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Billy Corgan On Challenge Of Taking Over NWA, Comments On Production Start Date, Dissolution Of Affiliate Agreements

billy corgan
(Photo by Andrew Toth/FilmMagic)

As noted moments ago, new owner of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan joined Busted Open with Dave Lagreca and Larry Dallas today to further dive into his future plan for the company; you can check out a few transcribed highlights (credit Wrestlezone.com / Bill Pritchard) and listen to the interview below.

Busted Open with hosts Dave Lagreca, Bully Ray & Larry Dallas can be heard weekdays from 2p-4p Eastern Time only on SiriusXM Rush Channel 93 and is available any time on demand on the SiriusXM App.

Related: Billy Corgan Provides Update On NWA Revival; Announces TV Show Details, Tim Storm’s Mission Statement (Video)

Billy Corgan on taking over on NWA:

Yea, it’s a huge challenge, but I’m excited by the opportunity. It’s amazing, the people that reached out in the history of the NWA, and they see me as sort of lead custodian of it, and I take that job very seriously. I want to sort of restitch the history where it belongs, and hopefully move this thing forward so we can get back to the business of making the NWA important in the world of wrestling.

Corgan reveals some of his plans, gives spring timeline for start of content production:

One thing we don’t want to do, we don’t want to do what a lot of people do in wrestling and make a bunch of promises that never come true. We really see the NWA as a long term thing, and we want to build it the right way. So, we’ve been very cautious about the sort of information we let out… there’s plenty of things to hype, but if they don’t come true, we don’t want that sort of adversity coming back on the NWA.

So, here’s the thing: we’ve been talking to just about anybody who is in the market for wrestling content, and there’s still a healthy interest in the NWA. I think that sort of shows that buying it is still meaningful, because it still means a lot to a lot of people. Of course, the next set of questions is ‘What are you going to do with it?’ Well, essentially, we’re on a path, unless something changes in the near future, we’re on a path to start running shows in the spring, and what I say by that is we originally started by just being a television product. And what I mean by that is we are probably going to do shows for free on the internet. We haven’t worked out the specifics yet, but we will hopefully be a weekly show that anybody can watch, anywhere in the world for free behind no paywall. We’ll start signing talent and start running our own shows. We want to build up the brand by putting the wrestling first, and the product first, and hopefully we’ll create a fanbase and some momentum, and if we make deals it’s off of what we are doing and not what we hope to do. That doesn’t mean something can’t change in the near future; we’re still talking to everyone that is in the market and has shown interest in NWA. From the biggest people to the smallest people, we’re open for business, but I am going to say here today, and I wanted to save it here for you guys, because I felt that you were the right form to do it, where people can hear it in my voice that we are actually going to start producing content and doing our own shows by the spring.

Corgan comments on getting rid of the affiliate program and running the promotion in his vision: 

When we took over somewhere in June or July we reached out to every affiliate that was involved and said ‘look, we have a really open mind’ and unfortunately, may of our experiences weren’t positive. People get used to running their little kingdoms, they couldn’t get behind the bigger vision, so we let all of the affiliate programs lapse. There’s no more NWA affiliates, so whenever you hear ‘NWA’ it’s basically whatever we’re going to do from center out. It doesn’t mean I respected people who tried, it doesn’t mean I don’t respect people who invested, it doesn’t mean I’m not empathetic to people who rebelled. At the end of the day, they made contracts with somebody else, and it’s no different than if a big company comes in and takes over a smaller company. To the victor go the spoils. I’ve put my own money and my name on the line here to make this work, and we’re going to do whatever we need to do to make the company successful.

We want to be a successful 21st century content company. That’s a little bit inside speak, but at the end of the day that is what a wrestling company is. It’s a content company first, and that’s how people are able to run live shows if they have television, without television you can’t do much of anything of anything at all as some of the affiliates learned. Nobody was really drawing that huge… again I don’t mean it disrespectfully, people are trying to pick a bone with me because I don’t want to continue their version of the dream. Well, this is my version of the dream and I put it on myself to make it happen.

 

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