Does a "touring champion" do much for small feds today?

[johnbragg]

BAck in the day, the old NWA model was that the World Champion would move from territory to territory, defending against the top star or stars and moving on. Seeing the World Champion was a big deal, a World title match was a draw, and would drive a large live gate.

National television (both cable and national syndication) destroyed the basis of the territory system--you didn't have to wait for a year or two to see the World Champion in your city's arena, you could see him in your living room on TV.

So now I'm wondering--for non-televised or barely-televised promotions, does or would a "touring champion" do much, if any, good? Part of the reason the NWA and TNA parted ways was TNA wasn't sending the NWA champions to the territories. But would there have been much point to sending JArrett or Styles to indy shows more often?

 

[johnbragg]

Another way to put this--does booking Cody Runnels, GFW Next Gen Champion do anything more for Central City Pro Wrestling than just booking Cody Runnels?

Or lets say Cody got ahold of the NWA World title, or a Japanese midcard title.

 

[Psykohurricane55]

I don't think in this era of the wrestling business it's going to do much because what made this special back in the day was that fans still believe this thing was real so when the champion came to town, it was a big deal and if he was a heel like ric flair, the fans would comes to the show just to see the local hero beat the heel champion.

That's all in the past now, fans don't cares about good guys and bad guys, they don't take the product seriously like they did back in the day and today is not about the characters, it's about the wrestling so you could bring cody in a pwg or a central city pro wrestling wit a GFW title is technicly the same as if he didn't have any title.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

In this day and age, I think it primarily depends upon whether or not a wrestler has made a significant star in one of the bigger promotions. Even then, however, it has something of a shelf life I believe. Using Cody Runnels as an example, he'd do every bit as much for Central City Pro Wrestling, quite possibly much more so, being booked as Cody Runnels, better known to everyone as Cody Rhodes, former 2 time Intercontinental and 6 time Tag Team Champion in WWE than as Cody Runnels, current GFW NEX GEN Champion. Why? Because GWF doesn't even register as a blip on the radar, I've actually read a lot of comments from people who'd completely forgotten it existed until reading that Cody won GWF's mid-card title.

If you're someone that's spent a significant number of years wrestling for bigger companies like TNA, ROH and WWE, then the small feds are a big step down and can be viewed, in the case of wrestlers established in the big federations, as where their career has gone to die. Being NWA World Heavyweight Champion now is pretty much meaningless as it's a title who's only real glory comes from its past; I looked it up and the current champ is some 51 year old nobody named Tim Storm who's entire 20 year career has been touring the small indie companies.

 

[rmp0012002]

The only way a traveling champion would work with the small indies would sign a contract that whoever the champion is makes so many appearances in that promotion during a year. That, or start an alliance like the NWA but there are too many egos involved and how the NWA crumbled the first time.

 

[johnbragg]

In this day and age, I think it primarily depends upon whether or not a wrestler has made a significant star in one of the bigger promotions. Even then, however, it has something of a shelf life I believe. Using Cody Runnels as an example, he'd do every bit as much for Central City Pro Wrestling, quite possibly much more so, being booked as Cody Runnels, better known to everyone as Cody Rhodes, former 2 time Intercontinental and 6 time Tag Team Champion in WWE than as Cody Runnels, current GFW NEX GEN Champion. Why? Because GWF doesn't even register as a blip on the radar, I've actually read a lot of comments from people who'd completely forgotten it existed until reading that Cody won GWF's mid-card title.

If you're someone that's spent a significant number of years wrestling for bigger companies like TNA, ROH and WWE, then the small feds are a big step down and can be viewed, in the case of wrestlers established in the big federations, as where their career has gone to die. Being NWA World Heavyweight Champion now is pretty much meaningless as it's a title who's only real glory comes from its past; I looked it up and the current champ is some 51 year old nobody named Tim Storm who's entire 20 year career has been touring the small indie companies.

Thanks. I'm playing with writing a reboot of NWATNA almost from the beginning centered on Bill Behrens' NWA Wildside as the NWA flagship. People at the time were kicking around the idea of reviving the old NWA touring-champion model, and I came across the fact that former NWA World Champion Barry Windham was only about 42, and apparently in better shape in Dusty Rhodes' Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling than he had been in the 1990s in WWF and WCW. As a former NWA World Champion under age 50, I was thinking of putting a revived "NWA United States Champion" belt on Windham, so you'd have two stars available as touring champions.

But spending time and money trying to revive the territory system based on the turn-of-the-century independents is probably hopeless--the time and effort spent on building up NWA-branded indys in, say, Atlanta NAshville and Memphis or Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh-Durham would be better spent just running NWA Wildside B-show tours in those cities.