Al Snow Discusses His Purchase Of OVW And Plans For The Promotion, Gives Crazy OVW Stats
Ohio Valley Wrestling has served as the developmental promotion for NWA, WWE and Impact Wrestling at various points in its history. In 2018 Al Snow purchased the promotion and is transforming it into more than just a feeder program.
Snow talked about buying up OVW and his plans for the promotion when he spoke to Wrestling Inc. on our WINCLY podcast.
"Last year I bought Ohio Valley Wrestling and I believe today we are getting our accreditation for trade school. We have a two-year curriculum for the trade school so athletes can come to not only learn the skills and psychology of the in-ring performance, but all aspects of sports entertainment and broadcasting," Snow said before listing many of the things which OVW will teach.
"Camera work, lighting, sounds, how to direct, how to produce, live event production and management, writing, formatting TV shows, broadcasting, hosting – they get every possible aspect.
"Pro wrestling is great in that it teaches you a lot of skills to get you in, but it doesn't give these young men and women skills to have another career beyond the ring. That's a big problem with athletes. Even the NFL has taken note and addressed it by starting a program that teaches their players basically how to have a life and not be an NFL player.
Former NFL player and now MMA fighter and sports radio host Austen Lane also recently brought up the NFL program that helps players transition after their playing careers are over.
"Terry Taylor, a former pro wrestler, said it best, 'The biggest struggle for athletes is not your mortality or the death of your existence, it's the death of your career.' You then have to keep on living and find something else you are just as passionate about," said Snow.
"That's very difficult so I'm hoping this will give them the skills and mindset to be able to go outside the ring and still have a very productive life."
Similarly to how NXT is both a brand and a TV program, Snow foresees OVW as both a promotion and a school.
"I foresee OVW becoming a standalone promotion alongside having the school itself," stated Snow. "It works synergistically because by developing and creating these athletes, we're creating our own product which now allows us to grow as a promotion and TV product.
"A lot of people don't realize that we have a weekly TV show in Louisville, Kentucky that is on episode #1,041. Not many TV shows can brag about that and the only other wrestling company that can come close to matching that is WWE with Raw and SmackDown."
When OVW was under WWE's umbrella it churned out many of the top Superstars of today and yesteryear and Snow mentioned some of them.
"Cena, Batista, Beth Phoenix, Alicia Fox and more... We probably have an alumni of about 250 that have been in the WWE or major promotions around the world. Probably a third of those alumni were in main events at WrestleMania," stated Snow.
Jon Chattman's Moving Forward, featuring Al Snow, is now available and can be purchased here: https://bit.ly/2KaF0nd. Al'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 Al discusses his contribution to the new book "Moving Foreward", purchasing OVW, his plans for OVW as a school and promotion, WWE's 24/7 Championship, TNA "creatively mishandling" Drake Maverick, WWE hiring Paul Heyman and Eric Bischoff 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.