ErichBischoff.com
Eric’s Blog # 5: Make It or Break It (July 2010)
July 2, 2010 would be one of our poorer showings. Only 200 people showed up to our Asylum show of the week . The funny thing is that when we had only 200 people, we had the best night of wrestling that we have had. Lucky Cannon & Kurt Angle took on AJ Styles & the debuting Jack Swagger. Swagger was contracted for that night and the debute of Takeover, and then we’d see what happens.
IWF would also introduce something known as the Independence Day Bash, a huge event that would be hosted at the State Fair Grounds by the IWF. We would end up being joined by TWA and ROH for the night and had a great main event under the fireworks. Kurt Angle v. Bryan Danielson was an amazing match, and we created a partnership between ROH & IWF.
That weeks Monday Night Live would be an hour earlier, and would lead into our IWF Takeover event. The ticket prices went up just a bit for getting two shows in one at the Asylum. Some fans weren’t too happy, but we had to do something.
Takeover 1 became a huge success. Our mainevent was Jeff Hardy v. Kurt Angle, and the televised event drew a 1.2 rating, which was amazing. ROH began promoting our Wednesday Night TV Event and we began to see the numbers increase.
I began to push for Angle/Hardy at “The Grand Slam†PPV event for the title, and I got my wish. Everyweek, we would see a very hungry challenger in Jeff Hardy v. the very content champion in Kurt Angle. The fans got into this event.
Takeover 2 drew a 1.5 rating. Takerover 3, the one right before the PPV got a .98 rating. “The Grand Slam†has a 200,000 presale, and a total of 750,000 buy rate, which was a increase to the Asylum PPV event.
Tommy Dreamer ended up debuting at the PPV and interefered in the main event, setting up Angle/Dreamer at SummerFest. At “The Grand Slam†it was announced that SummerFest would be a 4 Hour Televised Event on ABC, and a 3 hour PPV Event. The ABC Special would be a mixture of some ROH wrestling and major bands like Daughtry, Alter Bridge, Jonas Brother, Miley Cyrus and the big one: Eminiem.
July would be a great money making month.
Until Next Time
“Big E†Eric Bischoff