KM Shares His Thoughts On Orange Cassidy, Hurdles With Running WrestlePro Shows In Alaska
Veteran wrestler KM has been doing more promoting as of late and is helping run the WrestlePro promotion founded by his buddy Pat Buck. Headquarterd in the Northeast, WrestlePro made the bold move to run a show in Alaska and KM discussed that when he spoke to Wrestling Inc. on our WINCLY podcast.
"I visited Alaska in April 2018 and did an impromptu trip there?I knew there was very limited wrestling there and almost no wrestlers there. My buddy runs smaller boxing/MMA/wrestling shows all in the same ring on the same day run after the other?," said KM.
"After I visited there, I said I have a bucket list idea: I'm gonna run a wrestling event in Alaska. Then everyone was like, 'If you do that, I'll come!'"
After some digging into the possibility, KM was led to the guy who owns the only wrestling ring in Alaska. The guy was initially skeptical to rent to him because so many reach out to him and never follow through.
"You start thinking of numbers and how you're gonna pull this off because you literally have to fly in all of the talent," said KM. "There's no way around it. The only way to pull it off is to go big?I think it was when I hit the guy back and said we confirmed Mick Foley [that he knew it was serious].
"I did my research and WWE, every 3-5 years, they draw 4500-5500 people. There's 300,000 people that live in Anchorage and 700,000 that live in Alaska. They get no wrestling virtually otherwise and I'm like, 'I'm gonna take over Alaska.'"
KM then talked about how they lined up a few sponsors including the Army and started to book the show. He had to go a little out of pocket but he made it work.
"I didn't get rich out of it, but it turned a decent profit," revealed KM. "We only had 1,300 people there and the building held 8,000?It was a huge risk on Pat and my end. Pat trusted me but I could sense in his voice [he was skeptical]. But he believed in me."
KM added that it took them a month to sell 100 tickets, but for an upcoming show they sold over 100 in the first day. Having WWE Hall of Famer Bret Hart on board for the next show certainly helps and KM talked about Hart's last appearance in the state.
"On Dec. 7, we're bringing Bret Hart for the first time in Alaska since Aug. 12, 1989 against Curt Hennig," said KM. "It is a match, to this day, he says was one of his best ever?I wanted to make a video highlight of it and even reached out to Mark Kate who had the legendary Tom McGee match and had all of Bret's matches?but she didn't have it."
KM joked about trying to find a fan cam version of that Hart-Hennig match and if there was a video of it, it would have leaked by now.
"I'm sure [Hart's] speech to the live crowd is gonna be a tear jerker, talking about Mr. Perfect in being in this building. I'm gonna cry myself, being that its Bret Hart and he's the one that got me into wrestling," revealed KM.
While KM was successful in landing Hart for their upcoming Alaska show, he was unsuccessful in an attempt for another wrestler.
"I wanted Orange Cassidy for the [Alaska show] but he signed with AEW. I didn't even care if the fans knew who he was or liked him because I find him to be the funniest," said KM. "I can't stop watching him."
KM currently helps to run WrestlePro. For more information on WrestlePro, their upcoming shows and how to buy tickets please visit Wrestleproonline.com/.
KM's full interview with Wrestling Inc aired as part of a recent episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard via the embedded audio player at the bottom of this post. In it KM discusses WWE hiring WrestlePro's Pat Buck as a producer, WWE building out their NXT backstage team, running WrestlePro shows in Alaska, his Impact departure, friendship with Scott D'Amore, how he's doing physically and more.
You can check out past episodes of the WINCLY here. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc. Audio on iTunes or Google Play. Listen to the show via Spotify here or through TuneIn here.