Posted in: Doctor's Orders
Doctor's Orders: What Is Global Force Wrestling?
By The Doc
Sep 8, 2015 - 10:33:46 PM

”The Doc” Chad Matthews has been a featured writer for LOP since 2004. Initially offering detailed recaps and reviews for WWE's top programs, he transitioned to writing columns in 2010. In addition to his discussion-provoking current event pieces, he has written many acclaimed series about WrestleMania, as well as a popular short story chronicle. The Doc has also penned a book, The WrestleMania Era: The Book of Sports Entertainment, published in 2013. It has been called “the best wrestling book I have ever read” and holds a 5-star rating on Amazon, where it peaked at #3 on the wrestling charts.




When I interviewed Jeff Jarrett at the beginning of June about Global Force Wrestling, the most straightforward question that I asked was simply, “What exactly is Global Force Wrestling?” With deftness born of being asked the same question a thousand times over, Double J explained to me his vision - a pro wrestling company that helps the business as a whole thrive through talent sharing and worldwide inter-promotion, focused on allowing the wrestlers to tell the stories that they want to tell and emote the motivations behind their craft.

For several months, Jarrett repeated some variation of that same answer, telling us exactly what GFW intends to be. Yet, most pundits, after speaking with its founder, still were left pondering Global Force Wrestling’s identity. It’s not as if Jarrett wasn't forthcoming, but even he admitted that his straightforward answer did little more than create more questions. Jarrett told Rolling Stone, “A lot of people are having trouble understanding our mindset.”

Why has it seemed so difficult to follow where he's going and what he's doing?

The bottom line is that some things are easier to show than to tell. My dad tried to explain to me as a kid what made Notre Dame Football special. I followed along, knew the fight song, and halfheartedly cheered when they would win; I didn't really get it, though. Then, one autumn afternoon in the early 90s, I saw it. Notre Dame was down by three scores in the 4th quarter and, by some miracle, they came back and won. I've been a diehard Irish Football fan ever since. That game visually put into focus everything that my dad had previously told me.

There's only so much that one can discern about Global Force Wrestling from interviews and press releases. In order to understand what GFW is, I needed to see Jarrett’s verbal description come to life. So, when they came to the home of the Winston-Salem Dash on August 14th as part of their summer-long minor league baseball stadium tour, I made sure to be there, graciously accepting an opportunity to interview a variety of the talents on-hand for the night's festivities (some GFW roster members and others local wrestlers from small NC promotions). By night’s end, I had a better understanding of Double J’s approach.

What is Global Force Wrestling? Allow me to elaborate on Jarrett’s answer.



Brand equity establishment through exquisite presentation


Walking up to the pristine BB&T Ballpark and seeing a six-sided ring positioned over home plate was a striking visual. There were not hundreds of chairs, an elaborate set, or security railing to distract from the fact that you're there to see pro wrestling; not a sports entertainment spectacle. In the middle of a giant, immaculately manicured field sits just one thing: a Global Force Wrestling ring.

The basic set-up emits a special aura and gives the appearance of far grander an occasion than any other pro wrestling live event, held typically in smaller arenas, civic centers, or gymnasiums. The stadium lighting consumes both wrestlers and fans, eliminating any spotlight-driven divide; it feels like you are part of the show. There's nothing like the open-air atmosphere either. It puts WWE house shows to shame.

Using baseball stadiums was smart. Ballparks already have the sound systems, video screens and – by having no seats on the field – built in security. The cost of running the show presumably then consists merely of bringing, setting up, and tearing down the ring. Both in terms of economics and brand-building, it's a home run.

Presentation is vitally important and, though the unique aesthetic did not answer perhaps the second biggest question I had coming into the evening - Can GFW succeed? - it went a long way toward winning me over. It made me want to, as their slogan suggests, “Join The Force.” I had to try to suppress my hyperbolic nature, though. After all, they had been touring for 8 weeks and this show would have been, for me and anyone else not in attendance on the previous tour stops, the first evidence of the promotion having a wrestling existence beyond TNA’s Impact program, where Jarrett showed up in July to start an ongoing invasion angle.

What good is presentation without someone around to view it? That would be the logical response to anyone who questioned the integrity of GFW joining forces with TNA and their 300,000-400,000 weekly domestic television viewers. However, a supporter could forgive the critic for wondering why Jarrett would co-promote his old and new companies so quickly. After all, part of the confusion surrounding GFW’s identity is its perceived similarities to TNA. Jarrett founded TNA, initiated its funding, and helped build it from the ground up. Then, he left it and founded GFW, initiated its funding, and is attempting to build it from the ground up. It’s all too familiar.

Nick “Magnus” Aldis understands the difference between GFW and TNA as well as anyone. He signed with Global Force because it was different and because he thinks that it will return pro wrestling to its roots. Many may agree with his stance that TNA decided somewhere along the line that they no longer wanted to be just a wrestling program. In a down-to-earth conversation between Aldis, myself, and a friend of mine whose fandom dates back to Mil Mascaras, we surmised that perhaps TNA wanted to become the second biggest sports entertainment company instead of the best pro wrestling company; that no other promotion should try to achieve WWE’s standard because they’ve reached a separate plane unto themselves.

The 1-time TNA World Heavyweight Champion, who was ranked the #8 singles wrestler in the Pro Wrestling Illustrated Top 500 in 2014, would seem a logical long-term building block for GFW and he appreciates the opportunity to help forge the future of a new promotion that hopefully emerges among the world’s elite. Aldis said that the core of original stars who built TNA’s reputation reflected quite fondly on their role in the company’s early successes and hopes that he can do the same with GFW. His fiancée, Mickie James, has joined him in Jarrett’s new venture.



I have joined "The Force"
credit www.globalforcewrestling.com


Thirty years ago, Vince McMahon introduced a new business model and rebranded professional wrestling as sports entertainment. It was wildly successful to the point that we've spent the last three decades watching almost everyone try to copy their formula and fail to replicate their prosperity. Jim Crockett, Verne Gagne, Bill Watts, Ted Turner, and others tried and failed. Like mom and pop shops fending off national chains in various industries, other pro wrestling promotions quickly went away from what they knew and they all went under. Their fatal flaw? Not embracing who they were and trying to be something that they were not. By 2001, they had all disappeared amidst their failures. Jeff Jarrett founded TNA a year later, but it eventually fell into the same trap.

Today, Jarrett comes across as a man who has learned from past mistakes and simultaneously discovered what he believes to be the best way to run a wrestling company. Pro wrestling's media and its fanbase, however, are now conditioned to think of pro wrestling organizations inside of the box created during the WrestleMania Era. When anyone suggests something outside of that bubble, it's met with blank stares. Naturally, then, Jarrett has found it difficult to express what he's trying to do to people so heavily indoctrinated in the “WWE way.” Yet, that's sports entertainment. Jarrett is basically asking us all to remember that there is another way to operate a pro wrestling organization.

Once upon a time, promoters worked together within the confines of at least a loose affiliation, intentionally or unintentionally unified under the umbrella of “pro wrestling.” In America's National Football League, there is a saying designed to represent unity amongst the three dozen separately owned teams: Protect The Shield. Pro wrestling before WWE as we know it today was separated into franchises scattered about the United States (and, if you wish to think bigger, Europe and Japan too), not totally unlike professional sporting leagues. The NWA World Heavyweight Champion would headline in main-events across territorial boundaries. A star in one region could exhaust his talents and move onto another, spend a few years there and then head elsewhere, even take a North American hiatus to Japan in the midst of a stateside run, and it was all within the framework of a fairly cooperative business model.

That was such a long time ago that Jarrett may as well be Chip Kelly explaining his spread offense to a football coach who's been cryogenically frozen for thirty years.

In early 2015, we were privy to the first example of Jarrett's vision when he worked out a deal with American pay-per-view broadcasters to show New Japan Pro Wrestling's Wrestle Kingdom 9 with English-speaking, well-known broadcasters Jim Ross and Matt Striker doing the commentary. “This is one of the great events on the wrestling calendar every year, and for GFW to have the opportunity to bring it to the American audience is an honor and a privilege,” Jarrett said when the deal was announced in the fall of last year. The biggest non-WWE wrestling show in the world being available to North American wrestling fans was a big deal. Still, promoting a New Japan show and starting a new wrestling company with its own roster seemed to be, on the surface, mutually exclusive ideas.

Yet, standing there on August 14th as evidence to the contrary was the imposing figure of Lance Hoyt, who had recently arrived back in the United States to take part in his very first GFW show. Hoyt, who previously worked for WWE and TNA, has enjoyed the best success of his career in New Japan these last four years. So, in reality, Jarrett enhancing his previously established relationships in the Far East opened a door for GFW to gain access to some of the best talent in the world, establishing a professional harmony between wrestling companies across the world. Jarrett has ties to a lot of the top pro wrestlers in the Western Hemisphere; he can send some of them to Japan and Japan can send some of their best back to him.

What’s in it for Hoyt? The most important thing to a veteran like him, at this stage of his career, seems to be creative fulfillment. A candid native Texan clearly comfortable in his own skin, Hoyt left for Japan to get the chance to flesh out his wrestling persona and, given that part of GFW's mission statement is to allow him to continue doing just that, one would think it tediously unnecessary for him to work for them if he felt incapable of exposing his homeland to his character's recent growth. By his side will be his partner in the Killer Elite Squad and co-holder of the Tag Team Championships in Pro Wrestling NOAH (another Japanese promotion), Davey Boy Smith Jr. Together, they represent both the fruits of Jarrett's NJPW PPV labor and the potential domestic redemption for wrestlers who never got the opportunity to fully express themselves to the North American fanbase.



Jarrett hopes to make an old business model new again


To any fan introduced to pro wrestling via the Vince McMahon, sports entertainment paradigm, it must be fascinating to think of the world as it was before the WrestleMania Era. Surely it is akin to a millennial pondering how to communicate without the means of a cell phone. Speak to any fan who knows of the strange pro wrestling world of which I write and you will, though, undoubtedly find yourself engrossed in stories that feel more personal. McMahon made WWE the world’s wrestling franchise, unintentionally stripping the industry of its fundamentally grassroots atmosphere. Extreme Championship Wrestling provided perhaps the best (or at least the most glorified) example, post-WWE takeover, of how things functioned in the old days, when a fanbase would develop intensely passionate emotional resonance with a regional promotion that they got to see up close and personal all year long.

Interestingly, though GFW looks like a big deal via its impressive presentation, it still feels very relatable. The opportunities for fan interaction with the wrestlers abound. There was a chance to meet the wrestlers before the show, after each wrestler's respective match, a special VIP opportunity with the legendary Jeff Hardy, and even the chance to get into the ring after the show concluded for a photo op with Hardy and Jeff Jarrett. Accessible is another appropriate description of GFW; they give wrestling back its grassroots appeal without sacrificing its splendor.

Accenting that grassroots appeal were the small independent company that co-promoted the event and the local talent on hand. Just beyond the Global Force merchandise stand was a large booth dedicated to AML Wrestling, a Triad area-based North Carolina promotion. I spoke with their representative, who noted that Jarrett called them and asked them to be involved. So, not only does Double J intend to establish inter-promotional relationships with the heavy-hitters such as NJPW, TNA, and Ring of Honor, but also regional outfits like AML, whose wrestlers were sprinkled across the card (the Washington Bullets – a sibling heel duo who antagonized the crowd as well as anyone that night - were particularly entertaining).

AML's yearly autumn spectacle, WrestleCade, was heavily hyped personally by Jarrett. Matt Hardy, the WrestleCade Champion, showed up on the stadium video board to coax him into a title match at the 4th annual November showcase, which I had never previously heard of despite living in the area where it's held since 2009. Mission accomplished on creating a hook for fans unfamiliar with the local product. I will absolutely attend WrestleCade. http://www.wrestlecade.com/

GFW’s decision to feature talents whose biggest followings are in their home state of North Carolina was a simple gesture that made the night feel more intimate. Tessa Blanchard, daughter of WWE Hall of Famer Tully Blanchard and stepdaughter of NWA legend Magnum TA, grew up in the Carolinas and was not coincidentally brought to the Global Force tour for the first time during their run through Winston-Salem. Since she had only been wrestling since the day before New Year's Eve in 2013, she relished the chance to gain valuable experience on a bigger stage. She has quite the reputation to live up to and is still trying to find her way, but she's not short on confidence or resources. Presented in the ring as the girl-next-door and genuinely coming across as such in conversation beyond the ropes, something tells me that the future is bright for Tessa.

The same could be said for homegrown, central NC products Trevor Lee and Andrew Everett. Live events unsupported by a television show lend themselves to high-flying matches easily stealing a show on the merit of entertainment alone. Lee and Everett unequivocally had the most exciting match on August 14th. Trevor was well-representing the OMEGA Championship (made famous by the founding fathers of the Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts, The Hardy Boys). A superbly nice guy outside of the ring, he flipped a switch to become an annoying nuisance opposite fan-favorite, Everett, during the night's semi-main-event. Jeff Hardy gave Lee some shine during a promo in which he mentioned hanging out at Trevor's house back in the day. The Enigma spoke of him like a proud older brother.

As for Everett, nobody better exemplified the value of the local co-promotion. I saw a man wearing a “Flip Everett Flip” shirt walking down the steps as I was quizzing the stadium usher about the night's expected attendance (the 250 tickets sold could easily have been doubled or tripled once all walk-in traffic was accounted for). The gentleman eventually confirmed my suspicions that he was Everett's father, who promotes CWF Mid-Atlantic out of Burlington, NC. In their case, it was the passion of the son fueling the promotional work of the father; the son eventually branching out to find success in ROH. Everett Sr. sat behind me during the show and took the time to ask if I got what I expected from his son, whom I had been told was comparable to WWE's Neville in overall ability. I nodded in the affirmative. Flip, Everett did indeed, flip. The local kid who started wrestling at age 9 (after interacting in the ring with Don Kernodle) "making it" was one of the evening’s most memorable stories.



credit www.globalforcewrestling.com


For any confusion he may create, Jarrett is unabashedly enthusiastic about Global Force Wrestling's developing modus operandi. I came away from our June chat questioning whether or not his idea would work, but confident that he believed that it would. I walked away from GFW's August 14th show assured that, if Jarrett's idea works, pro wrestling as an industry would greatly benefit from it. Jarrett is more a wrestling ambassador at this point than he is a promoter, with tons of experience to draw from and a definiteness of purpose found typically in only the most successful businessmen. Men like Aldis and former TNA X-Division star, Sonjay Dutt, are drawn to him, hoping to continue in GFW the behind the curtain education that they received while helping Jarrett produce the 26-episode, India-based Ring Ka King. An outsider can draw many a positive conclusion about the leader of a new venture by the quality of the people around him; and Aldis and Dutt are smart young minds.

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about GFW is that we have more questions than answers about it, but at least I now feel comfortable expressing to you what it is. And just what is Global Force Wrestling? It's the resurrection from the ashes of the once presumed deceased territory model; international, national, regional, and local all at the same time. It is a place where Everett can flip and be as big a star in central North Carolina as Jeff Hardy; where Lance Hoyt can come back home to apply what he’s learned; where Tessa Blanchard can carry on the family legacy; where the Washington Bullets and their mates from AML Wrestling can shine on a grander stage; where Sonjay Dutt can develop talent in and outside of the ring; and where Nick Aldis can perhaps become the next Jeff Jarrett. On GFW’s watch, non-WWE pro wrestling organizations will no longer be of the “divided we fall” mindset, but united will they stand. GFW is an organization that embraces wrestling's past and seeks to prove that you can take what was old, make it new again, and improve upon it.

PJ Black (formerly Justin Gabriel) arrived in GFW the personification of the precariousness surrounding Global Force Wrestling. More a move than a wrestler in WWE, he hopes that he has found a platform to build the “PJ Black brand” beyond just the impressive 450 Splash. A generally calm and collected South African, Black emits a genuine air of uncertainty in his current position. Hoyt speaks like a man with inner peace who’s excited for a new challenge during the best run of his career. The Everett/Lee/Blanchard trio exhibit the exuberance of youth expected of three people in their early 20s with nothing but the promise of the future ahead. PJ, in contrast, is barely 2/3 of a year removed from his self-decided WWE departure in January. He seems more interested in finding who he is and what he wants out of life. For now, he's just happy to be done with WWE in a manner that you might expect from a guy who just left a high profile job where it was implied that you would work yourself into the ground and learn to like it. He left because he didn't like it and, though it made him nervous at first to leave, the realization that it was the best decision he could have made is becoming increasingly apparent.

Who is PJ Black? What is Global Force Wrestling? These are still open-ended questions. Like GFW, Black could find immense success once he finds the identity that he seeks and anyone who followed the journey will feel better for having played some small part in it. Or he, like GFW, could quietly fade into the background.

No matter what happens, I wish them the best. Their show was one of the most enjoyable nights of wrestling I have attended in 30 years of fandom. I suggest you keep your eye on GFW and attend one of their live events.

May The Force be with them.