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Thoughts on Wrestling Open after 75 Weeks and Lot of Life in between.
I’m not going to get overly detailed here but let’s just say the last couple of years have been the hardest in my personal and professional life. Lots of stress. Lots of anxiety. Lots of brain being a bad f***ing brain. And a lot of feeling absolutely lost in this storm. Some of you might understand. It’s very easy to drown in your own bad feels. I luck out (more than a bit) by being in a band, where I can lock certain emotions and baggage into a music box but that really doesn’t help in dealing with the day to day stresses. I preamble it like this to say that Wrestling Open might have saved my head space over the last year or so. And I know I’m not the only one who feels that way.
Wrestling Open’s purpose was outlined to give a higher profile for and to help built the next generation of independent wrestling talent. Give them weekly time in front of a live audience. Give them weekly exposure to the IWTV audience. I’d covered weeks and seasons of Uncharted Territory but this felt DIFFERENT to me. I wanted to see this new crop of talent and how they would do in front of the Worcester crowd Beyond had cultivated there for the last few years. I’ve been fortunate enough to have this platform on PWInsider for the last 6-ish years and the opportunity to use it to follow the growth of this brand was exciting. I warned everyone around me that Thursday nights were now booked indefinitely. 75 weeks later, I haven’t missed that many weeks in person…and have written up every single one for the site.
For me personally, Open is a weekly ritual. Thursday is NOT NORMAL if I’m not in Worcester. Good days, Bad Days, Stress Days, Angry Days…it’s very hard to NOT get pulled out of your shell in that room. There’s a unique energy: The talent who are hungry to prove their spot. The talent who have been there since the early weeks and this has become THEIR home. The talent who work a completely different way here than they get to anywhere else. The crew that clearly cares about putting on a good wrestling show. The crew that could have just let Thursdays be a pile of random cold matches…but instead use it as an opportunity to do effective long term stories, angles, rivalries. Open is a place where tag team wrestling thrive as much as singles. Open is a place where it is not irregular or a “special event” for women to have as much of a platform to shine as the men. And then there’s this wild ass crowd. The energy. The chants. The singing. The VERY unique personalities. Open is a unique Total package experience in indie experience and the fact it draws a couple hundred people every week on a Thursday in Worcester and sometimes even outdraws the “main” Beyond shows at times is a huge testament to what’s been built here.
As much as I’ve been a part of this crowd for years, I’ve always been kind of on the outside of it. I’m the writer guy. Some people knew me and we were friendly but I was still the guy who hangs out in the back of the room, maybe went in early, typing on his phone like a maniac off of hard camera. It really wasn’t until the beginning of Open that I started to get way more social with the folks in line. And it wasn’t until about a year ago that I started to be comfortable with a spot at ringside. I can be awkward trying to insert myself into new groups of humans. But the Worcester faithful? The regulars? The ones who make the trek and wait outside the doors or area restaurants? They are a bunch of delightful welcoming semi-broken souls who have rallied around this venue, this crew, this show and feed off each other’s energy. It’s a true honor to be included and WELCOMED into that space. Also, smashing my hands into the apron every week is…kinda therapeutic tbh.
Which brings me back to the roster. Worcester loves who they love and HAAAAAAATES who they hate. But it’s never go away heat. It looks like it. It sounds like it. But it’s not that. It’s all love. Why else would we put THAT energy in it? Booing Ray Jaz till we can’t breathe, turning the back on Stetson, the absolute ripping we give to Channing and Bakabella, the charity basket trolling we give to the Church of Greatness, just being mean to Brad Hollister… AMONGST OTHERS. This is just as strong as the love we give to Alec Price, Waves & Curls, Love Doug, Miracle Ones, Shook Crew. Hell, we react even stronger for the ones who have flipped the script: Mane Event, TJ Crawford, Prince Ahmed, Tyree Taylor. Uncharted Territory aired in Worcester for three seasons but it felt like every week lived or died on what big name was coming in each week. What Wrestling Open has built, we have have “names” off and on but it’s the homegrown talent who make every week and every match matter. It’s the people that come from hours away, either to watch or compete. Hell, our refs matter. Commentary. Announcing. The Bartenders. Mama Colorado. Everyone there is contributing to this community effort to build the wrestling profile in Worcester.
I think I write my Wrestling Open write ups the way I do (and THIS) to highlight one specific thing. Watching Open on IWTV is good. It’s a great show with some of the absolutely best commentary on the indies and 100% worth your time as priority wrestling viewing…but the experience of BEING there is like few others. The sense of community is key. I think the closest equivalent in terms of the energy is Chikara. The crowd is generally fire, a lot know each other and are welcoming as hell for people who are new and going “WHAT is going on here and why didn’t I know about this before?” There’s interactions and general tomfoolery before and after the shows. It’s a very different vibe than just going to a show to be entertained by a crew of wrestlers. There’s a buzz of excitement: what chants can we do, oh I brought this to annoy so and so, look at my sign, being excited that certain up and comers are getting bigger opponents, walking up to Bakabella and buying a mystery bag that MIGHT contain cool merch…or a tampon. Now that the BIO Pro school is up and running, we’re seeing people from our crowd transitioning into students and that’s AMAZING growth to see.
But that’s another thing: Growth. We’ve seen early Open stalwarts like Ray Jaz, Channing Thomas & Ryan Clancy transition into bigger and bigger spots on the weekend Beyond shows. It’s not just a “Wrestling Open Spotlight Match” we see anymore. We’ve seen whole ARCS of growth from the Haven’s debut to having some of the greatest tag matches in Open history, to Brad Hollister’s return as a envious angry heel to a top threat on the card, to Steven Stetson going from just a stupid cowboy guy we watched Megan Bayne destroy to literally the worst thing you could inflict on the Worcester crowd (how DO we spell Stetson?), to current champ Ichiban who went from a popular gimmick wrestler who could only say one word to the believable champion of the promotion who can now say…Seven(?) words, to B3CCA who WAS Price’s annoying gf/manager AND GREW into an absolutely vicious heel (but one we cannot help but love), to Pedro Dones who went from a solid heel worker with a “call your shot” gimmick to a hated dirtbag that got beloved babyfaces The Mane Event to turn on us. There’s so many long term stories like this over the last year and a half.Hell, we’re even looking at the next generation coming up already with Brad Baylor, Joe Ocasio, Shannon LaVangie & Johnny Rivera are all starting to make their mark and be featured more regularly week by week. It’s a good time to be watching.
I know Drew Corderio loves to talk about the growth of the CROWD from 65 on week 1 to 200-300 on most weeks. But the growth is on so many more levels than that. I used to watch at Beyond shows as Drew would hang back during the show or be tied up in backstage stuff and not really SEE the show we were seeing. Most of his context of success came from what he heard from people online once the VOD was up. With Open, he’s at the commentary table, he’s at the ticket table, he’s walking through the crowd and taking the temperature of the vibe. His needle has flipped hard to “how do I make the best experience for everybody in attendance” because he understands that the energy of the crowd translates to the energy in the ring (and Vice versa, it’s a self-feeding cycle of escalation) and THAT energy translates to a very good product to watch at home…but it should also give you massive FOMO. Watching on IWTV is just a commercial for BEING there. That’s what wrestling should be.
So yeah, I’m there as a fan. And I’m there to write for the site. I’m there to help highlight the talent. But I do too many things so I’m also constantly thinking of dumb things to pop myself, the fans and sometimes, the wrestlers themselves. This is how you get Ray Jaz toilet paper, Mortar umbrellas, Brick City bricks, Sidney Bakabella diapers, and whatever fresh hell we put in the Brother Greatness collection basket every week, amongst other things. I remember the look of PURE CHILDLIKE GLEE on Jay Rubin’s face when I showed him the globes we were gonna throw at Flip. We accidentally got a baby christened that one time. It brought me GREAT JOY when some folks brought in ears of corn and starting taunting Stetson for eating corn “the long way”…because other people are leaning into the absurdity of all this too. But I do have to thank literally everyone who plays along, gets excited, and especially the Wrestling Open folks that don’t always know what the crowd’s going to do…but absolutely feed into the madness. It is straight up just pure joy when something dumb goes right, everyone is laughing and the energy just goes through the roof from then on. I swear we’re gonna get a full-on Satan Satan Satan conga line going one of these days.
Another angle to this whole thing is the sponsorships -> Ok, it’s f***ing rad to sponsor a match or a wrestler for your business or side hustle (more businesses, sites and side hustles absolutely should do this - but you can’t sponsor the title belt, that belongs to DnA’s Evolution. It’s another thing when you’re just a person on Twitter or a fan in the room that wants to throw some extra support by way of cash. That’s just love. It’s a wholeass OTHER thing when you have people paying full sponsorship money just to prank a wrestler…or make Rich say dumb stuff. See s-t-e-t-s-o-n.com lol. I’ve certainly been guilty of a FEW instances of this…but I’m definitely not the only one who has been “supporting” in this highly unique way. I’m sure it’s not what DC thought was gonna happen when he introduced sponsorships…but at the same time, if you needed evidence that the fans of Wrestling Open love this product and this roster, there it is in green.
I may walk into Open in not the best mood but I am NEVER sad when I come out. It’s the show, the place, the people, the energy…it’s a very unique community and I am so thankful to be a part of it. Slamming hands into the ring apron, booing Ray Jaz till you almost pass out, cheering the heroes, flipping off the ranch, singing along to whatever song we got in our head at that moment in time (for completely random example: The Meowmix song…which Jay Lyon LOVES), high fiving these folks you see week in and out, getting excited when some of the more far away talent makes the trek because they also want that weird Worcester vibe. This is the very specific energy that lifts me up. You make me better for it. And remember, if you’re feeling down…it’s only a few days til Thursday.
Thank you, Wrestling Open.
Every. Thursday. Forever.
Ok, I think I’m done now.....Wait no, did I say that Dan Barry is one of my favorite wrestlers period and we are absolutely blessed to have this dude wrestling in our orbit so often? No? Well there it is.
Ok, NOW I’m done.
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