Time to Regulate British Wrestling?

About a week ago I logged onto the Classifieds section of the UK Fan Forum and saw an advertisement for a new British promotion called One Chance Wrestling, promoting their first show, System Failure, in Leeds on June 1st. The line-up for the show looked quite good, with British stars such as Aviv Mayaan, Jack Storm, Dave Moralez, Andy Simmons, former WWE star Joe Legend, and current TNA star Petey Williams booked for the show. I didn’t pay that much more attention to the post, until a few days later when I visited the UKFF again and saw that the thread was then six pages long.

I began to wonder what had happened. Could it be that Kriss Sprules or Daniel Fitch had been arguing with the UKFF regulars again? Upon closer inspection, I found out why this new promotion was now such a hot topic for discussion.

The promoter, Amitai Winehouse, is just thirteen years old.

A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from Summit Wrestling promoter Nick Aldis. It’s no secret that Nick and I haven’t exactly been friends in the past, but as far as I was concerned that was all water under the bridge. We’d even discussed doing an interview in recent weeks.

But when I received an e-mail from Nick with the word WARNING in the subject box, I thought the worst. I opened the e-mail, and I found that it was indeed a warning, but not the kind I was thinking of.

Nick had emailed several people in the British wrestling industry telling the story of someone who had enquired about hiring a ring from him. Nick had carried out several checks, and became suspicious with some of the things the person had asked him to do. Nick checked with the venue, and found out that the person, Amitai Winehouse, was just thirteen years old.

When it was revealed on the UK Fan Forum just how young Winehouse was, the thread promoting his show immediately became a hot topic, but rather than insult the youngster, many of the forum visitors tried to delve deeper into this situation, in an attempt to find out just why a thirteen year old wanted to promote a wrestling show, how he was booking the talent, and how he was arranging things such as insurance and wotnot.

To his credit, Winehouse came across very professionally, willing to ask any question that was put to him, and revealing that he had the full backing of his parents with this little business venture, even though he was still getting a barrage of criticism. The old adage of learning to walk before you can run came to mind while reading this thread.

It also made me wonder if seasoned campaigners and overseas workers knew just what was happening with this show, and if they knew that the man in charge was actually thirteen years old.

The past few years has seen countless wannabe promoters in Britain trying to get their piece of the pie. While established promotions such as WAW, All-Star, Premier and the FWA had mixed fortunes, promoters such as Sam Knee with HEW, Sanjay Bagga with LDN Wrestling and Daniel Edler with IPW:UK joined the ever growing number, earning a great deal of praise with their shows, while others such as Jamie Worthing’s TBW, Daniel Fitch’s MEW, and Kriss Sprules’ OPWO have enjoyed mixed fortunes to say the least. Other people have expressed an interest in holding shows.

Since the wrestling business blew wide open, it seems to be every wrestling fan’s dream to promote their own show. Some of them want to use the platform to put themselves over, to portray themselves as the second coming of Vince McMahon, while some of them just want to hang out in the dressing room with the boys, hearing stories from their lives on the road so they have something to tell their other buddies.

But the problem is that there are very few regulations with regard to holding a professional wrestling show. There are licences required by law, depending on where a show is being held, but compared to promoting other forms of entertainment or sport such as boxing or mixed martial arts, it seems as if any Tom, Dick or Harry with access to a fan forum and a few wrestler’s e-mail addresses can hold a show.

So maybe it’s time to actually do something that’s been discussed for years now, to form a wrestling board of control, to license promoters and wrestlers, to weed out the wannabes who have no real idea what they’re doing, to weed out the wannabes who are trying to get into the wrestling business just to get a few kicks.

But given the nature of the wrestling business, and the egos involved, I can’t see this happening anytime soon. Although some wrestling promoters work together to good effect, I can’t see a time when the majority will work together for the good of the business.

After reading the thread on the UKFF, there’s no doubting the fact that Amitai Winehouse is passionate about the wrestling business, but at the age of thirteen he should be thinking about other things in his life. If he’s dead set on holding his own wrestling show, there are countless promotions in Britain he could buy a show from, who would handle everything for him. Now is not the time for young Mr. Winehouse, and while his interest in the wrestling world should be encouraged, his desire to become a wrestling promoter should not be.