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Simon Gallagher |
FSM petitions for the first PPV event in the UK since 1992
For anyone who’s attended a WWE or TNA live event in the past year or so, you’ll probably have noticed two things: that the crowd is always a vast array of various types of people and ages (despite how PG orientated WWE has become) and that there’s hardly ever a spare seat in the house. The anticipation of a live wrestling event in this country is possibly as high as it’s been since the early Nineties, so it’s easy to see why both companies continue to tour the UK on such a regular basis. WWE’s now annual visits in April and November sell out within hours of tickets going on sale, while TNA’s record attendance for a live event was set on these shores at its 2009 Wembley Arena event. But then, these tours amount to little more than house shows on TNA’s part and mere general programming (Raw and Smackdown) for WWE and if we’re honest, nothing consequential really happens when the promotions are over here. As such, FSM reckons it’s time that one of the companies gave us something a little bit extra, by possibly staging a proper pay-per-view in the UK for the first time since 1992…
Not that we’re suggesting for one second that we should expect one of the ‘Big Four’ again from WWE, more’s the pity (although that said, you can’t deny that a WrestleMania held in this country would not only be groundbreaking, but give the event a different feel and theme). And by the same token even in their still relative short lifespan, we’d reckon TNA would be keen to keep the likes of Bound For Glory and Lockdown in the States too. But you have to think that neither company has anything to lose by giving us Brits the chance to sample that PPV feel with one of the smaller shows like The Bash, Genesis or even a new themed event like Hell in A Cell, given the guaranteed attendance it’d draw.
Fact is, if tickets for what are little more then standard house shows (bar the WWE televised shows) are for the majority sell-out events, imagine how a real PPV that meant something in the grand scheme of things would go down! The superstars even admit themselves – whenever you read an interview with a WWE or TNA wrestler, they always talk of how the fans in this country are that little bit more excited, purely because of the anticipation of seeing their heroes in the flesh on their whistle-stop tour of the UK. Give them a show that actually means something and you’ll only take that excitement up a notch; it’s a win-win situation for WWE and TNA plus their legions of fans in this country. So why is it that we’re still waiting for a PPV return nearly two decades after Summerslam ’92 (which, for our part, FSM actually attended)?
For the rest of this feature, check out issue 51 of FSM - available at WH Smith and all good retailers. (For US readers we are now carried at Borders and Barnes & Noble, so check for local availability or click here to subscribe.)
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