first and a live event wrestling brand second. Yeah. And that had never, really been tried best I could tell outside of some MTV stuff and but it was always it was always heavy TV production and let's see how it goes but our thing was we will pivot from being a a TV production first to a live touring and people always ask when we're going to start touring and we're in discussions right now to start doing live touring events so so so far it's working but it took time to actually look at the numbers and see can this work and you know you get these crazy moments where something goes viral. Like Dave cut a clip of Scott Steiner walking down the stairs and the clip went viral.

It was just Scott Steiner walking down the stairs. Yeah, but I mean, the beauty is, is I think that clip did, the clip of Scott Steiner, I think, did more views than the actual show itself. Wow. And I'm not saying one has more value, but in the, in the cumulative era of digital media, a view is a view, right? So we'll take it because ultimately it will hopefully steer people back to the power product. Do you see any parallels between what you,

you guys are doing here in studio and Lucha Underground? Not much. They were in a studio. It was being kind of run by someone outside of wrestling. Yeah, but if you remember, they had a network deal or they had some form of a network deal. It was Mark Burnett Productions, and there was some affiliation, I believe, with AAA. So they had, they already had an established brand company supplying a certain degree of talent. They had one of the biggest producers of television in the world,

actually the history of television producing the show, and they actually had TV deals. We are completely 100% financed by me, and it originates between our relationships with who we work with and our talent. So there are no other contrivances to surround us other than our relationships. And so I don't think there's ever been a promotion like us in the history of the business. If there is, I'd love to hear about it because I would love to study it. because we're really trying to build a road that's not there.

Well, look, I'm so happy we were able to have this conversation. Chris. Thank you, Chris. I'm happy we were able to have this conversation now, like early on in NWA. Now we're going to end on a teaser, right? Okay. You're going to cut out all that stuff about Dixie, right? Yeah, that's all out.

I got you. You got me on that one. I got you. I don't want to get sued. You're not going to get sued. All right. But everyone's going to see that and go, what did they say? What was it?

That's called a wrestling. Is it a teaser? Yeah, taster. Good angle. Well, how about that, my friend? And thank you for sticking around all the way until the end. Snap a screenshot. Tag me at Chris Van Vleet.

Let me know that you're listening to this one. Also, I have a giveaway going on right now on Instagram for some incredible hand-drawn wrestling art from the extremely talented Hal Haney. So at Chris Van Vleet on Instagram, make sure you go and check that out. And yes, as we alluded to at the end of the interview there, we had to make a little edit in the interview for legal reasons. But, you know, it's just so exciting watching the growth of the NWA first through the 10 pounds of gold series on YouTube. And now with NWA power, Tuesday nights at 605 on YouTube.

And their subscriber base is growing very quickly. So next time you're on YouTube, toss them a subscribe. Hey, toss your guy Chris Van Vlee to subscribe to. Why you're at it? Why not? right? And NWA's been doing their thing on TV now for not even half a year yet, five months. So it's really exciting to know that they've done this much in five months. And it's exciting to know that what's possible for them and what they're going to continue to do,

not just with NWA power, but with some of the paper views they've been having. So can't wait to see what's in store for them in 2020. Winston Churchill said a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. and an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. I've had a lot of questions asking me when that chop video will be posted on YouTube. And if you follow me on Instagram, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I took 20 chops at Sean Spears and Tyler Breeze's wrestling school, flatbacks in a popka, Florida.

And my chest looks like I took 20 chops. Not anymore, actually. It healed up very nicely. That video will be posted next week. So we're going to post on the podcast and on YouTube. We're going to post the interviews with Tyler Breeze. Then we're going to post the interview with Sean Spears. And then we're going to end the week next week with the chops.

And it's not just chops, by the way. I also took some bumps. I ran the ropes. I locked it up with Sean Spears, which was really cool, by the way, locking it up with Sean Spears. So that's next week. If you're not subscribed yet, please, now's your chance. Big week coming up next week. But enjoy the rest of this one.

a great weekend. We'll talk soon. Jim Rome takes on sports. Why? Because I have a job to do. With rapid fire takes. So I don't want to hear from you lava pigs on this notion today. No idea what you're talking about. You're complaining more than you like to breathe air. It's like you get up in the morning only to complain and cry and moan on social media

about things that you don't even understand. He's the spitfire of sports smack. Take advantage of it. Get up in here. The Jim Rome Show podcast. What's your beef? Listen on your favorite platform. You've been warned.