Indy Dream Matches

[Slingshot Suplex 0]

OK I'm not a huge,widescope indy follower. I followed the Detroit indys when I was there and I follow GCW and IWA-MS (mostly because of the ex-GCW representation there) and ROH and the some west Tennessee stuff on a lesser scale.

 

I was having this conversation with someone who's been in the biz and the topic of Hero vs Dragon on the 21st came up. I made a comment that so many of the indys seem more match based rather than storyline based that everybody now just seems to be trying to outdo each other for indy dream matches. It seems like many of the same bigger name indy guys in 2004 work all the major promotions and to a guy like me, you might as well stick them all in a blender and mix em. I know ROH used to have the #1 contender's trophy ( I don't know if they still do) and seem to have placed more of an emphasis on angles in 2003 and 04. IWA-MS seems like they've pretty much ditched angles for 2004. It just seems like 2004 has been the year of "Ok we've got this dream match this month...let's see what the other guys do and how can we top it?"

 

This isn't even a complaint. We've gotten some great matches out of it. Merely an observation and I figured I'd throw it out here.

[Guest OSIcon]

Seems to be the ROH-influence.

 

In 2002 and even into 2003 to an extent, the major appeal of ROH was that they brought in the top indy wrestlers from all around the country and paired them up in big time matches. They were the first "Super Indy" of the the post WCW/ECW indy wrestling boom. They ushered in the idea that you don't need to have local wrestlers around every show building up angles in order to succeed. Instead, tape sales could make up for what you might lose in ticket sales by promoting dream matches instead of promoting local, angle driven matches that'll bring 500+ local fans (by local, I mean within an hour radius or so). Dream matches that hardcore fans would be willing to buy became more important in many circumstances to building up a match between two local wrestlers. that would do a big gate with local fans of the promotion (similar to how ECWA operates outside of the Super 8 or any other "smaller" indy).

 

IWA-MS, CZW, PWG, MLW, and others all adopted that philosophy to some extent (some more than others) and brought in wrestlers from all over for bigtime matches. Ironically, ROH has become A LOT more angle based and now thier top matches are overall much more angle driven then they are "dream match" driven (and sometimes both). ROH's biggest matches are more likely to be matches that have been built to rather than just "dream matches" now. Meanwhile, a promotion like IWA-MS has become *less* "local talent and angle-based" while bringing in top wrestlers for big matches instead. That's not to say they don't have angles because they do, but there definitely has been that shift.

 

If anything, it is more of a revival of the indies than anything. In the late 90's, you were usually better off using local talent rather then flying someone in (unles they were a former WCW or WWF wrestler) because you would save money and usually get just as good (or bad) of a match. With more people watching tapes of indy wrestling now, you need to have the top tier guys on your show if you want to get the most out of tape sales.