Defunct Memories: Wrestling Society X

WWF. ECW. WCW. WSX?

One of these things is not like the others. The oft-forgotten Wrestling Society X was a short-term creation with grandeur dreams. Still, it would ultimately be just another failed experiment in the grand scheme of wrestling promotions.

In the years following the World Wrestling Federation’s purchase of WCW and ECW, there was a dearth of variety in the professional wrestling market. While a few small groups popped up in the immediate aftermath, such as World Wrestling All-Stars or the Xcitement Wrestling Federation, very few companies were able to stick to the initial landing of making a mark in the business.

There was NWA: TNA, which started with a ton of promise, but constantly changing booking philosophies would see the company yo-yo in popularity and take years to recover, despite being handed a few different television and PPV deals.

Then, of course, we have Ring of Honor, a company that always did well in developing talent and presenting some of the best wrestling in the world for years. Still, it was always more of a niche market for the hardcore fans who preferred a realistic style to their wrestling. Those of us brought up on Bret Hart and Dynamite Kid matches loved it, but it would never fully appeal to the mainstream market more used to the Hulk Hogan bombastic sports entertainment style.

MTV had a history of airing wrestling on their network with a run of both the initial season of Tough Enough and WWF Sunday Night Heat after WWF moved RAW from the USA Network to TNN (later SpikeTV), perhaps they felt they could re-enter the market. So following the early 2006 pilot filming of Wrestling Society X, MTV ordered an entire season in mid-2006 that would go on to air in early 2007.

Wrestling Society X Is Born

The company and show itself were the brain child of Houston Curtis and Sam Korkis. Curtis is a renowned screenwriter and ‘visionary’ who has formed several companies over the years, including Backyard Wrestling Inc., amongst being a producer of acclaimed projects such as Cheech & Chong’s Animated Movie and Scott Baio is 40 And Single. Korkis, on the other hand, has had his hand in producing such shows as The Bachelor, American Chopper, and Temptation Island, among others. With a pedigree like theirs, it’s hard to imagine how Wrestling Society X could fail! Yes, sarcasm is the theme of the day.

In terms of actual ownership of the company, it was run by the team of Curtis and Kevin Kleinrock, who also served as the head booker due to his experience working with Rob Black’s XPW in the past. It was Kleinrock who pitched MTV with the idea of a wrestling company that was edgy and mixed in musical performances, as MTV still had the delusion of being a Music station at the time. So the decision was made to feature a musical performance on every episode, with the musical guests joining the commentary team for a match afterwards. While there were a few big names (especially for the time) featured, like Zakk Wylde’s Black Label Society, Good Charlotte and a pre-superstar version of Pitbull, in the end, it added very little to the enjoyment level of a wrestling fan. This was amplified by the fact that very few, if little, of the musical guests, knew anything of wrestling outside of the boom periods (the 80’s Golden Era and the Attitude Era.)

With all the pieces in place, the group began taping an entire 10-episode season of Wrestling Society X, with the idea of the 30-minute episodes taking place in an underground venue, similar to the dingy clubs used in the cult-classic David Fincher's 1998 film Fight Club. With episodes being limited to only 30 minutes, many of the matches were forced to go right into high spots and rush through any story that they would like to tell, with many of the matches feeling like you were being given the highlight reel of a longer match. That said, the company put together a decent roster of former XPW stars, some up-and-comers, and a few sporadic big names that were not under contract to any competing companies at the time.

Wrestlers: 6-Pac (Sean Waltman), Aaron Aguilera, Matt Sydal, Teddy Hart, Scorpio Sky, Vic Grimes, New Jack, Justin Credible, Chris Hamrick, Matt Cross, Tyler Black, and Jimmy Jacobs, among others.

Commentators: Kris Kloss and Bret Ernst

Ring Announcer: Fabian Kaelin (who oddly bears a striking resemblance to current NXT star and Imperium member Fabian Aichner)

The Premiere

The first season premiered on MTV on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007, at 10:30 PM, which put it head to head against the final 30 minutes of WWECW on the Sci-Fi Network, which likely didn’t bode well for the company right off the hop. Later episodes would be shuffled around different timeslots, airing later and later.

The first episode featured the Inaugural WSX Rumble. The Rumble began as a classic Royal Rumble-style match until all participants entered. At this point, the match turned into a Ladder Match, with two contracts at play. The two wrestlers who grabbed the contracts would go on Episode Two to face one another to determine who would become the first WSX Champion. In the end, it would be two of the biggest names the company had winning, 6-Pac and Vampiro. Vampiro would go on to win the match and become the very first of two men who would go on to hold the WSX Championship.

[The WSX Rumble from the debut episode. Credit: YouTube]

One of WSX’s calling cards was the style of over-the-top extreme wrestling which was somewhat of a hand-me-down from the days of XPW. However, as opposed to the full-on deathmatch style that permeated XPW, WSX would use post-production to make things even more “extreme” in a choice that could be questionable at best. The post-production featured added crowd noise, ridiculously over-the-top explosions and added effects. This would end up being the company's downfall, coming during the build to a big match between WSX Champion Vampiro and challenger Ricky Banderas. In the show's fourth episode, Banderas throws a fireball in the face of Vampiro. Unlike the usual flash paper style, this was edited to add almost a sonic-boom effect as Vampiro sold the attack like death. MTV would deem this effort unairable though an edited version would be shown the week after the episode finally aired. The day after it aired, MTV cancelled the series. Two weeks later, MTV would burn off the remaining episodes in a quick marathon, with the final episode never airing. During the sixth episode, Ricky Banderas would capture the WSX Championship from Vampiro, becoming the second and final Champion in company history.

Towards the end of 2007, the series was released on DVD featuring all ten episodes of the original season, marking the first time the final episode was made viewable to fans. As a bonus, a few of the matches recorded for a second season were included, including a woman’s match between Mickie Knuckles and Nic Grimes (the future Sara Del Rey, responsible for a lot of the Women’s Revolution in NXT and WWE.) In an unfortunate twist, the commentary team would hint at the introduction of Tag Team Titles that never came to be.

Legacy

What is the legacy of Wrestling Society X? Well, first and foremost, it is undoubtedly a product of its time, with the style and substance being so over the top that it is almost hokey to look at nearly 15 years later. They tried to rely too heavily on a hardcore style that had become passe and would only appeal to the rabid audiences of companies like Combat Zone Wrestling. The problem with that approach was that they were taking a far too light approach to that style with all of the explosions and ‘damage’ done in post-production that looked bad even at the time and certainly has not aged well.

The company had a varied roster of established veterans with solid hands like Sean Waltman and Justin Credible while giving a spotlight to young and hungry wrestlers like Tyler Black (future WWE Champion and WrestleMania main eventer Seth Rollins), Matt Sydal and Scorpio Sky, while also featuring names that at the time were sure to appeal to the IWC fans like Teddy Hart and Jimmy Jacobs. They even had the hardcore audience wrapped up with guys like the late New Jack and Youth Suicide.

In the end, it was a matter of valuing style over substance all while not having the proper leadership. By no means am I saying that WSX could have been a formidable foe for WWE, or even TNA at that time which was riding high, but it absolutely could have carved out a niche market for itself, but a penchant for pushing itself too far would ultimately be its own downfall?