Tony Deppen Addresses Controversy That Led To His BierHaus Show
Independent wrestling star and host of BierHaus, Tony Deppen, was on today's episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman asked Deppen to give more details about BierHaus and an idea of what fans can expect from the show.
"Honestly, I don't have much insight. I just want to have fun with it," Deppen admitted. "Obviously, due to a situation that occurred, a show was pulled off of Mania week, and they wanted the time slot filled. So IWTV asked me to book a show, preferably with all the people that were on the last show.
"I wanted to give these people a payday. There's a GoFundMe. I'm trying to get enough money to pay all these people. At the end of the day, I'm hoping we have good viewership on IWTV, and I hope we all have a lot of fun and have a kick-ass show. It's honestly the only thing I care about at this point because that's all we can hope."
The "situation" that Deppen is referring to is in regards to the owner of Synergy Wrestling being revealed as a registered sex offender. It was revealed that the owner, who had been going by a previous alias, had been arrested for aggravated criminal sexual contact against three males between the ages of 6 and 10 in 1999. He also had charges in 2004 of sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a minor.
IWTV and many others in the wrestling industry cut ties with Synergy Wrestling. Deppen discussed the situation that resulted in his show taking the place of the cancelled show.
"First of all, I knew the guy for six years, and I never knew this was a fake name, and I know people that were friends with him for 10 plus years. He told his parents to work with it too," Deppen revealed. "He had a credit card that said his name, his fake name. I was a little pushed off about that, but then also, push [came] to shove, I'm just like, you know what, these people that were on the show, they lost a booking. For some of them, it was their only booking. So I was like, 'f**k it. Let's try it.'"
Deppen, a stay-at-home father, discussed what it's like for him knowing someone deceived him, and many other, for so long.
"It's not like I was friends with him. I was an acquaintance with him," Deppen said. "I saw him. I always talked to him like, 'Hi, how are you doing?' Never an in depth conversation, and it made me feel weird then because when I had this little man right here (Deppen points to his child), he messaged me, 'Congratulations. Your son's beautiful.' Now looking back, I'm just like, ugh."
As Deppen mentioned before, a GoFundMe has been launched to help pay for the wrestlers working on the show. Deppen also talked about the charitable aspects of the show.
"For every view that we do get, we will be donating money towards a charitable foundation for children who have been affected by abuse because when I took the reins of this show, I felt it was the right thing to do," Deppen expressed. "I'm not making any money off of this show at all. IWTV said they could pay me for booking the show. I was like, I don't want it. I don't want the show as some way for me to make money because that's the last thing on my mind.
"It sucks doing this entire show. I'm constantly hitting people up, and having to book things and make sure the finances are there. I just want people to have a show, and I want them to go wrestle. A lot of these kids are kids that never get seen, and I want them to be seen. It's the least I could do because, hell, maybe next year, I won't be on the indies, and I can't give back to the indies anymore. And I'd like to do as much as I possibly can while I'm here."
Tony Deppen presents BierHaus on Saturday April 10th at 12 pm EST. The event will be live streamed via IWTV.com. You can follow Tony on Twitter @Tony_Deppen. You can find the full audio and video from Tony's interview below: