Famously, Pittsburgh native, Kurt Angle won an Olympic gold medal with a broken neck at the 1996 games in Atlanta. Despite entering his pro career in 1998 already on borrowed time from the laundry list of neck injuries that he had from his time on the amateur mat, Angle excelled faster than almost anyone else, propelling himself to the main event scene of the WWF within a year of his debut on national television. Regardless of the ups and downs over the years, Angle is a bonafide legend, working some of the best matches of his era in both WWE and TNA over the course of his stellar career.
In some ways, Kurt Angle is in the league of his own. But, can the Olympic champion save American Freestyle Wrestling?
When the concept was announced a few months ago with Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff, both obviously known for their extensive amateur backgrounds, as the figureheads of the organization, I penned an article explaining why it was a flawed project. By definition, professional wrestling started to work matches to provide enough action and keep the bouts at a reasonable length after the legitimate contests that used legitimate amateur maneuvers weren’t flashy enough or would often end in a stalemate. The ability to work the matches, and most importantly work the finishes to be able to draw for rematches, was the way that professional wrestling continued to be a profitable venture in some of its earliest stages.
That’s taking nothing away from the amazing athleticism of high-level amateur competitors, but rather to point out that the amateur wrestling genre has a very niche audience. It’s not something that the majority of the general public can appreciate the intricacies of. If it was, promoters wouldn’t have had to start to work the bouts to keep fans coming to the box office.
Furthermore, aside from the fact that the premise of amateur style wrestling with legitimate matches in a professional setting goes against the concept of amateur wrestling designed to provide the best pure competition possible in the sport, in many ways, the horse it out of the barn as far as what can be profitable with amateur wrestling since it’s already a part of mixed martial arts.
Real American Freestyle Wrestling is almost stuck in combat sports purgatory, as it won’t be flashy enough to draw pro wrestling fans, and won’t have the same level of action as MMA to be able to draw the UFC demographic.
The Wrestling Observer’s Bryan Alvarez reported that as of last week, Real American Freestyle Wrestling sold just 639 tickets for the event at The Wolstein Center, a 15,000-seat venue, in Cleveland. With the event scheduled for August 30, that gives the organization about a month and a half to attempt to move a number of tickets that would justify the event. Depending on the level of sponsorships and the initial funding being put into the venture, it’s already possible that this could be a one-and-done promotion, which wouldn’t speak well for Hogan’s drawing power since he was recruited as the public face of the company.
Speaking of The Hulkster, where is he?
When the company was initially announced, Hulk was hitting the media rounds hard, specifically on the Fox News circuit, as the name implies, Hogan was smart enough to know that there’s money to be made from the red hat crowd, it worked for Trump. However, the real-life Terry Bollea was sidelined with some health issues, with his representatives claiming it was a procedure related to his extensive back injuries. Hogan was actually announced for an appearance to promote his Real American Beer brand at a western Pennsylvania beer distributor last month, but the event was canceled due to health issues. Hulk’s former longtime friend and media leech, Bubba The Love Sponge garnered himself some attention in recent weeks, claiming on his radio show that Hogan was near death. Hogan’s agents have completely denied those rumors, explaining that Hulk was recovering from the previously mentioned procedure to address back injuries. When you consider that Bubba’s former wife was the same woman in the leaked sex tape with Hogan years ago when he was secretly recorded spewing racial slurs, it’s possible that the radio host is pushing a near-death narrative as an act of retaliation or to try to spike his ratings.
While I don’t put any credibility in anything some yo-yo named Bubba The Love Sponge says, and the story of him recovering from a less serious procedure is probably the actual story, the bottom line is, the Real American Freestyle brand and its investors don’t have one of the most recognizable celebrities, someone that is back in the pop culture conversation because of his political allegiance, to promote the launch of the wrestling organization.
Eric Bischoff, who is supposedly the Chief Media Officer, has been seen on social media recently working out with his friend, Diamond Dallas Page, but he has done very little, at least publicly for the Real American project. This might all be moot if Hogan is just their to collect a check and Bischoff is content to pick up some of the crumbs, as the investors would be the ones to lose the money that it took to sign the talent and launch the company, but if either Hulk or Bischoff thought this would be another chapter in their careers from a national level, neither have done much to sell tickets.
Whatever the case is with Hulk, he clearly can’t make the media rounds, and if I had to guess, I’d say that Kurt Angle was brought into the fold, at least at this point, as somewhat of substitute for Hogan as far as a public face for the brand.
The problems with Real American Freestyle Wrestling are two-fold, and it will be interesting to see if the debut event actually takes place next month.
Considering that Bischoff and Hogan have zero combined amateur experience, it makes sense to add an Olympic gold medalist with Kurt Angle’s star power to the organization, but it won’t have the same impact. While Angle is one of the greatest in-ring performers of all time, everyone will acknowledge that Hulk Hogan is more well-known, especially for the casual fan than Angle. It’s not a knock on Angle, but The Hulkster has more pop culture recognition so it would be much easier to get the 80s grappler on television shows than Kurt Angle. More importantly, it’s not as though Angle is going to compete at RAF events so the promotion is still going to have to find a way to realistically promote the athletes on the roster as stars that fans will want to pay to see compete in a professional setting. Ben Askren was the most well-known name on the roster, but a very serious health issue required him to receive a double lung transplant. Thankfully, Askren seems to be recovering, but it’s doubtful that he will ever compete again. How many amateur wrestlers that are signed to professionally compete for RAF have the name value to sell tickets?
That speaks to the much bigger problem for RAF, the lack of ticket sales could be an indication that the concept simply isn’t a draw.
If fans aren’t flocking to the box office to see the event live in Cleveland, what indication is there that the project can draw money? Keep in mind, the entire point of this league is a pro version of the amateur style so the priority and thus the barometer of success is the ability to draw money.
Kurt Angle is a nice addition to the organization because of his background and if the investors behind the project are willing to meet his price, there’s no reason for him not to take the money on the table, that’s exactly what Bischoff and Hogan did, but it’s doubtful that Angle or anyone else could provide a surge of publicity that will sell a major amount of tickets for the company within the next month and a half. For the reasons mentioned earlier, it was a flawed concept from the start and the lack of ticket sells reflect that for a 15,000-seat building. All things considered, it wouldn’t be surprising if the event was cancelled or potentially moved to a different location.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
Email [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
