From Stephen Platinum: Imagine a human body lying face-up in the middle of Temple, Georgia. It’s out there all alone. The pale ...
Imagine a human body lying face-up in the middle of Temple, Georgia. It’s out there all alone. The pale skin has begun to take on the odd coloring of death in places. The body wears a white, satin jacket and maroon basketball shorts. The body’s mouth is agape, as if it rested here in the midst of one of those silent screams that you have during a nightmare.
A buzzard lands near the body. It’s a diminutive, squat buzzard with too short-wings. The buzzard is as wide as it is tall. It lands with an unexpected silence and grace. It squawks in triumph at the body, waddles over “patient and confident, savoring the meal to come.” It decides on the eyes first, the eyes and liver are the tastiest bits, after all. The buzzard extends its neck, lowers its head with the beak open slightly, planning on plucking the eye delicately from the socket.
The body lashes out, grabs the buzzard by the throat. The wide-eyed, shocked look of the portly bird is suddenly looking into a funhouse mirror, and the reflection from the body is one of rage and defiance. The not-dead-yet body’s face says it all, “I’m not dead yet.”
Universal Independent Wrestling (UIW) has fallen far. A look at this poster is an indication of that. On the surface, things seem fine. There are younger stars, established wrestlers, old school and up and comers. There are out-of-town guests, returning stars and it appears to not be much different than any UIW show from the past.
It is, in fact, very different. UIW had big aspirations not all that long ago. An ambitious desire to dominate the wrestling scene in Georgia, UIW brought in a variety of the best wrestlers they could get. They brought in a number of big ticket names. They boldly and loudly bragged about how many venues, how many places. Wrestler of the year Shane Marx was there. Perennial Manager of the Year Jeff G. Bailey was there. Wrestlers swooped in from Florida. Other names were thrown about. Maybe Homicide. Maybe Chris Hero. Murder One was wrestling Goldust, Devon. UIW was going to be edgy. Pandora versus The Usual Suspects was going to make things huge. UIW was doing the most interesting things with women’s wrestling that the state had seen in quite some time. UIW was running seemingly every single weekend.
The truth is, the payroll went up, and the control over the show went down. The wrong voices were listened to. Big mistakes were made dealing with personnel and UIW clearly overextended themselves. Stories of inappropriate behavior started to run rampant, and instead of looking like the mighty conqueror, UIW took on the appearance of an Empire in its end days without ever having the glory of the best days.
There was Waterloo, Custer’s Last Stand, the Alamo and Thermopylae. For UIW, their final fight is at someplace significantly less glorified, but the fight is dramatic nonetheless. The West Georgia Auto Auction. It’s a venue in Temple, Georgia relatively close to the other places UIW ambitiously runs shows. They’ve been juggling a number of places, harkening back to the circuit that Georgia Championship Wrestling used to run in its heyday, but with far less consistency and success. All of those that encouraged this foolish overreaching and most of those that happily ate from the trough of UIW are gone now. The “brilliant” overpriced angles and lack of control and common sense have led UIW to this point – where like the fallen empires of histories past, it means people picking away and claiming things for themselves.
Enter Scott East. Once a promoter of note, Scott East has returned to the scene. He has connections in the town, he’s connected to businesses in the area. He has landed at the West Georgia Auto Auction on the wings of Scott East Championship Wr…err…Southern Extreme Championship Wrestling (SECW). He ran one show on a Friday night. He was publically happy about the numbers, and those numbers were comparable to where many of UIW’s recent shows have slipped. Rumors abounded that important people weren’t happy with UIW’s recent shows and angles. The talent, real talent by and large left. Some of the people responsible for much of UIW’s woes abandoned them.
Full Disclosure – I don’t know how Stan or Billy feel about Scott East running in the same building they do. I can only suspect. Maybe everybody is actually cool with everything. I can’t imagine this is truly the case, however.
There is the world at large, and there is the wrestling world. And in the wrestling world, at our level of the game, running in the same building never leads to good things. At some point or another, most every group that doesn’t just run at the same place will encounter this on one end or the other. The timing in this case is clear – UIW is on the ropes. And Scott East is primed to pick at the eyes and the liver.
Look at the UIW poster once again. Long gone are many of the names that have helped their promotion in the past. They are stripped down to bare wood. A distinctly pale cast, and the most loyal of the loyal are there, along with guys that are more than happy to fill in the spots left by the leaving of others. They are bare wood, but they are also true to their essence. UIW had ambitions for greatness that were far beyond the reach of Stan and the leeches that had (and have) his ear. But now they are solid, with a greatly lowered payroll and wrestling matches that make sense, and that’s not a bad place to be. They are fighting off of their back, but they can trust themselves again.
Here’s the top of the SECW poster:
Scott East is savvy. He knows it’s about “wrestling”, so he emphasizes the word itself on the poster. He, no doubt, is glad-handing in the area of the show, getting people excited about the event. He puts himself in the corner of the poster, because running a wrestling show again is about something very personal – Scott East wants to show everyone that he matters again. He can run in the same building as UIW on a different night and win. UIW did a Friday night at the West Georgia Auto Auction as well, probably in a foolish attempt to show up Scott East.
More indications that this is a quiet war.
It’s gotten ugly quickly, as fights to the death always do. UIW’s allies by and large have left them. Scott East and SECW have already cancelled a couple of shows. UIW has lowered their payroll and leaned heavily on the family members once again. Scott East is bringing in name talent in an attempt to rally the fans of the area for a big drawing show to blow UIW out of there with dynamite.
UIW has been around quite some time. For a while, they had the attention of people that mattered, and appeared poised to challenge for a spot in the top three in the state. But now their conflict with Peachstate in the past seems almost laughable – Peachstate extended the olive branch out of mercy more than anything, realizing that a conflict with UIW was just wasted resources. Stan could be seen at Peachstate shows now. And so is Scott East. Peachstate is staying clear of it, having put their train back on track in a big way. Peachstate is happy to have the starving wolves fight in the dust.
Can UIW really start from square one again? They don’t really have a choice. But the stripped down, lily-white roster is the best way to gain some consistency again, and weather the storm of Hurricane Scott. Scott East cancelling a couple of shows already is an indication that he simply may not be up for this. A look at the first couple of posters indicates that he doesn’t even have a regular crew. But he smells blood in the water, and UIW seems primed for the taking.
Other shows have been in conflict around the state. There are shows that run against each other in the same town, but the discrepancy between the groups is so vast in terms of talent and show quality that there isn’t a true conflict, no matter what some might “believe.” There are groups like Ron Gossett’s UCW that swoop into town, raise a ruckus (they are soon to do a show in NWA-Atlanta’s backyard) and cause some ill will, but in the end with any Gossett endeavor you just look at your watch and take bets on when it will all collapse again.
But this is a fight between a proud group fighting for its survival and a proud man looking to gain the attention that he feels entitled to have. UIW has a loyal crew (mostly), family pride, and hopefully humility from being trounced a time or four. Scott East has resources, savvy, and a burning desire to be seen as a player once again. There are dozens of stories, conflicts and unsavory happenings all throughout the wrestling scene in Georgia. There are the stupid and arrogant that scream and write with loud voices, those that purport success in spite of all evidence to the contrary, and those that seemingly make the same mistakes again and again. There are arrogant promoters that are primed for a fall, and wrestlers that yell about their importance and wisdom more than they do things to be important or show wisdom.
In the midst of this fascinating, salacious cauldron known as wrestling in the state of Georgia there’s a quiet war in full effect, and it’s a story that deserves attention. Whatever sins UIW has committed in the past are irrelevant. They have a fight on their hands. Whatever big talk Scott East has done doesn’t matter now. He has a fight on his hands. The West Georgia Auto Auction will prove to be Thunderdome – two promotions enter, only one promotion will leave. Survive. Have a chance later to thrive. Money and survival is on the line, but also something much more important in our little world – pride. UIW has taken shots to its dignity time and again. The messy “who is in charge” situation – the defection of key players – the embarrassment of promises not delivered – falling crowds and worsening shows – but they are nothing if not stubborn. Perhaps this fight will be the beginning of the end. It can also be a new beginning. For Scott East, knocking out UIW would be a mighty feather to have in his cap, and he could stand a little taller and his metaphorical picture in the corner will be a little bigger. Let the best promotion win.
“I've fought countless times, yet I've never met an adversary who could offer me what we Spartans call "A Beautiful Death." I can only hope, with all the world's warriors gathered against us, there might be one down there who's up to the task.”
