Various: Billy Corgan Clarifies Comments Over Criticisms of Tyrus, Dark Side of the Ring Ratings, Indies

Jun 29, 2023

Billy Corgan Clarifies Past Comments About Online Criticisms Against NWA Worlds Champion Tyrus

As noted before, National Wrestling Alliance owner Billy Corgan recently claimed that those criticizing Tyrus work and status as current NWA Worlds Heavyweight Champion in the company are not real wrestling fans.

A recent episode of the Ten Count podcast had Corgan as the guest. One of the topics discussed include Corgan clarifying his past comments about those who do not like Tyrus’ work are not real wrestling fans.

“I’ll give a clarification to what I said. I’m not gonna say I didn’t say what I said, but the quote I saw being bandied about which was something along the lines of like, ‘If you don’t like Tyrus, you don’t like wrestling.’ Whether that was bastardized or that actually came out of my mouth, but it was again, in relation to something, so I’ll clarify what I was trying to say. So maybe that’s the better way across the bridge.
What I was saying was, if you don’t like Tyrus in a wrestling ring because of his politics and because he brings heat into wrestling, then I don’t understand what wrestling that you’re after. I went on to say and I don’t think it was quoted, ‘Are we only booking friends in a wrestling ring.’ Like is this just like Patty cakes and then everybody pretends these guys hate each other, and then they hug at the after party and everything’s cool?” I believe, like all good promoters, that the heat of the outside world coming into a wrestling ring isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
“Remember when there was all the crazy heat with Edge, Matt Hardy, and Lita? That was a real-life thing that was ultimately taken advantage of in a wrestling ring and obviously, all the parties agreed. Whether that was comfortable or uncomfortable to them, I can’t really say even though I know Matt pretty well and I know Edge pretty well, but I don’t think I’ve ever sat down to really ask them how they felt personally about it. But obviously, that was a moment of real heat and people had opinions about how the whole situation played on a personal level. So if your argument would be, ‘That should not have been a wrestling angle’, well, that’s a viable argument to make. If your thing would have been, ‘I was uncomfortable with them being put in that spot’, well, that’s a viable argument to make. But it did happen and it has happened in wrestling where real heat and real life comes into the wrestling ring.
So that was my point. It wasn’t saying, ‘I’m going to pick this one person in Tyrus and if you don’t like them as a wrestling talent, or you don’t like them as a person, you don’t like wrestling.’ So that’s where it gets bastardized. It made for very good clickbait. Some of my friends actually encouraged me to go out and clarify. I’m not going to play this stupid game. I’ve been around too long for people to sort of cherry pick my quotes and try to make a thing. So that’s what I like what you’re saying, which is at the end of the day, I think I’m an intelligent person. You can argue that point, but look, I’ve picked the NWA up out of the ashes. I’ve turned it into a successful business. We have a lot of good news coming which I can’t quite share yet, but I think we’re going in about our sixth year of me owning the company. The roster has never been stronger. There are people who have noticed the quality of the NWA wrestling product week in and week out.
People who are not, let’s call it denizens of the dirt sheets, like people who actually care about the quality of professional wrestling, not the, let’s call it the meta-narrative of each company and whether it’s rising and falling. We’ve seen in recent times where one company has been really built up now to be torn down. Is that fair? I can’t particularly say, but it’s certainly good business for the dirt sheets.
So right now, there’s more money on the NWA being about me as a controversial figure or the NWA possibly failing then there is the NWA succeeding, and when we succeed, and we will, well, then it will turn into some other different quasi-argument. So if you want to make it about one talent, you kind of missed the point of what the point of what a professional wrestling company is.”

Transcript h/t: WrestlingNews.co

Dark Side of the Ring Ratings – June 27, 2023 – Up

Tuesday’s episode of Dark Side of the Ring drew 229,000 viewers on VICE TV, up from last week’s 201,000 viewers.

It was #75 on cable for the day with a 0.06 rating in the 18-49 demographic, down from last week’s 0.07 rating.

This episode focused on The Junkyard Dog

More Tuesday ratings: ShowBuzz Daily

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

The debut trailer for upcoming action film The Collective featuring Mercedes Mone among the cast was recently released. This upcoming film is currently scheduled to be released on August 4th in select theaters in the United States and on digital and On-Demand services.

West Coast Pro Wrestling recently announced that Japanese wrestling legend and former ECW wrestler Masato Tanaka will be making an appearance for the company at their 5th Year Anniversary Show on October 14th in San Francisco, California.

DDT Pro Wrestling announced that DDT President and wrestler Sanshiro Takagi recently suffered a torn left calf muscle injury and Rukiya recently suffered a cracked sternum injury.

WWE Hall of Famer Eddie Guerrero was posthumously inducted into the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame as part of this year’s ceremony on Wednesday in El Paso, Texas.

Game Changer Wrestling recently announced that Nick Gage will be making an appearance for the company at their No Signal in the Halls event on August 11th in Los Angeles, California. It was also announced that Lio Rush will be making an appearance for the company at their My Name is GCW event on August 4th in Detroit, Michigan.

Mark Haskins recently issued a match challenge to KENTA for his DEFY Championship, which DEFY Wrestling stated would be for their upcoming The Splendid & The Vile event on August 26th in London, England should it be made official.

Impact Wrestling talent Trinity announced on Twitter that she recently joined the cast of the upcoming Queen of the Ring film based on the life and career of Women’s wrestling legend Mildred Burke. This upcoming film also currently features WWE’s Charlotte Flair and Liv Morgan among its cast.

Impact announced that they have recently partnered with Windsor-Essex Pride Fest for a Pride Night event on July 16th in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

Impact also announced a new match for the card of their Slammiversary 2023 event on July 15th in Windsor, Ontario, Canada: