World Wrestling All-Stars

Infobox Company
company_name =World Wrestling All-Stars
company_
company_type =N/A
foundation =2001
dissolved =2003
location =Brisbane, Australia
key_people =Andrew McManus, World Manager and Director
Jeremy Borash, Director of Talent
industry =Professional wrestling Sports entertainment
parent =International Touring Company
McGhee International
slogan =
homepage =The World Wrestling All-Stars (WWA) was a professional wrestling promotion founded by Australian concert promoter Andrew McManus in 2001. The promotion was operated by McManus' International Touring Company.cite web|url=http://www.ampresents.com/page/About-Us/609/|title=Andrew McManus Presents|publisher= AMPresents.com|accessdate=2007-08-11|year=2007] WWA was one of several promotions to come into existence shortly after the closings of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) and World Championship Wrestling (WCW).

History

WWA recruited current TNA ring announcer Jemery Borash for its shows. Borash was also involved in the creative side of the promotion. WWA focused on signing the wrestlers that did not get signed by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) after the WWF-WCW merger. They aimed to fill the gap left by the demise of WCW and ECW and provide an alternative to the WWE. Many popular former WWF and WCW wrestlers signed, including Jeff Jarrett, Road Dogg, Lenny Lane, Lodi, Psicosis, Juventud Guerrera, Scott Steiner, Stevie Ray and Disco Inferno. They also brought in relatively unknown wrestlers such as Shark Boy, Nathan Jones, and Trinity.cite book|last=Borash|first=Jeremy|authorlink=Jeremy Borash|title=WWA World Wrestling All-Stars Official Souvenir Programme|publisher=Quadracolor|year=2001|location=England] Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and Randy Savage were each scheduled to appear for WWA at some point, but none appeared. Bret Hart made an in-ring appearance shortly after his stroke.cite web|last= Eck|first=Kevin|title=Going global: the WWA is looking to find its niche by spanning the world, but will American audiences buy into the "Ice Capades" concept?|work=Wrestling Digest|publisher=FindArticles.com|month=June | year=2002|url= http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCO/is_1_4/ai_86127536 |accessdate=2007-10-05]

After a few shows in Australia, the company began airing occasional live pay-per-view events. Most of its shows were held in Australia, New Zealand and the UK. WWA's second PPV was its only event in North America. Although lacking the finanical resources of a long established company like the WWE or WCW, there production values did increase with time. Their first show, The Inception, was held in a full sized arena in Australia. The set up and production values for this show were of a good standard, particularly for a debut PPV show. The next show, the Revolution, took place in the Aladdin Casino in America. This was a smaller venue, which reflected upon the look and style of the show. However this can be considered as WWA's best event in terms of the matches and the longest at 2 hours 50 Minutes.

Although they drew strong crowds globally in areas which were starved for live pro wrestling, WWA shows were almost universally criticized. While it did attract some former big stars of the likes of WCW, ECW and WWE, the booking and writing was not of the highest standard. Their reliance on old WCW style and one night story lines and weird gimmicks made them look somewhat of a poor quality promotion in some peoples eyes. Particularly poor story lines include the Disco Inferno's freud with Australian kids TV stars, the Fruits in Suits and the introduction of hardcore midget wrestling. They were viewed in a somewhat light hearted way by some of its fans and bought the fun back to wrestling.

Despite this WWA's PPV's did feature a large number of popular stars and top competitors. Some of the matches included would not have looked out of place on a WWE or TNA card. However erratic writing and booking often meant that these matches were too short and did not live up to their potential. For example their second PPV, the Revolution, included a great 6 way crusierweight match, featuring AJ Styles, Christopher Daniels and Shark Boy. The card also included a 3 way dance for the crusierweight title, won by Eddie Gurrero and a hardcore match between Devon Storm and ECW legend Sabu. These matches were allowed the time to make them classic matches. However in following PPV's such matches were often too short and failed to reach their potential. The following 3 PPV's all came in at under 2 hours, not representing great value for money. However production values did increase steadily through these shows.

A particular example of this is the third PPV, the Revolution filmed in Glasgow in Scotland in December 2002. This included 9 matches and two title matches (WWA and TNA), however it only ran for 1 hour 45 minutes. This was in fact 15 minutes shorter than the house show in Newcastle the night before, which only included 6 matches and no title matches. This tour included a infamous dispute with a seemingly badly out of shape Lex Luger. He reportedly missed shows due to alleged illness and refused to wrestle more than 5 minute matches dispute being in the main events. This lead to a very poor 7 minute WWA Title match at the PPV, which largely involved Luger pacing around and avoiding wrestling. In true bizarre WWA tradition he won this match and became WWA Champion after trademark interference from Jeff Jarrett with his guitar. He lost this title to Sting the next night at a house show in Zurich, Switzerland.

Even after signing Sting, a few months went by with little success. Their shows were not well attended in the wrestling heartland of the UK,largely due to poor advertising and promotion. Eventually, Scott Steiner and Nathan Jones were signed by the WWE (although both would have short stints there). In 2003, WWA folded. Many of the other wrestlers, such as Jeff Jarrett, Sting, Shark Boy and Road Dogg are now employed by Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA).

Sting was the last WWA champion. He lost the title in a unification match with National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) World Champion Jeff Jarrett on May 25 2003 in Auckland, New Zealand.

The first two WWA PPV's, the Inception and Revolution, were released on DVD. The Eruption was also planned for release but never appeared. During its short history the WWA may not have achieved its goal of establishing itself as an alternative to the WWE, a mantle which TNA eventually took up. However it did provide the chance to see many former favourites from WCW/WWE/ECW again and provide a number of high quality matches and humouruss moments. Some would say that such a small promotion was doomed from the start against the might of the WWE.

Possible Reasons for Failure

Poor Creative and Booking Decisions

Although the WWA did have a number of quality wrestlers on their books through their various tours and PPV's, they often failed to use them to their full potential. Many of the matches were often too short and failed to reach their full potential, see secion below.

There were a number of somewhat questionable creative decisions taken by the WWA on their shows, these included : -

- The Fruits in Suits - During the Inception PPV, these Australian's kids TV performers appeared. These were effectively two men dressed in banana suits and night wear. The whole joke was meant to be that the Disco Inferno requested someone backstage to hire him some 'suits', meaning security personel, to protect him. Two 'fruits' were then hired by mistake as they could not understand his accent and thought that was what he had asked for. This kind of joke booking was to be a sign of things to come for the WWA. The Fruits came to the ring during the battle royal in the first round of the tournamant and caused the Disco Inferno's elimination. Later in the show Disco attacked them before the main event and threw one from the top of the steel cage.

- Tournament Semi-Final Booking - In the Semi-Final of the tournament at the Inception, the Road Dogg was due to face Gurrera. However they claimed that Gurrera was injured from the earlier ladder match and could not compete. Instead Bret Hart placed the Road Dogg in a three way match with former WCW homosexual gimmick joke tag team, Lenni and Loadi. This was a poor match involing Lenni and Loadi arguing over who would pin the Road Dogg and eventually ended with the Road Dogg pinning both of them. This was very poor for the a tournament semi-final and seriously damaged the credibility of the PPV. Even if Gurrera was actually injured, a better solution could have been found than this for the match.

- Revolution PPV Booking - The Second PPV, the Revolution, suffered from a number of changes in the days and weeks leading up to the event. Randy Savage was billed to appear at the event but this fell down and he did not appear, leaving some fans fealing cheated. The PPV did include some quality matches including the 6 man crusierweight match, the Hardcore match and the crusierweight title match.

However, some the booking was rather erratic and failed to utilise the talent on the card. Former WCW Tag Team champions Kronik were pitted against a completely unknown American Indian gimmick tag team. This was a poor match and somewhat underutilised Kronik.

The WWA title match saw Jeff Jarrett defend his title against Brian Christopher, who had only been a joke midcard player in the WWF. However for some reason the returning Scott Steiner, a multiple former WCW champion, was re-signed to simply put a beating on the Disco Inferno. Exactly why Borash put Christopher in the main event instead of having a quality main event with Jarrett v Steiner is unknown. Borash justifed this on air by saying that Christopher had earned the chance by defeated Jarrett in tag team matches on the WWA tours. He also said that Christopher had main evented places like London, England and Glasgow, Scotland on these tours. In fact none of this was true and Christopher had neither faced Jarret in tag team matches or main evented any of the events. In truth Christopher had wrestled the Disco Inferno in the lower mid card of all these shows.

- The Hardcore Midgets - The WWA introduced hardcore midget wrestling from the Revolution PPV onwards. They went on to appear in every tour and PPV. This involved two or three midgets competing in hardcore matches. These gimmick matches did not do much to improve the credibility of the company.

- The Lex Luger Saga - During the UK tour in 2002, including the Retribution PPV in Glasgow, Lex Luger and Sting were booked as the headliners. However a number of problems reportedly occurred with Luger on the tour. These reportedly centered on Luger's fitness and attitude. One report claimed that Lugar stated that he would only wrestle a 5 minute match, despite being in the main events. This led to a number of disappointly short main events on the tour, most of which were tag team matches to allow them to be longer. The Retribution PPV saw him face off against Sting for the vacant WWA title. Luger and Sting, along with Ric Flair, were the all-time legends of WCW. This meant that this match should have been one to remember. However the match was very disappointing and lasted only 7 minutes, most of which involved Luger pacing around and avoiding wrestling. In true WWA style Luger won the match and became champion after interference from Jarrett. Amusingly a two count occurred earlier in the match which someone mistook as the end of the match and Luger's music began, revealing the eventual outcome of the match. This was edited from the PPV broadcast.

- Short Matches and PPV Lengths - The WWA suffered from booking a number of the matches to run too short on a number of occasions. A lot of matches only ran around the 4/5 minute mark and were not allowed to develop to their full potential. The main events often only ran for around 10 minutes or less, when a PPV for an organisation like the WWE main events would be expected to run for at least 20 minutes. Most of the matches in the title tournament in the Inception PPV were too short. This was also true of crusierweight title tournament in the Evolution PPV, when the two semi final matches only ran for a total of 5 mins. The hardcore midget match that followed in fact ran for longer than these two matches combined. The shorter matches often meant that the contests did not run to their full potential and often had the feeling that the talent had been wasted by the WWA.

This contributed to the short running times of most of the PPV's. Most only ran for 2 hours or less, far too short for a PPV. Only the Revolution ran close to the standard 3 hour time expected of wrestling PPV. This did little to endear themselves to the people who bought them.

Championships

*WWA World Heavyweight Championship – last held by Jeff Jarrett; unified with Jarrett's NWA World Heavyweight Championship
*WWA International Cruiserweight Championship – last held by Chris Sabin; unified with Sabin's TNA X Division Championship
*WWA Hardcore Championship – Crowbar defeated Danny Dominion in a tables match to win the title on October 25 2001 in Wollongong, Australia. Title was then abandoned.

ee also

*List of WWA pay-per-view events

References

External links

* [http://www.ampresents.com/ AMPresents.com]
* [http://www.100megsfree4.com/wiawrestling/pages/old/wwasinfo.htm Wrestling Information Archive: World Wrestling All-Stars]