A detailed account from Prinze Jr.
Actor, executive producer and former WWE writer Freddie Prinze Jr. has spoken on numerous occasions about his intentions to launch his own wrestling promotion. Earlier this year, he revealed that Warner Bros. Discovery turned down his business proposal.
On a new episode of his Wrestling with Freddie podcast, he expanded on that. Prinze Jr. said it was the worst of the meetings he’s had about the promotion idea. He stated that the representatives at W.B.D. seemed to not care or know anything about wrestling and more so wanted his project to be a reality TV show.
As promised, I will give an update on the Frederation. So, bad news and good news, right? As doors close, others open and I’ve talked about this before. So I went out to — was it four or five places? I can even tell you some of the places now. We went to Warner Discovery, which was like the worst meeting that I had out of all of them. They basically just wanted me to do a reality show by the end of the pitch and knew nothing about wrestling and didn’t seem to care for wrestling at all. I told you I’d be more descriptive. So it was not a good meeting. I must’ve failed at some point in the pitch because they were not interested in what I was saying. I gave the same pitch to everyone else. It was the only place that didn’t work.
He gave a breakdown of the original pitch he gave in the meetings. Prinze Jr. wanted the first six episodes to be about the process of getting the promotion off the ground and then it would transition to the actual wrestling show. He added that Warner Bros. Discovery were solely focused on the documentary portion no matter how many times he tried to redirect the conversation.
The original pitch to help get this show made — I can share this now — was a documentary about trying to pull this off, for the first six episodes and then episode seven and eight would be a two-hour special on what we actually accomplished, the actual promotion so see, I’m giving you guys more information than I’ve ever given anybody. So it was six episodes of the process of me trying to recruit wrestlers, finding the space, trying to sell out the theater or the arena. Whatever it was we were gonna do. I knew we wouldn’t be able to do, you know, 10,000 or anything like that. So I was gonna do something around like 2,500 in a theater. Because I think it’s art, I think wrestling is art and could be presented in a theater. I wouldn’t be the first guy to have done this. So it was gonna be that whole process and that’s why I was saying that Warner Discovery was more interested in that than doing anything else and they only focused on that, and I kept trying to redirect the conversation and they just weren’t having it. All the other places were down and open to everything.
Another meeting he had was with VICE and it went well. There were other meetings that he had the same feeling coming out of it, but feels he was not pitching to those high enough on the totem pole which would lead to getting the ball rolling.
He mentioned that his wife, Sara Michelle Gellar, met with a streaming service and during their chat, they inquired about Prinze Jr.’s interest in wrestling. They wanted to meet with him. When the meeting took place, they were not interested in a documentary as they wanted an actual promotion. Prinze Jr. had the realization that he cannot start his promotion from scratch.
The company presented the idea of Prinze Jr. collaborating with an independent promotion that is looking for a TV deal. They showed him a list of promotions that are looking. Prinze Jr. met with the owners of a promotion and they talked about Prinze Jr.’s project being a brand that exists within their brand. After all parties conversed, a rep from the streaming service told Freddie that it looks like things could be moving forward. Although signs are good, Prinze Jr. is not getting ahead of himself.
Also pitched to — what was it? VICE!? Yeah, VICE TV and they wanted the show bad. But they were going under some business restructuring, trying to basically stay on the air and they couldn’t afford the show at the end of the day. That was a place I really wanted to go because they have Dark Side of the Ring and I thought we could be a cool pairing with them. So I was disappointed there. There were a couple other places. I’m trying to remember the names — where the meetings went well but I feel like, I wasn’t pitching the people high enough up on the totem pole to get the idea heard by the top dogs, and that was the wall I felt I was running into on the majority of the pitches, and then, there’s a weird meeting at this streaming place and I won’t same the name of it, yet. But I’ll tell you guys as soon as I can, and they asked my wife in a meeting, ‘Hey, is your husband still interested in wrestling? Because we wanna be in the wrestling business,’ and my wife said, ‘Yeah. He’s out with a show right now,’ and they said, ‘Well we wanna sit and meet with him.’
So I sit and I talk to this new company that wants to talk to me about wrestling and they’re not interested in the documentary at all. They want a professional wrestling promotion. This was like an hour and a half meeting, and they’re asking me all kinds of questions. ‘How would you compete? How would you do this? Do you wanna compete? Do you just wanna exist? Do you wanna be the highest-rated show? Do you wanna be the second highest?’ And they were like, ‘Please, be honest. We want you to be real with us’ so I’m answering all their questions and they’re real upfront on their finances, where they’re at, what they can afford, what they can pull off and how they can pull it off, and it was unorthodox to me, but not to them. Because it was the first time I had ever heard of financing shows this way and doing things the way they were wanting to do it. But I try to stay open-minded, right? I wanna have a promotion, so I’m listening, I’m listening. Then I start asking them questions for about 30 minutes, and they start explaining their philosophies, their business philosophies more and more clearly and we continue to talk and have conversations and eventually, I come to the realization that to start something new — in the sort of corporate-owned Hollywood, right? There’s only one independent studio really in Hollywood and that’s A24… Existing in that world, I come to the cold realization that I can’t start it from scratch, and it’s a humbling moment and it’s a sad moment, and then the dude that I’m talking to calls me up and he says, ‘Hey, what if we grab someone else and brought them in as a partner?’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He says, ‘What if you work within an existing brand?’ And he says, ‘Here’s some independent promotions that are looking for TV deals.’ They wanna offer me the opportunity to tell my story and to present my promotion within the existence of another one. Sort of like how Ring of Honor exists in AEW. So I start sitting down and thinking about that and I start looking at the rosters of the places that they brought me and the infrastructure that each one already has or does not have, and I start weighing the pros and cons. I talk to my guys that are a part of my team and say, ‘Hey, these are the ones that I’m interested in but what do you think?’ My main guy, my right-hand liked the exact same one that I liked for the exact same reasons that I liked it. I called back. I said, ‘Hey man, we like one of ‘em. Do you think they would meet with us?’ He was like, ‘Trust me, they’re gonna meet. Let me set it up. They don’t know that it’s you. I’m gonna introduce you in the call and you’re gonna make your pitch to them and if they say yes, we’ll let the lawyers get into it.’ So I sit down with these two gentlemen on a Zoom call with my guys and them and I make my pitch and I’ll be real with you guys, I’m just grateful for the opportunity to earn their respect. You can’t earn respect the first time you meet somebody. But you can get the opportunity to. You can earn that. I respect what these men have accomplished and what they’ve done with their brand and now I’m coming in, not to change it. I don’t wanna change it. Because what they established, I happen to love. So I start changing my idea and my pitch and start thinking of the best way to help get their talent over. I can’t say too much without giving it away so forgive me for the pauses… So I make my pitch and we discuss it in a sort of Ring of Honor sort of way where it’s a brand within the brand, and help finding talent that either need a fresh coat of paint, need a fresh start, are young and need work, veterans that may not have a story, that I can provide a story for and all around the board. We discuss all of it, and I’m super nervous during it. These guys are probably gonna hear this podcast and realize how nervous I was and be like, aw, he’s so sweet. So anyway, I finish my pitch and the first thing the dude says is, ‘Man, I can really feel your passion,’ which is good and bad. That could go either way. It’s yeah, I’m feeling you or that’s the only nice thing I could think of to say, because I hate all your ideas. So, when he says that, I’m like, whew. I wonder which one that is. I hope it’s the good one. We say our goodbyes. I call my wife, I say, ‘Okay, I had the meeting…’ And then this pro wrestler that I know texts me and he goes, ‘Yo man, so and so just texted me to check you out.’ I was like, ‘Oh my God. I hope he said nice things.’ He’s like, ‘Don’t worry man. I got your back. You’re a good guy. I told him you were one of the good dudes.’ Then my guy from the streaming company called me and he said, ‘Hey man, we had a really good meeting and I think things are gonna move forward.’ So, these are baby steps in the process still. ‘I think things are gonna move forward’ is obviously a good thing. It’s better than I don’t think things are gonna move forward. That’s the opposite of good. That’s really bad. But that doesn’t mean it’s a done deal. Lawyers are gonna get involved, people still have certain things to think about. People are gonna wanna protect their brand as much as possible. They’ll find that I’m very agreeable with that… But yeah, it’s still a long road and I have a lot to do and there’s a lot of work that I don’t even get to be involved in which drives me crazy because it’s like lawyers and negotiating and stuff like that. I am doing my damndest to make this work. I am doing my damndest to make my dreams come true. I have not accepted a closed door as much as they hurt. I keep finding other ones, or they find me, one way or the other. But you have to be ready when opportunity comes… Keep your fingers crossed. I love sharing this stuff with you guys. I share as much as I can without — I don’t wanna say so much that I screw deals up or that I make promises I can’t keep. Sh*t like that. I wanna be completely honest and as open as I can. I just can’t say everything, but when the deal’s done or when the deal dies and say I have to go, oh, okay, I’ll try again next year. Then I can break down everything for y’all.
As more information about Prinze Jr. expanding his reach into the pro wrestling space becomes available, we’ll update you here on POST Wrestling.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Wrestling with Freddie with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
