Wrestling Promoters: Be Accountable to Your Talent

This article reflects the thoughts and words of Liz Savage, not www.betwrestling.com if you have issue with its content, she says you can GFY.

So the other day I saw yet another post about an independent wrestler being stiffed by a promoter. This time after flying across country for a show! Fed up with excuses and bullshit, he took to social media to warn other workers about this con artist, and posted what I thought was a pretty well thought out statement about why screwing over talent was wrong, that this affects not only his personal income, but his family as well. (Yes, some folks can make a living off independent wrestling if done properly, and work is put in)

 

The next day his Facebook and Instagram posts were taken down, they were reported, because he tagged the promoter, Jose G. Alaniz in the post. This man runs a company out of San Diego called “Oddity Wrestling Alliance” which from looking at their Facebook page, seems he also books himself as the “owner” and has a starring role in the company.

Here is the poster from the event my comrade was booked to perform on:


On April 28th they had put up this post on their Facebook page: (Note, you can BACKDATE Facebook posts to pages, and this is the only mention, all other materials and events had been deleted at the time of this posting)

It is interesting to see this on their page, with no details as to when the show was originally planned to happen. It seems he knew the show was not going to happen, as the venue he planned on running in could no longer accommodate them. Why if he knew this, did he buy this worker a one way plane ticket cross country on May 3rd, if he knew there would be no show? What kind of fuckery is this? What could this “promoter” be hoping to accomplish? And why did he vanish, and stop replying to messages and phone calls from workers booked on the show, who flew across the US to be there?

At the very least if you are cancelling a show you should be doing it with enough time that no one has already flown in, and if you are cancelling that late in the game you owe it to your workers to make good on their pay. Time is money, and they put their time aside for you, and dismissed other potential workers to be on YOUR SHOW. You owe it to them to cover their pay, even if you cancel. Its the right thing to do. Running and hiding with your tail between your legs will get you publicly shamed, and hopefully will spread the message to both wrestlers, venue’s, and fans, that you are unreliable and cannot be trusted. Sadly this happens far too frequently. If you have a bad promoter story you would like to share, feel free to contact me: LizSavage@betwrestling.com

Watch out for not only yourselves, but each other as well!

About Liz Savage

Liz Savage is a wrestling booker, former Independent wrestling manager, and occasional wrestler from NY, currently residing in Parts Unknown. Liz is the Digital Content Manager and staff writer for BetWrestling.

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