Al Snow Says He's Doing Something In OVW People Say Can't Be Done Anymore
Former WWE star and current OVW co-owner Al Snow believes that what professional wrestling is actually selling hasn't changed in more than 100 years, and what he's currently teaching isn't being taught elsewhere anymore.
Appearing on "Developmentally Speaking," Snow was asked about the struggles to run OVW since buying the promotion in 2018 and his answer went well beyond the simple day-to-day operations of running a wrestling company.
"On every level it's a struggle," Snow said. "I'm doing something here that one, everyone says can't be done anymore," alluding to running an independent developmental promotion. "Just ask any 'expert' and they'll tell you it can't be done. I'm also doing something here that no one's teaching anymore. I'm teaching the art of how to work a professional wrestling match — not wrestle a professional wrestling match — and those two things are dramatically different."
That difference, Snow says, lies in character work, which is what people have been buying tickets to see since the carnival days of wrestling. That would mean less in the way of orchestrated, high-flying acts and more in the way of characters deeply rooted in reality, making them believable for an audience and therefore easy to buy into.
"There is only one singular thing that is fake about professional wrestling and that's just the outcome, that's it," Snow explained. "Everything physically in that ring is real. The characters that you see, if they really are truly a character that is a star, the reason they're a star is because it's who that person really is, just with the volume turned way up. That's why it works because you can believe in who they are."
The more things change ...
What Al Snow is putting out as a product in OVW, he says, is the same thing that promoters in the early 1900s were doing. While he admits the business has evolved, developed, and grown in many ways, the essence of what they're selling and what they're producing has always remained the same.
"In 1905, promoters were selling who the wrestlers were and why they were in the ring," he offered. "And in 2024, I'm only selling who these wrestlers are and why they're in the ring."
While he says he's being told by others that wrestling these days is all about the "what," Snow maintains it's still, simply, the "who" and the "why," and that it's the very same even for mainstream sports as well.
"Athleticism alone, doesn't sell tickets in boxing. It doesn't sell tickets in MMA. It doesn't sell tickets in football, baseball, basketball, [or] hockey," he reasoned. "Either it's team vs. team or it's player vs. player and it's all about that person and why — what's at stake."
The day-to-day struggles are still there, of course, but Snow takes that as the cost of doing business. The focus remains on building stars, which is what he continues to try to do, no matter the obstacles in his way.
"As far as the struggle is concerned, everything here has been held together with bailing wire and duct tape," he detailed. "Keeping overhead low [but] still acquiring talent that look the part, that have the basics to be able to build them into a star, teaching [them] that it's not about what they learned on the independent scene [but to utilize this] platform and make themselves a star when they walk through the curtain."