I've had this blog in my mind for a little while now. I was going to do a 2 part retrospective looking at the TPI and King of the Death tournaments. Instead I've decided to look at the entire companies which recently closed it's doors once again.
The earliest footage I saw of IWA Mid South was it's 2001 King of the Death Tournament. The building was a little dump to put it nicely. It looked awful. The company, which started in 1997, didn't really get noticed until the early 2000's. The company's shows were a mix, they had some of the best wrestling you could find, the feud between CM Punk and Chris Hero was talked about all over the place, but it's main focus was on hardcore deathmatches. To be fair it fitted the arena and the general look of the company.
The company would move from building to building each being a 'home' for a while for the company. Not a great deal would change in the company for a few years except new stars would come and go. It wasn't until 2004 that a major change would happen. They would join up with the NWA and would switch it's focus from deathmatches to more straight up wrestling. They got a building in Highland, Indiana which was a gym but it always looked good on camera and for all the shows I've seen from the company in the building was always full in terms of a crowd. That year the company would put on probably the greatest weekend of wrestling ever in the indy world, that being the Ted Petty Invitational 2004. It was a truly great series of shows and was a highlight for the company. The switch in focus resulted in good numbers in terms of crowds on a regular basis. It really looked like the company would be doing really well. It had one of the best rosters of any company going at the time which resulted in some of the best shows and some true dream matches.
With the switch in focus the company announced the last King of the Death in 2004. However that didn't happen as a year later the tournament returned. The found a new building, as the other one in Highland didn't allow a deathmatch style. The company seemed to switch back to it's old ways and put it's focus on deathmatches in the main events. And they also went back to getting a mixed crowd from show to show. Sometimes they would have a full crowd and others there would be very little. The company would expand in 2005 by putting a show in the old ECW arena. Gaining one of the biggest crowds they ever got and putting on one of the best shows ever, headlined by Samoa Joe vs. Necro Butcher which was a classic.
The company would keep moving forward and in 2006 they would pull another massive crowd for their We're No Joke show headlined by Necro Butcher vs. Low Ki. However the odd show here and there still did not establish a constant full time good crowd which the company needed. 2006 also marked the arrival of some new tournaments, the Queen of the Death (an all women's death match tournament) and the Double Death (tag team death match tournament), which I'll get to later. The company would bring stars in and have stars leave however they didn't really have a constant big name in the company. Fast forward to 2009 the company found another new building except this time it was a shit hole and that's putting it nicely. It was God awful and really made the company look like garbage.
By September 2009, just before the TPI, the company closed it's doors officially after many many years of will it won't it. A company that was one of my favourites had gone and I hated that fact. I like many others were happy when the company came back in 2010 however that was short lived after watching the 'new product'. They had no big name stars whatsoever and when reading the results of shows you ended up saying 'Who' to almost everyone who was on the show. The highlight of the return was the April Bloodshowers show which got the smallest crowd ever to a wrestling show, having seen highlights it was laughable. The show was the longest running named show the company had and always gained a big crowd so to pull such a bad number showed how bad the company had become. They went months and months with announcing shows, putting them off and cancelling them. A little while back they announced there closing once again this time I doubt it'll come back.
For me there are many possible reasons why the company closed twice within a couple of years. One thing I thought was a major thing for the closing in 2009 was the 2008 they had. They held a total of 8 tournaments, 3 of which were weekend shows. The big names needed to pull the crowd must of cost a lot and gained very little. The problem was the Queen and Double Death tournaments. While both were great ideas there was no reason for them, the Queen was built around Mickie Knuckles and all the other girls had no name and still have no name seriously look who won the 2008 and see if you know them. And the Double Death had no real tag teams to focus on, seriously Brain Damage & Deranged won the thing 2 years in a row and there were only 3 tournaments.
Another problem was while the company was highly praised for building stars and letting them shine it was a problem when it came to drawing a crowd. 2 of the longest reigning World champions were Chuck Taylor and Dingo. While Chuck Taylor is known now back then he was a up and comer who was just getting his name out there, not a great way to get a crowd when your main act is hard to recognise. The same goes for Dingo in 2008 he wasn't that much of a name and had done very little in the company before gaining the title. While the two did prove themselves in during their reigns it would of made more sense if they were bigger names and proved themselves before it.
The same quality, of building stars, was another problem as they were never really recognisable. While it is a good thing to build stars you need made stars to do so, the lack results in guys trying to make their names off each other which can work but takes longer. And near the later years of the company many of the guys who were made years before left the company for different reasons or another meant there were no guys who could make stars.
Now I can go on about the many different reason why it could of closed, the biggest is problem Ian Rotten (the owner) himself and the rumours of what he has done but I won't. I've just pointed out a couple of possible problems here.
Now I loved the company and I have many shows from around 2006-2008 which were awesome. However in 2009 and 2010 the company turned for the worse and in such a way that it couldn't recover. AJ Styles summed it up best in a shoot interview 'You knew the company was doomed when the boys in the back out numbered the crowd'.
With Ian's reputation being as bad as it is I doubt it can recover and the company will likely be gone for good which is probably for the best. The company was probably one of the biggest indy companies in America at one point and after a while it became one of the biggest jokes.
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