New Wrestling Promotion

[Head Booker]

The professional wrestling start-up headed by Milton J. Wilpon, a senior member of the billionaire Wilpon Family (who own the New York Mets) continues to make waves throughout the professional wrestling landscape.
The group, which is signing several wrestlers to contracts that don't start until October or November has been approaching several Ring of Honor wrestlers, and has had off the record conversations with some disgruntled TNA wrestlers as well.

A recent pitch to a well known star whose contract was expiring may have seen the next chapter of this saga unfold, as the current big name wrestler was told an A-List Hollywood producer was on board and was going to present the group to networks with a 3-D capacity, and the group also vowed to keep pursuing Paul Heyman to be the key man in the company, despite Heyman not signing with TNA even though that group has a coveted two hour weekly cable network prime time show.

Another star whose contract is expiring, Chris Jericho, is said to have been approached by the group through mutual friends.

WrestleZone has also learned the group has approached a key former WWE executive about working with them, and was told a business plan and investors' prospectus would be made available at the end of August. The group appears to be operating out of Wilpon's New Jersey office in Ft. Lee, as well as out of their Jamesburg Ventures (a Nevada corporation) office.

[Head Booker]

- Here is the latest on the new promotion out of Florida that Milton Wilpon/Peter Karoftis/Sean Davis are working on. The promotion has been named Worldwide Wrestling Promotion, and while it was planned for a fall launch, it has been pushed back to January of 2011. An email was sent out to talent this morning, explaining the delay. Davis wrote to the talent that the financing side of the company had told the wrestling side the following…

"Our original time table is not at all feasible. While we were all committed to launching in October we know now that has become an impossible goal. Our new goal is to start operations in the first part of the new year however we do not as of today have a firm date. That unfortunately means that contracts will have to be changed to a new starting date."

In the email, Davis states that he financial side feels that the delay is needed, and that he "fought this decision KICKING AND SCREAMING (literally)".he also stated that the move had to be made, because if it wasn't, the company would not move forward. Davis goes onto explain that WWP's attorneys will draw up contract addendums, and that if they didn't wish to sign them, he understood.

"You will still be welcome to come back to work for us in the future once we are up and running in the early part of the new year. For those of you that sign the contract addendums you will be receiving extra shares of company stock and the addendums will also spell out our full health and benefits plan that will be made available to you."

Davis also discussed that they have been through a lot already, and that there were forces out there that were trying to stop them…

"[These forces are] doing whatever they can to sabotage everything we are trying to do and doing everything in their power to make sure that this company will never launch. I can promise you though that no matter how many hurdles we have to jump over that there are people here dedicated to doing everything they can to make sure this company WILL launch and we will be a long time player in this industry."

Davis stated that WWP was not simply launching "a new independent promotion or something that is going to be on the long list of fly by night wrestling companies that have come and gone." He then went on to explain that they plan on "becoming over the next decade the premiere wrestling company in the world" but that "obviously does not happen overnight."

Davis promised to share details on several deals that the company had completed over the next few weeks. The promotion has also reached out to Paul Heyman and Jerry Jarrett.

Credit: Pwinsider.com

[Head Booker]

Pwinsider.com has posted the following email, sent to the talent involved in the new Worldwide Wrestling Promotions out of Florida. They also note that there are 50-65 wrestlers that have signed deals, but that there are currently no trademarks or copyrights on WWP or Worldwide Wrestling Promotions. The company has been filed as an LLC in the state of Florida. Here is the complete email…

Hello Team:

I apologize for the lack of updates lately but guys there has been ALOT going on and I really wanted to give you all as much information as I could as to where things stand in this update.

First of all I think you all know that this is a huge project that we have taken on. With WWP we are not just launching a new independent promotion or something that is going to be on the long list of fly by night wrestling companies that have come and gone. We are planning on being here for the long run and in becoming over the next decade the premiere wrestling company in the world. That obviously does not happen over night nor does it happen without hitting some bumps in the road.

Well we have hit more than our fair share of bumps recently. To be honest there are many forces in the wrestling business doing whatever they can to sabotage everything we are trying to do and doing everything in their power to make sure that this company will never launch. I can promise you though that no matter how many hurdles we have to jump over that there are people here dedicated to doing everything they can to make sure this company WILL launch and we will be a long time player in this industry.

That said guys this is a tough process and those working with us on the financing side realize now that there were mistakes made in setting things up and in order to guarantee that this company will not be one of the countless entities that have come out with a bang and have fizzled and burnt out before ever really leaving the ground we have had to make some painful decisions that we are not at all happy about.

The most serious decision is that we have been told our original time table is not at all feasible. While we were all committed to launching in October we know now that has become an impossible goal.

Our new goal is to start operations in the first part of the new year however we do not as of today have a firm date. That unfortunately means that contracts will have to be changed to a new starting date.

Now I know that none of you will be happy with this decision and I HATE to be the one that has to write this but it is something that the corporate side of this company feels has to be done. Trust me when I say that Pete and I have fought this decision KICKING AND SCREAMING (literally) but unfortunately it comes down to either this move is made or this company does not move forward.

I have been told that there will be addendums to your contracts drawn up by our attorney.

If you decide you do not wish to sign the contract addendums we fully understand. You will still be welcome to come back to work for us in the future once we are up and running in the early part of the new year. For those of you that sign the contract addendums you will be receiving extra shares of company stock and the addendums will also spell out our full health and benefits plan that will be made available to you.

I want to thank Mister St. Laurent and Kevin Kleinrock for doing a great job of signing everyone they were asked to and want everyone to know that they had nothing to do with this decision made and feel just as terrible about this as Pete and I.

I want you all to know that we are 100% committed to you being the first roster of WWP and if you stick by us through these growing pains we will make sure you have the ride of your lives as part of our company.

On the positive side of things we did sign a major deal this week that I am going to be able to give you the details on very soon along with hopefully the news of an even bigger deal that will put us in a very advantageous position to launch our product. I should be able to give you all details in the next couple of weeks.

Thanks,
R. Sean Pascoe
Vice President
Worldwide Wrestling Promotions, INC.

[Richard Napier]

HBK is probably behind this, as his twitter has been all about deals and meetings lately but he won't spill the beans on what it is.

[Head Booker]

By James Caldwell, Torch assistant editor


Florida independent wrestler Mister Saint Laurent issued a press release today announcing he has quit the proposed Wilpon family promotion based out of Florida.

St. Laurent was working as "head of talent relations" for the promotion, which is now officially titled Worldwide Wrestling Promotions (WWP).

St. Laurent claimed in the release that he "quit the organization due to breach of contract and is currently training for a return to the ring."

As the "head of talent relations" for the proposed wrestling promotion, St. Laurent was often backstage at TNA TV tapings earlier this year trying to recruit talent for WWP.

St. Laurent was part of the Scott Hall YouTube page that launched earlier this year when Hall re-joined TNA. St. Laurent was often filmed hanging around with The Band/Wolfpack members Hall, Kevin Nash, and Sean Waltman.

St. Laurent added in the press release that he is looking for independent bookings and can be contacted at [e-mail].

~~

R. Sean Pascoe (Sean Davis) of the WWP Florida upstart issued the following statement to PWInsider.com this morning in response to Mister Saint Laurent announcing his departure from the project.

Before running the statement, I want to make it clear that should the WWP project continue to fall into the realm of "he said/she said" silliness, it will quickly find its coverage on PWInsider.com disappearing. We are here to cover pro wrestling news, not reprint emails. I sincerely hope all involved get the project back on track because with each passing day, its potential is rapidly dying a fast death:

With that said, here is the statement:

On behalf of everyone involved in the WWP wrestling project we wish Mister Saint Laurent the best in everything. He has been a big help to us in the planning of our company and is welcome to come back to the fold at any time.

We know he as well as others are dissappointed (sic) in some of the recent decisions that have been made as far as backing up the start date of operations. This is a very large project and in any new start up venture there are always mistakes made and things that have to be re-thought and actions taken in order to make sure of the long term viability of the project.

One of those things was pushing the start date back of our venture. Also while we understand that people are upset about this it was laid out in the contracts that were signed by almost everyone involved in our project including MSL that the company had the right to do this.

The following clause in fact is direct from our standard employee contract in which MSL signed:

"Employer reserves the right to delay the start date of this Agreement due to unforeseen reasons but employee reserves the right to opt out of Agreement if the start date of Agreement is delayed any longer than 60 days and will have the right to renegotiate a new Agreement at that time."

Again there is no heat with MSL over making this public statement but we did feel a need to clarify that there has been no breach of contract and this decision to leave was his solely.

MSL is a good friend and has one of the best minds of anyone in the wrestling industry. I highly recommend anyone out there that wants someone with fantastic and unique ideas to consider using MSL as part of their project whether related to wrestling or any other genre in the entertainment business.

As for the future of WWP we are working hard to bring you an exciting new concept in pro wrestling entertainment and we are determined to do the things the right way from this point on and learn from the mistakes we have made and will not start operations until we are 100% ready and capable of presenting a product that is worthy of all of the attention that this has been given.

R. Sean Pascoe (Sean Davis)