Torch Talk with Gabe Sapolsky
Originally Published: May 5, 2007
Torch Newsletter #966
Ring of Honor announced Wednesday, May 2 that it would be premiering on PPV on July 1. The PPV, pretaped on May 12 in Manhattan, N.Y., would be the first time ROH is available widely on TV in the U.S. ROH will provide inDemand with a new PPV every two months, and use that PPV to drive new fans to its website and hopefully to purchase DVDs and live event tickets, both of which are ROHs life blood.
ROH has been around for five years, content to run live events in small venues in front of several hundred fans, then tape and sell those events on DVD to an even larger customer base across the world. PPV, though, brings ROH to the next level. In this exclusive half hour interview with ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky conducted May 2, he details the terms of the PPV deal, explains the motivations behind it, and addresses how this will and wont change what ROH has stood for and presented as a product the last five years.
Wade Keller: How long has this been an idea and where did you first hear about it, or did you come up with it yourself?
Gabe Sapolsky: It was basically done by Cary Silken and Sid Eyk in our office. Cary was looking for a way to expand our customer base basically. This all happened since Fall of last year. Im not sure of the specific year. Basically, we got to the point where every fan who is willing to shell out for a 15 or 20 bucks and send it to a website of small company for a DVD, we got all those fans. We showed growth, but it was slow. You pick up a fan here or there, you lose a fan here or there, too. They get burned out or tired or whatever. So we needed a way to get more exposure. What this payperview deal does is give us a way to get more exposure and at a real affordable rate. The business plan of ROH has not chnaged. Were still going to be a company that lives or dies on DVD or live ticket event sales. The payperview is just basically a way to get more exposure, to get the ROHwrestling.com name out there or the Ring or Honor name out there and reach an audience that otherwise isnt going to buy our DVD.
Keller: What do you picture at this point being the crosspromotion other than someone happening to flip across ROH payperview on their onDemand channel guide?
Sapolsky: Theres lots of plans for promotion. We have a very big guy with Ken Gelman involved in all of this whos handling all of this. He has a very good background. He really, really knows what he is doing. I have a lot of trust and faith in him. He has a lot of good ideas. Hes a real gogetter. Hes going to have a lot of ways to promote this payperview.
Keller: There will probably a lot of people seeing ads for ROH after WWE payperviews conclude, too. There are a lot of ways being on payperview raises your profile. My first reaction to this is there are going to be a lot of people who are not in the habit of buying DVDs thorugh mail order. Theyll see the payperview option and theyll order it and then want more of that product than once every two months.
Sapolsky: It really is all of that exposure. Very important to us was the price point. These payperviews are going to be priced between $9.95 and $14.95. Thats a very affordable price. And its a price where you dont have to watch on Sunday at 8 oclock to sit and watch it or you miss it. I always thought TNA had a good idea with the Wednesday payperview and it didnt work out for whatever reason. But, you did have to watch on a Wednesday night. With onDemand, it will be on all month. You might be sitting there at one in the morning and you have nothing to do, and you want to spend ten bucks, its not a big deal, you go ahead and buy it. Its going to be very convenient for the people and very affordable. Thats the main thing. I think it will attract a lot of impulse buys that way and were also hoping there are casual fans. Were not asking a whole lot. Youre not going to have to shell out a whole lot. Its not thirty or forty dollars. It costs ten or fifteen dollars for two hours of your time.
Keller: Is there a number of buys that inDemand is looking for or a neighborhood? In your own mind, do you have a number you need to reach to make it sustainable, or is this arrangement just so cheap for inDemand and something you were already doing where theres almost not a treshhold you need to reach?
Sapolsky: The amazing part of this is there really isnt pressure for a lot of buys. InDemand has a lot of things going on and this is just another product for them to sell. For us, its about exposure. Its about getting more people to buy the DVDs and come to live events and putting the ROHwrestling.com name out there and the Ring of Honor name. Its not really a high pressure we have to do this number of buys or we put this much more money into the company and its going to be this much more expensive to run the shows. The fact of the matter is its all very affordable and its become a really innovative and great way to try to get some exposure.
Keller: The technology changes are changing the landscape for what a pro wrestling company can do to sustain itself. Thats been one of the great things about ROH. Not that youve reached a ceiling on growth, but youre not expanding at a rate where youre looking at going public in a few months. Its nice to be able to be a certain level, be profitable, employ wrestlers, have a good time doing what youre doing, and not grow too fast like ECW did where the next move is make or break.
Sapolsky: Its not where werre going to be in a situation where we are going to be too big to be small and too small to be big, which was the famous Paul Heyman line about ECW, which was true. When Cary first came to me with the idea about the payperview, I was dead set against it because I was really worried about that. I figured were going to take on the same problems ECW did. But the fact of the matter is, we havent had any of those problems and Im 100 percent excited about it now because it really is the next logical step for the company at this point. Were not overextending ourselves with it. Were not drastically changing our business plan. Were not going to have to change our product at all. Were still going to be able to put our product out there. It really is the next logical step for our company to take.
Keller: Will the payperview show also be sold on DVD, and if so before or after the payperview airs?
Sapolsky: It will be sold, but after the payperview airs. The payperview will be firstrun material.
Keller: From a production standpoint has inDemand asked anything of you, first of all, and second of all, will you be upgrading any aspects of production?
Sapolsky: There will be some small upgrades, but inDemand hasnt said anything to us. In fact, theyve seen numerous tapes of our product and DVDs of our product and theyre very happy with it. There will be some production upgrades because we always making production upgrades. Its just something we always try to do. It might not be anything too noticeable, just little things here and there to clean the product up a little bit.
Keller: What about the ring mic?
Sapolsky: If you started watching the DVD from the beginning of this year, youll see we had the ring mic wired right into the audio now, so theres no issues with the ring mic anymore.
Keller: Excellent. Other than that, from a production standpoint, the rest of it has to do with the building youre in and the crowd you have. The lighting is consistent.
Sapolsky: Thats one of the reasons we wanted to do things in Manhattan because were going to get a tremendous crowd in there and a tremendous crowd reaction. We have to keep in mind the building were taping things in, we obviously want a great looking building. Youre not going to suddenly see pyro or lots of fancy things to compete with WWE and TNA. Thats another lesson from ECW. Were not going to go the exact opposite route that ECW went, because I look back at some of that ECW stuff and it just looks terrible, but were going to have a nice standard of production, but were not going to try to compete with TNA or WWE. Were going to have our own look and its a look Im very comfortable with. Its an old school look, but its updated. I think its very pleasant on the eye. If you want huge production, this isnt going to be the product for you. If you want a nice looking product with all the emphasis on wrestling, thats what were still going to be.
Keller: If youre not at a point where you can come even close to what WWE is, youre going to look foolish trying. ROH has an alternative look to it where I think people who have discovered it feel theyre part of an exclusive club of people who have discovered something special. I think that more than makes up for the fact that its not at the most up to date arena with all the pyro.
Sapolsky: The fans who buy this product, thats not what theyre buying this product for anyways. Its not something were concerned about. Youre not going to see a changed product. Were not suddenly going to go on payperview and youre going to see a Randy Savage or something. Youre going to see the same product youve seen over the last five years. Thats the other beautiful part of this whole arrangement is that it does not change the integrity of the product whatsoever. We still have no one we really have to answer to. We just have to send a tape in and they play it. Youre going to see the same product Were going to feature our guys, the guys youve seen in Ring of Honor and the guys who have signed contracts with us and those you have come to expect in Ring of Honor. Youre going to see a pure Ring of Honor product. Its not going to have to be altered in any way.
Keller: Every time TNA has gone to a new networkfrom payperview to FSN to Spike late night to Spike prime timewe saw a reset of storylines and certain things were rerun. I dont know how many times James Storm and Chris Harris have been broken up. Is there going to be any kind of storyline reset, and if not, any kind of introduction into the product youll try to incorporate into the show? Or will people buying this payperview who have never seen ROH before basically feel theyre picking up something midstream that they have to do some catching up on.
Sapolsky: Thats a really good question. Youre not going to see any kind of a reset for the product. Youre going to see the product evolve. What people buy us for and always sells the product from the very first show is wrestling. Youre going to see the guys get over on their wrestling. Theres going to be a reason for the matches taking place. Youre going to know what the characters motivations are. Youre not going to be hit over the head with it because youre basically buying it for the wrestlng. It will stay in line with whats been going on with Ring of Honor. The first show is going to be a show where if youve never seen Ring of Honor before and you have no idea who anybody is, by the time youre watching the payperview and the match goes on, youre going to have at least a little bit of an idea of why this match is happening of why you should care about this match?
Keller: So there will be more preproduction perhaps than average on an ROH DVD?
Sapolsky: No, not at all. It will be pretty much a selfcontained show. Its going to be pretty much a selfcontained show. Not selfcontained in that it doesnt lead to anything or doesnt look at the past, but selfcontained in that if youve never seen ROH before, youre going to understand why everything is going on and why all these matches are taking place. People arent going to buy this payperview to see lots of backstage promos or videos and that kind of stuff. Its going to have that kind of thing that youre able to follow the product, but when you buy a Ring of Honor product, youre buying it for the wrestling and thats not gonna change.
Keller: Was there any concern at all or anything you were aware of that put the longterm or shortterm future of ROH in jeopardy if something wasnt done to add to the revenue stream such as this payperview and expand the audience base, or were things solid enough where you werent content, but you could have stayed course for a while?
Sapolsky: We could stay course and sputter along and gain a few customers and lose a few customers, but the bottom line is Carys a businessman and hes not in this to just stand pat. He wants to see growth. He doesnt need to see an overnight overwhelming success; he just wants to see a slow, steady growth. We kind of reached a point where we werent growing, but it was just so slow and we were doing it for five years and its just like, what does it take to get new fans, and bottom line is it we need that TV exposure. We could have gone along and kept coasting. Some months we make money, maybe some months we dont. The bottom line is we needed this in order to not expand to the next level, but just expand our fan base a little bit and
get that extra level of exposure.
Keller: You can say you dont comment on this, because I know you generally dont, but youve never sold more than ten thousand DVDs of any one event.
Sapolsky: Yeah, I cant really discuss that.
Keller: Now, for people who werent paying attention to DVD before, its worth letting them know that nobody was becoming a multimillionare on the DVD sales. I think thats part of the reason Ring of Honor fans are so loyal and passionate about itthat its a passion on your part and the wrestlers part. There arent ten guys making seven figures.
Sapolsky: Yeah, I mean, thats all true. No ones making millions or getting rich off of Ring of Honor.
Keller: How about the announcers for the product?
Sapolsky: It will be our regular announcers, Dave Prazak and Lenny Leonard. They both do a great job and they both deserve to be on the payperview.
Keller: How does this affect your relationship with TNA? The talent crossover has almost been eliminated already.
Sapolsky: Its down to Homicide and Austin Aries. Really at this time I want to keep everything focused on Ring of Honor.
Keller: So basically, that will be worked on behind the scenes, otherwise no comment.
Sapolsky: Yeah, pretty much.
Keller: Fair enough. It is nice at this stage that as you move to this stage that there isnt a lot of crossover and it really isnt an issue. I doubt there will be talent exchanges. Theyll see you more so as competition now even though youre offering a very different type of payperview product.
Sapolsky: It doesnt take a genius to see that weve been phasing down on the TNA talent and theyve been phasing down on us using the TNA talent. Its been a mutal thing between us. You just have to look. First there was Abyss, then (Alex) Shelly, then A.J. (Styles), Jay Lethal was thrown in there, then Samoa Joe, Christopher Daniels. You can see it was definitely something that was thought about for a year and a half or so. They wanted to do their own thing and theyve been doing theirs. Its been something weve been working on. Well see how it plays out.
Keller: Are you saying some of the talent decisions over the last four, five, six months such as Samoa Joe, this might have been in the back of your mind to sort out and separate the two rosters.
Sapolsky: Yeah, it was in the back of my mind even before all this just because we didnt want to have two identical rosters.
Keller: Are your wrestlers under contract, like legal binding real contracts?
Sapolsky: This whole thing afforded us the opportunity to sign a roster of talent. We have well over ten guys signed at this point and thats very exciting to me. I have been living the past ten years of my life waiting for that IM or email or phone call to come in saying so and so, whose having a major angle, needs to finished up or hes gone or any kind of situation like that. I dont have to live with that hanging over my head and I dont have to book with that hanging over my head right now because our core roster and all our main players are signed for a period of time that will allow us to build around them.
Keller: Are the contracts just a flat guarantee or a WWE type of downside.
Sapolsky: I dont really want to get into the terms of the contract. The guys all seem very happy. One huge compliment, and this is probably the biggest compliment possible Ive ever received, is that we started trying to sign guys a month ago, everybody was very receptive to it, and not only were all the guys receptive to it, but they didnt try to run to WWE or TNA first chance they got. In ECW, it seemed like anytime someone got a contract offer, the first thing theyd do is run outside and try to go to WCW or WWE to counter the offer. The guys we have and the guys weve signed are really committed to being here. They want to build a system here and dont want to be part of those systems. As you know, Wade, a lot of wrestlers arent happy with the systems in other places. This is a chance for guys to have their freedom and build their own system and theyre completely into it. It was such a huge compliment that everyone was just so willing to sign and so committed to this cause. The sense of team that we have in that locker room is unlike anything Ive ever been a part of. We all really believe in what were doing and what our cause is in ROH. I think thats going to really carry over into the ring and give us a really special product.
Keller: I think youve found a way to keep everyone on the roster happy. For one, youre not on TV pushing yourself so theres not that resentment, but even more so youve found a way to rotate main events and semimain events to guys and find a way to rotate guys into that spot but not keep anyone there who obviously doesnt deserve it. Like a Samoa Joe or a Bryan Danielson, of course you ride that wave. But everyone has a chance to feel theyre contributing in a meaningful way.
Sapolsky: Thats I think very important to the teamwork that we have. For instance, this month it might be Brent Albrights turn to get his half nelson suplex over big and everyone goes under for that and that sets Brent Albright up for a big match. Then its B.J. Whitmers turn. Then its Deliriouss turn. So, that in turn keeps everybody strong up and down the roster. While some guy might have to make a sacrifice one month, then a few months later it will pay off for him. Most importantly, nobody ever does a job for the sake of doing a job. I try to have a lot of finishes in even a subtle way lead to something, some kind of character development. Everybody is very comfortable with where things are going, and thats kept them behind things.
Keller: Will the payperview deal change the number of shows you run in any way. Will you take the weekend off before a payperview just so guys are fresh? Has any of that stuff entered your mind?
Sapolsky: No. I mean, its not even determined if every payperview is going to be taped all in one night as were doing in Manhattan. So theres a lot to be determined with that. For right now, everything is status quo.
Keller: What other things would you do besides a payperview taped at one event?
Sapolsky: Right now, theres really no limits on what s available for us to do. I have a lot of ideas up in my head. Half of them Ill throw out, half of them will develop into something else. Its reallly too early to get into that. Well see how the first one goes and move from there. Theres a lot of good options on how we can do things, whether we tape all in one night or tape a match here and there or have a theme or spotlight some of our history, because if you make a new fan, they have over a hundred back calogue DVDs to buy from us. So our history will be a big part of things. Maybe not our first payperview, but thats something to consider. There are a lot of options to consider in the future.
Keller: How long are the payperviews?
Sapolsky: Two hours.
Keller: So when someone buys the Manhattan show on payperview, theres an incentive for them to buy the DVD to see the full show.
Sapolsky: Yeah, the full show definitely wont be on the payperview, but the payperview will all be firstrun material.
Keller: Do you suspect some matches will be abbreviated, or youll select a certain number of matches to run in their entirety?
Sapolsky: No, no. Were definitely not going to give the people an edited product. The shows will be formatted to a two hour show.
Keller: It will feel live.
Sapolsky: Exactly.
Keller: Obviously, youre always looking for new talent. What do you do to see whos a prospect on the indy scene besides giving tryouts when you go to an area and theres good word of mouth on them. Do you have a system where somebody is watching tapes regularly? How do you make sure youre getting the top indy guys and not overlooking them?
Sapolsky: Really, what it comes down to now, because I dont have the time to watch tapes like I used to, so if enough guys say I should give soandso a tryout, Ill give him a tryout and see where it goes from there. We get a lot of tapes and DVDs and I feel bad because a lot of them are sitting there. Sometimes you get tapes or DVDs and theyre really low quality, or bad camera shots, and its tough to tell what a guys got if thats the case. Usually what I go by now is if enough word of mouth from guys and if enough people say something good about somebody or somebody I trust, theyll get a tryout and Ill go from there.
Keller: Is this a six event deal where youre almost guaranteed to have six events to let it grow, or is it possible youll only get one or two, or is it even more than one year?
Sapolsky: I think its for the six events. Im pretty sure were locked in for six events.
Keller: Obviously if its successful enough and you do two million buys per show, youll be on every week.
Sapolsky: Yeah. Then Ill do one show and retire.
