In
professional wrestling,
the
independent circuit or
indy
circuit refers to the many independent
promotions which are much
smaller than major televised promotions, particularly the current
World Wrestling
Entertainment (WWE) and
Total Nonstop Action
Wrestling (TNA) promotions and
World Championship Wrestling
(WCW) of the past. It is called the
independent circuit
because most of the wrestlers who perform in it are
independent contractors. Specific
promotions on the independent circuit are referred to as
indy promotions or
indies. A
wrestler is said to be
in the indies or
working the indies if he or she is wrestling in
one of the independent promotions, or
working the indy
circuit if he or she is performing in different
independent promotions.
Overview
Although the following paragraphs describe the system used in
North America, the basic concepts can be applied to independent
promotions elsewhere.
Independent promotions are usually local in focus and, lacking
national
TV contracts, are dependent on
revenue from
house show attendance. Due
to their lower budgets, most independent promotions offer low
salaries (it is not unusual for a wrestler to be paid only $5 to
$20 per match. Most cannot afford to regularly rent large venues,
and would not be able to attract a large enough crowd to fill such
a venue, so they have to make use of any open space (such as
fields, ballrooms, or gymnasiums) to put on their performances.
Some independent promotions are attached to
professional wrestling
school, serving as a venue for students to gain experience in
front of an audience.
As independent matches are usually not televised, indy wrestlers
who have not already gained recognition in other promotions tend to
remain in obscurity. However, scouts from major promotions attend
indy shows, and an indy wrestler who makes a good impression may be
offered a developmental or even a professional contract. The advent
of the
internet has allowed independent
wrestlers and promotions to reach a wider audience, and it is
possible for wrestlers regularly working the indy circuit to gain
some small measure of fame among wrestling fans online.
Additionally, some of the more successful indies have video
distribution deals, giving them an additional source of income and
allowing them to reach a larger audience outside of their local
areas.
A few independent promotions have become major forces in the
wrestling business. TNA (originally labelled
NWA:TNA, but
has since—like many other major promotions over the years—distanced
itself from the
National
Wrestling Alliance) eventually grew beyond independent status
with the help of a national TV deal, a video game deal with
Midway Games, and DVD distribution.
Some of the more well-known indy promotions today in the United
States include
Jersey All Pro
Wrestling,
CHIKARA,
Combat Zone Wrestling,
Heartland Wrestling
Association,
Maryland
Championship Wrestling ,
Memphis
Wrestling,
New York
Wrestling Connection,
Pier 6 Wrestling,
Chaotic Wrestling,
Next Era Wrestling,
East Coast Wrestling Alliance,
Ohio Valley Wrestling,
Pro Wrestling Guerrilla,
Ring of Honor and its sister
promotions
Full Impact Pro and
SHIMMER Women Athletes.
Although most promotions try and adhere to a high standard of
wrestling integrity, independent promotions are also the most
likely places to find matches involving
hardcore wrestling, also referred to
sometimes as "garbage wrestling". Since the indy wrestlers are not
on TV, there are usually no restrictions on what they can say and
do during matches. Infamous hardcore wrestling companies include
CZW and
IWA Mid-South. Independent
circuits are distinct from
backyard
wrestling, which is performed strictly on an amateur and
unprofessional basis; backyard leagues are of a notably lower
quality than professional leagues featuring trained performers.
However, some particularly skilled backyard wrestlers do eventually
advance to the independent circuit and will wrestle in both
backyard and independent pro leagues.
Differences between the old territories and today's independent
scene
Territories held shows in a certain town each week while also going
to a different town night after night with several towns covering a
certain region. Most of today's indie promoters struggle to hold a
show on a monthly basis in a single town. Promoters in those days
could fill big arenas up into the thousands, while indie promoters
struggle to draw a few hundred people at a high school gym or local
fairground. Wrestlers in the territories could afford to make a
good living in the wrestling business for years at a time (despite
still needing a day job for insurance and retirement benefits)
while current day indie wrestlers struggle to pay their bills, much
less risk living out of their car. Territories also had weekly
television shows on local stations in each town while most indies
cannot afford such exposure.
Many of today's wrestlers learn their trade in a wrestling school,
but scrape by learning their craft on occasional indie bookings
with no consistency in developing their skills the way many
wrestlers during the era of the territories had been able to do.
Many wrestlers would learn the basics by setting up the ring or
having a job at the arena setting up chairs and selling
merchandise, refereeing matches, or some other way of being trained
and entering the business. They would then wrestle night after
night in a different town wrestling in front of the same crowd each
week when they returned, and then go to other territories to learn
something new from experience. Many young wrestlers in this era do
not have this kind of tough education in the business or that
luxury of learning their craft from experience.
There is some debate over whether or not
Ring of Honor should even be called an indie
promotion, since it is not restricted to holding one monthly show
in a local town. Some believe it to be a modern day regional
territory, considering they have several shows a month across The
Northeast and The Midwest. There are those who even dare to call it
a national promotion on a niche level due to their presence on DVD,
in merchandising, The Internet, and exchanges with talent from
Great Britain and Japan. They also have a development league in
Florida called
Full Impact Pro. The
promotion has also experienced limited coverage on television such
as
The Fight Network in Canada,
the now defunct
TWC Fight! in the United
Kingdom, and Samurai TV in Japan along limited pay per views every
two months in addition to an upcoming TV deal with
HDNet Fights in the United States.
In addition to this, there is some criticism over WWE's
developmental system for grooming young talent. Within this system,
there has never been more than one development territory for a long
period of time, and each development league to pass through and
groom WWE talent has been a local indie which promotes one show a
week instead of promoting shows across several towns in a region
night after night.
The main exception to this is former WWE
development league Ohio Valley
Wrestling, which promotes three shows a week, albeit in one
town Louisville,
Kentucky
. Many have also criticized a large number of
the wrestling talent themselves for lack of experience and not
being seasoned enough in the ring, much less learning their craft
properly.
Independent promotions in other countries
In
Mexico
and Japan
, which have
recognized major circuits, the concept of independent circuits also
exists. The reliance on major promotions to acquire talent
from them, however, varies widely from each other and from the
North American system.
Mexico
Lucha libre has many more independent
wrestlers in proportion than the rest of North America, because of
the weight classes prevalent in the Mexican league system as well
as its emphasis on multiple person tag matches; just about anyone
with ability can emerge from an independent promotion into either
Asistencia
Asesoría y Administración or
Consejo Mundial de Lucha
Libre and be a champion there. Independent Mexican wrestlers
may use a lot of gimmicks, including some that may be based on
copyrighted characters from American television shows, such as
Thundercats and
X-Men. (These gimmicks are often changed if the
wrestler playing them makes it into AAA or CMLL; the most prominent
example of non-compliance with this method is midget wrestler
Chucky from AAA, whose gimmick is based on the
Child's Play movie.)
Japan
Until 1984, no independent
puroresu
promotion per se existed in Japan; potential talent went directly
into the training dojos of either
New Japan Pro Wrestling or
All Japan Pro Wrestling. (
International Pro Wrestling also
was a third-party promotion until 1981.) The advent of the
Japanese UWF offered
a long-sought third alternative. From 1986 to 1988 the Japanese
system went back to the two-promotion system, but then the UWF was
reformed and another promotion
Pioneer
Senshi, was started. Because of Japanese societal
mores which implied that a wrestler was a lifelong
employee of a company and thus identified with it wherever he went,
neither AJPW nor NJPW made an effort to acquire wrestlers trained
in other promotions; wrestlers from the major promotions who left,
such as
Genichiro Tenryu,
Gran Hamada,
Yoshiaki Fujiwara,
Akira Maeda,
Yoshiaki
Yatsu,
Atsushi Onita, and
Nobuhiko Takada had to start their own
independent promotions in order to keep themselves in the
limelight.
As the 1990s ended, though, things began to change. Independent
promotions began gaining more prominence as they were featured in
major specialized media such as
Shukan Puroresu and
Shukan Gong magazines. With the death of
Giant Baba and retirement of
Antonio Inoki, which effectively broke their
control over the promotions they founded, the major promotions
began looking to the smaller promotions for talent. In 2000, the
first major signing from an independent,
Minoru Tanaka by NJPW from
BattlARTS, took place; soon after NJPW stocked the
junior
heavyweight division with independent talent such as
Masayuki Naruse,
Tiger Mask IV,
Gedo, and
Jado.
On the same year, following the
Pro
Wrestling Noah split, AJPW was forced to fill its ranks with
independent talent;
Nobutaka Araya,
Shigeo Okumura and
Mitsuya Nagai signed up (Araya is the only one
who remains, but other signings since then have been
Kaz Hayashi,
Tomoaki
Honma,
Hideki Hosaka, and
Ryuji Hijikata.) Noah admitted one wrestler
from the independents,
Daisuke Ikeda,
to its ranks as well (Ikeda has since left, but other wrestlers
from the independents that were signed included
Akitoshi Saito,
Takahiro Suwa, and
Taiji Ishimori). Although AJPW, NJPW, and
Noah remain committed to their dojos, the reliance on independents
is growing as obscure talent is recognized for its ability.
See also
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