Sean Oliver has experience dealing with carnies in this business.
Throughout the entire history of the pro wrestling business, there has always been a bad apple or two grouped in with the rest of the performers and/or promoters that want to give the fans a good time. Even though that the business is in a better place today then it ever has been, there are still a few carnies out there who try to ruin the fun for the rest of us.
Despite mainly on the podcast side of the business, Sean Oliver has had plenty of experiences with these types of people before. In a new interview with Fightful, Oliver singled out a few key people that he's had booking issues with in the past.
"The famous story is Konnan. We sent him the deposit and two times he didn’t come. He’s concocted some excuse that it was a health issue. But it wasn’t. He just didn’t come. He didn’t pick up the phone for us or the convention promoters or anybody. It’s pointless to give him airtime for that. But the reason I was most disappointed was, it was gonna be a great Guest Booker. He was going to talk about booking lucha. So it would have been such a great addition to that set. It was only $500 to us, but it was a whole show which would have been historically
valuable to fans. So, you fuck us, that’s one thing. You fuck your fans, that’s something altogether different."
Oliver continued on and named some other individuals that have no-showed his podcasts before.
"So there was that. A wrestler might have shown up in no condition to perform. We said, ‘Buff, you look real tired tonight. So, let’s do this another time.’ Then he didn’t. Which is unfortunate because that would have been a good show also. Let’s see—Sid didn’t get on a plane once. I didn’t even tell the crew to show up when I booked [Sid] two months before. I let them think they had the weekend off because I knew he wasn’t coming. But there was no money transacted there. Very rarely did we send advances because of this kind of shit. So as a wise promoter, you get paid when you show up. There were a couple people who, sizable names, needed money up front. I knew that sending a certified check to Dixie Carter wouldn’t have been a problem."
Elsewhere in the interview, Oliver discussed Carter's famous YouShoot interview in length. To learn more, click here.
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