Football’s once every four years Jamboree of the World Cup is well and truly underway and if you follow TWM on Facebook you will have seen our very own “tournament” where wrestlers were paired with a real-life team in the World Cup and we see who advances as per the results of the games.
But all that fun and frolics got me thinking whether a World Cup Of Wrestling could ever be a “real” thing. And I’m not talking about a tournament like WCW’s Pat O’Connor Memorial Tournament at Starrcade 1990 where the man who would become Rocco Rock masqueraded as a South African. Imagine the possibilities of a tournament where the best of the WWE, TNA, ROH, GFW, NJPW, AJPW, NOAH, AAA, CMLL, PWG, PCW, Progress, ICW, Chikara, Dragon Gate…well you get the picture.
Co-operation between promotions is not a new thing. Japanese promotions have boosted major show interest for years by importing names from their competitors and the history books have many entries where World Champions from competing USA companies battled each other. On a much smaller scale today, independents work together to book wrestlers and share costs (especially over here in the UK where “imports” are brought in to work for a number of companies).
The big problem is naturally the WWE. They don’t need the exposure and probably wouldn’t want to give their “competitors” the benefit of that exposure either. Dixie Carter keeps suggesting a joint WWE/TNA card would be a good thing but quite apart from the WWE (correctly) not believing that TNA is in anyway near their level, why would the WWE want to prop up an ailing company by trebling their audience in one foul swoop. This isn’t an ECW in the mid-to-late 90’s where although they were small they were also very influential. TNA is a dead brand which would require major surgery just to even come off life-support.
So for the moment we will discount WWE, despite any feelings that they may be more open to it under Triple H’s rule than Vince McMahon’s. But as the recent sell-out crowds for the joint ROH and NJPW events in North America have shown, even on a smaller scale the demand is there to see the biggest names across the world clash.
For the inaugural TWM World Cup of Wrestling we’ll follow the format of the Football World Cup. As much as the qualifying for FIFA’s version is skewed towards the traditional power players in Europe and South America, the initial big players in the wrestling version will have to be America, Japan and Mexico. Each “country” will get at least eight stars each. This may seem an unfair skew at first, but it enables one from each territory to take one spot in each of the eight groups, promising us matches we have never seen before. For arguments sake the line up could be a little like this; From Japan we get two each from AJPW, NJPW, Noah and pool another four from the likes of Dragon Gate, Pro Wrestling Zero One and Wrestle-1. From Mexico, three each from AAA and CMLL and one each from smaller promotions like Toryumon and Los Perros del Mal. In North America we can take three from TNA (or Jarrett’s GFW if they end up superseding Dixie’s Crew), three from Ring Of Honor and two from PWG. For the final eight we can round up wrestlers from promotions all over the world. Perhaps Preston City Wrestling and Insane Championship Wrestling from the UK can add one each. Label someone from the Stampede territory in Canada. There are independent promotions in countries as far and wide as Germany and Australia, Puerto Rico and New Zealand that could add a name each and I’m sure there is a whole wealth of international talent that I don’t even know about to tap into.
The fun starts before the actual tournament with the qualifying. The bigger groups in Mexico or Japan could hold one-off cards where their three or four guys beat off their rosters to book their places. Groups in Great Britain or Australia could combine to crown their countries qualifiers. Dixie Carter could draw names out of a hat or book a tournament where everyone wrestles a different number of matches to their opponents and where nothing makes sense…well you get the picture. Theoretically all the groups involved would be able to hold qualifying shows that would bring in the crowds and do what all good wrestling shows should do…make money for the promoters.
As per the football, the wrestlers would be split into eight groups of four for the “Finals”, wrestling everyone in their group once each. You could have all eight groups taking place at the same time in one host city, but perhaps a better idea would be to split the eight groups into four batches of two groups. Over four consecutive weekends, each pair of groups would play out in four different venues. (this avoids the overkill of trying to sell 15 nights of wrestling in the one venue/city). Three nights of action with two qualifying matches from each group per night, which also opens up spots for non-tournament matches which could showcase the best of the region on a night when the eyes of the world were on them.
Groups A & B would unfold on Week 1 somewhere in Great Britain. Groups C & D would be Week 2 in Mexico. Groups E & F would emanate from an American venue in week 3 whilst the final qualifying groups G & H would be done on Week 4 in Japan. On the fifth weekend, the qualifying 16 men would gravitate to one venue for the knockout stages, with the 16 whittled down to eight on night one with the rest happening the following night until we had our World Cup of Wrestling Winner.
Yes, booking a winner would be fraught with anywhere approaching twenty or so “promotions” involved but with a little thought and a little trust this could be a wonderful thing indeed that could set the wrestling world alight. And lets not forget that a lot of “big” nations boycotted the original FIFA World Cup in 1934. After the success of the first TWM World Cup of Wrestling, perhaps the WWE would be begging to join in the fun for the second one.
– By Matthew Roberts | @IWFICON