FiredUp Network
Friday, July 5: Wrestling Spotlight Weekly Champions Fountain City Pro
Welcome in to weekly champions here on wrestling spotlight. You can also see it on the fired up network. Best place to see either channel is on that true TV plus app you can download it anywhere it's available on everything now Amazon Apple Google Play Roku and even Chromecast joined by Chase from Fountain City Pro Wrestling Fountain City Pro bringing and justice for all to Kansas City area wrestling fans is coming up Friday July 12th at the ball events center in Olathe Chase one of the owners joins us here you've also seen him on the wrestling spotlight on the I-70 hot tag and Chase you and I have seen each other for a few years now in the Kansas City wrestling scene the Kansas City wrestling universe what led you guys to go ahead along with a couple other partners start Fountain City Pro it's a great question Gerald I was an easy one I reflect on that quite a bit sometimes the the main thing that led to it you know and and it's funny Gerald that this has been asked you know I I'm not a I'm not a guy who usually like crosses my T's and dots my eyes here but I like to call us the management group because you know I own the LLC and I own the ring and you know that this answer has been given by a couple of the guys in the management group and and I want to be clear on it there was a lot of different things that made made me want to start Fountain City Pro but the the deciding factor not deciding but the main inspiration if you will Gerald was we sat down for an interview with Moonshine Mantel who who I'm a huge huge fan of yeah very very highly of Ryan I think Ryan is a fantastic worker I think he's an even better person we we interviewed him one time and it was right when they were about to start the school and see pro wrestling academy absolutely shout out to those guys we we talked and he talked about growing up or not growing up but being from Texas and the wrestling scene down in Texas is literally oversaturated and you know I've I've been to WrestleMania 39 in Los Angeles a couple years ago and you know people on the East Coast and everything you've got independent wrestling on Tuesday nights Wednesday nights Thursday that's every day of the week except for Monday sometimes on Monday and that talent pool from there always gets pulled on the TV and gets made stars and whatnot and and Gerald you can attest to this I I would argue that our talent here in the Midwest especially through the Kansas City area Kansas and Missouri is just as talented if not more than those guys it it's just the spotlights just seem to be brighter because like moonshine talked about it is extremely over saturated so you know and Gerald you and I talk about sales yeah where we have talked about sales a little bit I'm a needs-based salesman man I always have been and if I'm a needs-based salesman and I'm looking at a need here in Kansas City there is a huge need for more pro wrestling so that was that was the ultimate like hey I'm really gonna do this because you know that that inspiration of talking about having an oversaturated market in Texas and that needs-based sales of like hey like there's there's a huge gap here missing and if we can help just inch that gap a little bit shorter man you've got a you've got a great great opportunity because like I said the talent here in the Midwest is just as good as the talent that gets showcased on the national level across the nation and I think if they just had more places to go and more people to see them you'd have a you'd have a pretty good pretty good chance to to do that to shine light on it so yeah no I agree and I was talking one of your other partners talked with Joshua talked with Hartzell Hartzell and I were talking to each other at the Casey current game and you know I think there is this Midwest this Missouri base for pro wrestling to just explode we carry on the channel if you want to the wrestling spotlight we have Chicago style on we have Bruce City on we have a lot of glory pro wrestling on and as I see W which is Southern Illinois championship wrestling which is also out of St. Louis and you just take a look at what's going on in St. Louis they have anarchy running regularly they have glory pro running regularly they have Southern Illinois championship wrestling going regularly there's no reason why there can't be more in Kansas City and then create that that circuit if you will that the leak between World League wrestling the Harley race academy Chicago style and just kind of bounce back and forth I think there's plenty of fan interest and there's plenty of workers and then you're given the guys and the ladies a chance to succeed another city that we cover on the station and I've worked with extensively is Las Vegas Las Vegas has seven active promotions going and like you said they could have a show any night no granite hey it's a little bit different because people are coming in out but all seven promotions that are going in Las Vegas they all live there and it does show because if you want to look at one promotion that has placed more people on the national brands on Ring of Honor on NWA on WWE and AEW it's future stars wrestling in Las Vegas and I think the repetition is a big part of it absolutely I know the vision yeah the the consistency you know I you know I I think it's very cliche you know we always bring up the whole Ric Flair you know Kansas City's the worst territory in the world but I do think that it it it I'm for because if you look at the difference between St. Louis and Kansas City there's something there man yeah CSW Central States Wrestling does a fantastic job of continually putting on great shows and whatnot you know and I mean there is you know there's a gigantic gap between CSW and the next promotion in the Kansas City area and it's like it and and even just adding one more is not enough so hopefully you know like like I said the vision is is that you know we're all we're all running on different nights and we're all we're all making we're all making memories and making experiences for the fans of Kansas City and the boys the boys all have a place to work and make money without like I get it you know it's the business you know do the drives you know it's part of paying your dues you know spending hours on the road but man it it would be really nice if the boys could go to St. Louis one night drive four or five hours and come to Kansas City and work the next night yeah or Chicago St. Louis you know do a you know do a circular drive there without having to worry about a 20-hour or 40-hour drive round trip of you know going coast to coast just so you can get noticed you know yeah there needs to be a more needs to be more opportunity here one and I think you see it coming right because yeah you do have the Chicago style is doing great work the NWA now has and WA Chicago so they're building up and it's just the whole industry is picking up I had on had a chance to talk to the perfect 10 baby doll because it was the ninth year of dusty roads passing away just thought great time get her on we were also talking about the what killed WCW and how even back then they could see that they were on the wrong path because WWE had brought out the LJN figures the vinyl figures and they were looking at them and like oh my god they got action figures in their hands how this happened and the LJN figures were nothing they were just vital they were vital fixed dolls basically but that was it that was the first thing that put the wrestlers in the hand and took off and what was interesting is she talked about going to Kansas City and how back then in the old NWA Kansas City was the territory that was set up to fail because they just didn't pay anybody and you were just kind of stuck hey go go where Kansas City and they looked at it like a punishment so it wasn't really Kansas City's fault necessarily it was kind of a managerial change and here everybody in Kansas City can get along with hating the East Coast elites right it was the Southeast elites who were running the NWA said I have let's just make that a feeder territory we'll just bury people there yeah so it goes back for years but it shouldn't be the case you're you're right I mean like and it's you know no matter what you believe in spiritually or whatever you know if you believe in omens or you believe in luck or coincidences or ever whatever it is I feel like there is this dark cloud that has followed Kansas City and we've seen it in the past 10 years and on the independent level yeah through you know Metro Pro NWA wrestling lakes here yeah I mean you look at the NWL Gerald major basin was ahead of his time I mean any wrestling is cool right now it's hot and if if if major basin would have started NWL last year maybe even two years ago it would have succeeded I mean it wouldn't it wouldn't have just succeeded it would have excelled you know exponentially yeah so it you know like I said it's all about as long as there's more and people have options I think that I think that now is the perfect time for Kansas City wrestling fans to enjoy I think in 10 years I think my goal is in 10 years I want people to look at Kansas City the wrestling scene in Kansas City differently that's fair yeah you wanted to be a hotbed and it just takes takes that repetition takes building it takes building up a base building up those stories right and we're coming up on it's going to be the third Fountain City Pro show and justice for all how are you feeling now you've done two shows you have a you have a home territory you're at the Ball Events Center in Olathe so you have a base of operations which I think is huge so people know where to go to they can kind of get used to the schedule how do you feel what's what's been the result of the first couple of shows and just to go ahead and announce it people who watch the wrestling spotlight you can get a chance to watch the Fountain City Pro will be airing those shows on the channel we're coming up to a big holiday week and you know if you didn't watch the Forbidden Door yet and you haven't set aside your six hours to watch Forbidden Door you can take a couple hours to watch Fountain City Pro right here in wrestling spotlight what are they going to see when they tune up you know what Gerald that's a great question loaded question I'll start with the your first one you know like how does it feel it it feels it feels amazing it feels very rewarding but obviously like I said the the end goal what it is so the job is not done but it was super super beneficial to get those first two shows under my belt especially that first one you know one day one day there will be a tell all of of everything and I'll I'll write a big long thing about all the struggles of that first day again depending on where you sit spiritually there was there was so many things that said like hey like this is not gonna work out but it was crazy and it's a it's a testament to what we talked about about Kansas City wanting more wrestling because like I said instead of going into the whole night I'll I'll just say this that very first show my doors were supposed to open at six o'clock okay and the shit the first bell time was supposed to be about 705 706 because of all the issues that happened in all of our struggles my doors didn't open until 725 and Gerald I couldn't tell yeah so I mean you're worried oh my god nobody's gonna stay it's gonna be empty we're screwed yeah and I open the door people were there yep and the and it was the floodgates and and Gerald not one person not one walked up to me or any of my staff and said you know how dare you guys open the doors this late or whatever you know I mean if they they immediately they were hot from the time we opened the doors to the time that they walked out and so that first show was was a little bit of an eye opener but I'm a I'm a very I'm a very big proponent of you know worry about what you control not about what you can't and being adaptable and the one thing I will tell you about my team of who I had helping and and you know us and my guys in the management team they were adaptable Gerald and it was it was amazing so that's what that's how I'm feeling after that I I feel like after those first two shows I think just running more shows and getting more consistent it's it's off to the races man what what people can expect from Fountain City Pro the second part of your question is my vision of professional wrestling Gerald you know a little bit of background I've been a fan since I was four years old okay I'm the very first very first match I ever saw was Sean and Razor WrestleMania 10 and I've been hooked ever since I I wanted to do this ever since I was eight years old you know a career days and all those other things everybody you know veterinarian stuff mine was Pro wrestler my life worked out a little bit differently Gerald I was really young when I had kids I was 16 when I had my first kids so you you know doesn't take a rocket science scientist to figure out you know there's not a whole lot of money in this business on the on the independent level when you're trying to raise a family as young as I was it doesn't work out so so life granted me a different direction and you know when I got older and started doing the the hot tag and and whatnot you know my my wife who I've been with since I was 14 years old was extremely supportive and then when a you know I everybody always told me you know wrestling rings $10,000 well Monster rings and cages which is where Journey Pro got their ring from and that ring is actually used at the Kansas City Wrestling Academy was $5,000 okay I was like well that changes the game a little bit so you know when I approached my wife about her buying a $5,000 wrestling ring you know she you know she gave me her blessing because of you know how full circle our life has come since yeah so probably that conversation probably went about the same as when I called up believe it was like the week after Thanksgiving and said hey what do you think about buying a wrestling TV channel well instead of doing a sales training podcast themed on wrestling by a wrestling TV channel yeah okay so yeah there you go yeah it was that same reaction that was my reaction it was crazy you know bless my wife man she's amazing I sat down and I gave my sales pitch and and you know I expected to get told like yo you're nuts like you know this is you know Chase this is your mid-life crisis you know you're gonna you want to start a wrestling promotion most guys go out and buy a Harley you know so but no she looked at me and she said you know she said based on based on everything that had happened you know she she knew that this was you know this was my dream my vision and she gave me full support you know so wrestling has always been a huge part of my life you know to kind of kind of get back on that and I apologize Gerald I have a lot of long-winded answers to go to kind of get back on subject to that you know I believe that wrestling is something that wrestling is subjective it's something that we all can we all can come together and enjoy so I always picture wrestling like a buffet you know you you may want you may want spaghetti and Italian food tonight and your friends who you like to hang out with they may want they may want a little bit of Hispanic food maybe some Spanish rice and some burritos and so I think that being able to come together and enjoy something different but still be in the midst of of people you know you you love and enjoy and you love hanging out with and having fun that is my idea of of what wrestling should be and you know you'll kind of see a little bit of that you know I take a little bit of the you know a little bit of the the seriousness of it I take a little bit of the fun with it and at my shows you may see a comedic match you may see a very you know British strong style match maybe a maybe a Japanese style match a great you know technician showcase I want something for everybody so everybody is there like having fun so people of all backgrounds all all different tastes can can enjoy it together well and I think that's something we're seeing at the national level right now - part of the reason why WWE is so hot in the Triple H era is you are seeing those different styles and it can all work together there doesn't have to just be one style there's not one right type of match you can have multiple approaches multiple different styles and heck just take a look at a national level AEW WWE TNA NWA each brand has a fairly distinctly distant different style and they're all doing well yep I mean absolutely AEW coming off of a terrific pay-per-view Forbidden Door was great and I think when they have Wrestle Dream in Japan in Tokyo that's gonna be even better that's coming up in January I'm getting ready to go out to all in in London for AEW which I think is gonna be a terrific event and it'll just be a great atmosphere and a direct comparison to WrestleMania 40 that we went to for the station in Philadelphia which was a terrific event and showed what the WWE can do at its best when they're running on all cylinders and it was a great show and you had all the community of professional wrestling around and I've been covering the NWA one of our local recurring stars Myelie Magnum Dacta Raper a factor in there they were doing a good job and it's much more of an older style an old TV style wrestling you're not seeing a lot of real I don't know what you want to say real acrobatic real dynamic matches but even to be fair the NWA is doing some of those with their junior heavyweights with Colby Carino which Alonzo Jr some of their matches would be perfectly at home in any company in the world so you can do a little bit of everything and you know coming up at your next show you're gonna see some different matches you get the the quad father Camaro Jackson against Jay Fowler that should be a kind of hard-hitting match Camaro's a a very I guess you'd say a strong style kind of wrestler yeah no it's funny because Fowler Fowler used to frequent Kansas City quite a bit in the old Journey Pro days we watched him grow tremendously from being you know the the buns of steel guy to the bad buns and then now it's completely dropped and he's all steel now and yeah and I mean the guy just has that when they talk about like it factors and wrestling guys that just have it Justin Jay Fowler is it is that guy he has it he's got a look he's got a presence he's got great in-ring awareness and and he knows how to entertain as well no matter you know up up in the Nebraska Iowa area I know there is a couple places where he has played a baby face but you know given his last stint in Journey Pro I wanted to bring him in as a as a bad guy here in Kansas City and I thought that thought that worked out really well so like I said people people love to boo him just as much as they love to cheer for him what are some of the other matches coming up that you're looking forward to that the fans are gonna want to make sure they get a chance to say absolutely so one you know there's two matches that we just you know that you just showed the Luke Langley and Ray Lay on match and then the Camaro Jackson and the the J Fowler match are both tournament matches the winner of those two matches are gonna go on to our next event on October 18th to face off for the to be the first ever Fountain City Pro champion okay not want to wait two or three years to crown a champion I wanted to do it right out the gate sure you know I want people to want people to kind of us be able to establish you know like hey this is this is Fountain City Pro's guy and I'll tell you this as well you know there there's gonna be some surprises in those two matches you know there's there's a little bit of a little bit of an unknown factor with that that main event which is Ray Lay on and and Luke Langley but that match is gonna be really fun because Luke Langley has Greg Jovai with him and Ray Lay on has Dickey Richards so in both of those guys you have to keep an eye out on or keep an eye on outside of the ring the other match that we have is a match that kind of built up after the first two events Gary J versus Anakin Murphy Gary J and Anakin Murphy know each other really really well they grew up or Anakin kind of grew up under the teachings of Gary J and St. Louis and they always they always have hard-hitting matches no matter if they're against each other or other people with them and Gary and Anakin both feel like they would have beat Jay Fowler hadn't it not been for the other ones so this is gonna be their opportunity to beat the heck out of each other if you will Gerald sure and the other match that we've announced there is a young guy from Oklahoma who actually won Oklahoma male wrestler of the year in 2023 the spotlight Logan Knight and Logan is five years into his career he has an extremely bright future so he is gonna go one-on-one with Jake Parnell formerly known as Warhorse the Warhorse sure what Warhorse has said a little bit of a change of scenery change of a gimmick lately you know he's kind of a little bit of doesn't care about a whole lot given his experiences would that happen with a Warhorse you know going from being 2019 independent wrestler of the year to you know kind of just being disregarded and and kind of laughed at so he'll get an opportunity to face Logan Knight and Logan Knight will get an opportunity to kind of showcase people on a level of what he can do yeah I'm a darker turn for Warhorse Jake Parnell lately absolutely and I I always forget how to pronounce that word nihilism that's that's Jake Parnell's a big thing that he's doing right now so and the the other match that we have announced so a little bit of a back story you know I know you're really familiar with being you know being in the Kansas City area the premier SK Bishop and Campbell Myers when when we ran our first event they had a lot to say on social media about not being invited not being booked and then they let themselves in the building at our second event and attacked one of our young tag teams and so I we decided to give them an opportunity if they wanted to show up so we're gonna have a Campbell Myers and SK Bishop against Calvin Aldrich and Tobias Storm who go by the main attraction and that is that is what we have announced so far we we will be announcing more matches we'll obviously be ramping up and announcing the rest of the matches this week got to get an eight match card for this one Gerald okay we still playing on getting out of there before 10 o'clock so yeah so you're you're not going the four-bit indoor route you're not gonna go six hours no no okay just make it sure because I mean precedent has been sat you could you could go six hours if you wanted to you you could you could I I don't know if I don't know if that's the the best idea but may not be a great plan now I think TV time remaining it's probably a good idea absolutely absolutely nothing against forbidden door forbidden door was a great it was great it was great but I think you want to you may want to watch it over the course of a couple of days I think the time is here getting into a little bit of the the two big promotions I think the time is coming for all the major AEW and WWE live events I mean the the four big ones that they focus on each year they should all be two days they should be because I so much talent on those rosters you can't get it all in on one show I think they announced in starting in 2026 that SummerSlam was gonna go to two days yeah SummerSlam money in the bank and the Royal Rumble I'll go into two-day events which probably is a good enough yeah it is my TKO stock keeps going up so people are liking it yeah it does it does we need to we need to get that dome up for the new arrowhead so we can get in on the mix on WWE PLEs because they're not coming to an open-air stadium no no but hey let's get back to Fountain City Pro how can people find out about it how can they get tickets what do they need to do to get in on the show that's a great question Gerald our first two events are uploaded on YouTube so if you wanted to go back and look at those you could they're also going to be on your network is right here on wrestling spotlight yeah absolutely so you know the all-day wrestling sign me up man love that stuff 24/7 you can turn it on any time 24/7 yeah if you have a TCL TV you have a TCL TV at home and you hit and I can't really say if you hit the little button that says TV plus right there yeah they'll send every TCL TV I love it the the other way is Fountain City Pro.com Fountain City Pro.com you can purchase your tickets there you can also access the YouTube to watch the previous events you can also access our Discord and then of course our social medias very very active on social media no matter if we're posting match announcements or sharing you know sharing post statuses from other wrestlers that are booked on the show promos etc so very very active on the on the Facebook and social media side but definitely Fountain City Pro.com okay excellent and I'm looking forward to going to the event I was out of town the other two shows but definitely will be attending this one and it is coming up it's it's coming up real soon here yes it's next Friday yeah next Friday if I can get one of the graphics works there we go there you go the Black Diamond himself Luke Langley but coming up Friday July 12th at the Ball Events Center in Olathe easy to get to Bell time in the spirit of the Superstation WTBS at 705 that is correct that is correct huge shout out to my guys at the ball event center you know the the ball event center is kind of like a conference center and wedding venue if you will so obviously searching for a venue to do pro wrestling it was a little bit of a struggle you know it's always it's always really nice feeling to get those people that are like oh my gosh yes we're super interested and then they're like wait what did you say pro wrestling yeah oh sorry that our phone is our phone is a losing signal and that's one of the hardest parts of it is to find a place to have your shows that was one of the challenge with future stars of wrestling and they ended up just buying their own facility they have their own basically TV studio just a little bit outside of a little bit off the strip in paradise yes and and the other great thing about it is you know a lot of been to hundreds possibly thousands of wrestling events Gerald and one of my biggest biggest things that I'm happy with about the ball event center and what we have with them it's indoors it's air conditioning yeah also no folding steel chairs we have we have conference we have conference chairs with adding on the back and they go in the in the bottom of them so it it's like said it cannot say enough great things about them they have been super super beneficial to help get this going and we've not an official or well it is an official capacity I apologize we have officially signed on for five more dates in 2025 with them right so like I said ball the ball event center will be the main home of Fountain City Pro we may do some special events here there without giving away too much we have an opportunity to for a little bit of Kansas City wrestling nostalgia go to a certain place that used to hold wrestling events but the ball event center is the official home of Fountain City that's great I mean that's that's a huge part of it and yeah building up that tradition gonna have the Fountain City Pro champion coming up soon get a chance to see a couple of championship tournament matches so by all means go ahead and check them out they're easy to find on all the social media Fountain City Pro and you can go ahead and get a couple of tickets and head out to and justice for all Friday July 12th have the holiday week and get caught up on forbidden door caught up on money in the bank and then dive in to that Kansas City wrestling community Kansas City wrestling scene at and justice for all nice quick family entertainment on Friday July 12th right there in Atlanta Chase thanks for joining us here from Fountain City and we're looking forward to showing Fountain City on wrestling spotlight as well so by all means stay tuned here all holiday weekend July 4th the extended weekend starting on Wednesday night you can check out a bunch of quality pro wrestling and stay tuned here we're gonna take a look and preview money in the bank as well your WWE premium live event coming up this holiday weekend for Chase I'm I'm Gerald Bentley. Thanks for joining us here on Wrestling Spotlight.