Post by The Dark Order Inferno on Apr 6, 2013 6:11:10 GMT -5
Some of the ideas would work better with some slight changes:
1. Give the NWA World Heavyweight Championship to a big name indie talent or a WWE, WCW, ECW alum with decent notoriety. You could go further and have ALL of the NWA's major championships placed on "name" talent.
2. Take 25-35 of the "best and brightest" from all of the member promotions and make them into a "main roster" of sorts. Keep the better promotions around as NWA's "developmental system" while cutting the lesser ones loose.
2. Take 25-35 of the "best and brightest" from all of the member promotions and make them into a "main roster" of sorts. Keep the better promotions around as NWA's "developmental system" while cutting the lesser ones loose.
Cutting loose lesser NWA promotions is a bad idea- the better option is to strengthen smaller and bigger NWA promotions so that around the country/world, people can know the NWA affiliate is the gold standard indy promotion in their area. To that end, it'd work better to keep all the promotions, big and small, around, and try to strengthen them up from the ground up.
To that end, the way I'd strengthen it is to have the "NWA" name have a two-tiered attack- one the licensing method the NWA currently uses, with the second being an in-house talent booking agency for the NWA promotions.
The NWA booking agency would then book out the wrestlers who've signed onto their talent booking to each of the NWA member promotions at a discounted rate, and NWA membership would guarantee any NWA member promotion a certain number of free dates [the booking fee/transportation's paid for by the NWA itself] as part of their membership dues [say, for instance, one year's NWA membership dues guarantees you six at-cost dates for NWA talent and two lesser NWA title matches, with higher membership dues granting you more at-cost NWA talent dates or NWA World Title matches.)
Meanwhile, for the "belt mark" image the NWA champions have, this would change it- instead of the "pay 25 G's for the reign" form of the past NWA champs, it'd be changed where the deposit would be lower- but in exchange, no wrestler can be considered to hold a national-level NWA championship unless they agree to use the NWA booking agency (and anyone who works for an NWA promotion is eligible to use the NWA's booking agency.]
End result of this: You have a central NWA "main roster" of their in-house talent, who would be able to go anywhere in the NWA if they're handling the booking, allowing them to make names for themselves nationally. The titles can move around all the promotions in the NWA, as well as each promotion having a chance to have top names potentially break through on a national scale [making the promotions feel more important and stronger.] From there, the NWA can be a major force.
I would have the NWA run booking/promotion/talent development seminars once every few months, there are lots of people floating around the wrestling business who have knowledge that could go a long way to helping those smaller NWA companies grow. The seminars could be released at a later date on DVD, providing a little income as there seems to be a market for them. The NWA would have to introduce a set of standards for members though, if you book fake talents, advertise people you haven't contacted and repeatedly cancel events you're out and forfeit all money paid to the NWA.
I would book NWA supercards every couple of months for iPPV and DVD release, they would provide a source of income and could be distributed to member companies to give them more merch to sell at shows and something with reasonable production values to use when pitching to TV stations. The aim of the NWA should be to get as many member companies around the level of the larger ones they've lost over recent years, companies that are ready to make the step up onto TV and should work with them, not against them, sadly I don't think anyone currently involved is capable of that.