Localized House Show Promos, Bring Them Back?

[Brutus Branyan]

Hey All,

Remember back in the day when they used to do localized house show promos in order to promote an upcoming card that was coming to your area. You would have the announcer run down the matches, and various wrestlers would come in and talk about their match, mention the city and arena that the show was taking place in. It gave everything a more special feel, and it made the show you were going to see more important. Personally, I think that is what is missing in today's wrestling for the live event experience.

How hard would it be for CM Punk to talk to Scott Stamford and say, "Chris Jericho, when I get up to Toronto on May 2nd, I am going to kick your ass all over the Air Canada Centre in front of your home county's fans....."

I miss watching back in the day Billy Red Lyons (he talked about all the upcoming shows coming to Maple Leaf Gardens, and I presume all over Canada aswell), and would interview everyone from Hulk Hogan to the Hart Foundation to Jimmy Hart to Jim Duggan to Don Muraco, etc.

Do you all think this would help increase house show business now a days? And what are some of your favorite memories from back in the day where this was a common thing to do when promoting an upcoming show? And who was the announcer that would run down the card coming to your area?

Looking forward to your responses,

Brutus Branyan

[Brutus Branyan]

EXAMPLES:

[Gir Veer Mann]

Wait, don't they still do those kind of promos? I know on the Score in Canada during the commercial breaks Scott Stanford comes on to describe the main events of those house shows.

Plus the venue website usually shows the full scheduled card as well, like here:
www.ricohcoliseum.com/events/event.asp?event_id=437

And I can't find find the video right now but I remember when they were advertising the Toronto house show this March I remember seeing localized promos from John Cena, Dolph Ziggler, Chris Jericho and Kane advertising those same shows.

So pretty much what I'm saying is that sure the format may have been tweaked but these kinds of promos for house shows still exist.

[Irwin R Schyster]

I still hear them on radio promos, or when a wrestler comes on a local station to promote the local show.

[Gee Hall]

I caught a lot of them on the Score recently as garymann pointed out, and on the radio as Irwin R Schyster notes. They are certainly not as in depth as the old school promos, and agree that they'd be a welcome addition to programming as a return. Especially in Canada since they have 15 minutes to kill on RAW because of the censor delay. I'd rather watch them than recaps!

[The Pod-Father!]

Bully Ray was doing those kind of promos during the BFG Series last year. And the WWE will do them every once & awhile. But for the most part, that kind of promotional tactic died with the territories.

[danielwilson]

Any opportunity for new talent to get some onscreen promo experience I think is a welcome one even its just a 15 second spot for a house show.

[Greg U]

This was a hold over from the territory days. Maple Leaf Wrestling was a territory (with a TV show of the same name) owned by the Tunneys that sold to McMahon in the mid-80s. At this time, some of the former territories still promoted their own shows under the WWF name with WWF talent. For instance, when Billy Red Lyons would talk about the Maple Leaf Gardens shows he'd mention that they were presented by "Promoter Jack Tunney."

[Brian Camacho]

Hose shows isn't their main sourse of revenue these days. This is the reason why the emphasis isn't on doing that many localized adverts today. The last time I can recall them doing so in the New York City-market was in the late-90's. I do remember the WWF using WWF New York (a re-branded version of Shotgun Saturday Night) to avertise Garden and Nassau shows.