The SmarK Rant for “A Future WWE: The FCW Story”

The SmarK Rant for A Future WWE: The FCW Story

Hi from the past! I’m putting a few shows “in the can” for later posting when I need content, and this is one of them. So if you’re reading this after the coronavirus has wiped out the human race, hopefully it won’t affect my ad revenue too badly. I am enjoying reviewing these documentary shows, I will say, because it’s much less stressful than trying to type up match recaps as they happen and editing in jokes on the fly.

Steve Keirn (who is looking pretty far from his Fabulous Ones prime at this point) takes us through a brief history of Florida wrestling and his own experiences as a teenager, hanging out with wrestlers at Eddie Graham’s promotions and driving the Funks around. Then of course he became a “Chippendale’s dancer” before transitioning to “homeless alligator poacher” and finally backup clown. With his career winding down, he wanted to become a teacher and went to Johnny Ace looking to open up a developmental system in Tampa. John thought it was a great idea because they could close OVW out in the middle of nowhere and move everyone to Tampa instead. Some people didn’t want to move, but “business is business” as they say. Laurinaitis clarifies that they didn’t own FCW, but they paid them to train WWE wrestlers and Steve Keirn was in charge.

So they closed Deep South and all the talent was kind of left floating around with nowhere to go, but FCW didn’t actually have a building yet, so they put a ring in a batting cage and this obviously wasn’t going to work. Next up, they tried a grocery store’s warehouse that was half empty, so they set up two rings and sat on pallets of canned goods. Keirn had to handle all the permits and money and the local authorities kept trying to add on more fees and screw him over.

Next up, they needed trainers, so they recruited Billy Kidman, Norman Smiley and Joey Mercury. And of course Dusty Rhodes was hired to teach promos. This leads to a series of test promos from guys like Sheamus, Bad News Barrett, Kofi Kingston and Drew McIntyre. Seth Rollins talks about finally arriving in WWE and showing up at a converted warehouse with boring “FCW” logo on the side and going “Huh, the big leagues.” Charlotte (who looks even more plastic here) filled out a form asking who she knew in the business and she put “Pops”. Norman Smiley clarified for her later that she probably should have put an actual name instead.

Curt Hawkins talks about getting a big push with Edge and then basically losing his job, so he chose to go to Florida and take the work. Drew McIntyre was so green that he didn’t know where the hard camera was. Oh man, that should have been the kiss of death for his career right there! The trainees talk about Dr. Tom helping them with psychology and weeding out the people who had the passion and those who didn’t.

The trainees discuss the brutal 115 degree heat with no air conditioning (because Keirn didn’t want to pay for AC) and also they thought it would help with conditioning for the guys. And then Tom would come up with brutal drills to weed out those who didn’t want it, including 60 minute practice matches. Just in case you ever need to do one on TV. This leads to a funny story where Tom made Heath Slater work a broadway with him, but then broke his ankle taking a backdrop 8 minutes in and then finished the match anyway just to spite the blown up Heath.

Next up, they discuss coming up with gimmicks and names and how picky the TV producers were. Dusty loved the name “Seth Rollins” so naturally that one got the pick. Big E got his name because his real first name was too hard to pronounce for most people so everyone just called him “Big E”. This leads to a discussion of promo class, which Dusty called “communication skills” because it sounded classier. Dusty was pretty harsh on the kids at the beginning because he didn’t really know how to let go of his own ego and mentor the trainees. But he would at least tell you exactly why your promo sucked and what you needed to do to improve it. Even if he was brutally honest about it.

This gives us a montage of goofy promos from various FCW guys and some of the really bad ones that everyone loved to follow because they were such stinkers. One guy named Nick Rogers would do the same promo week after week with the same lines and same delivery. WITHOUT EVEN BREAKING A SWEAT! On the flip side, Bray Wyatt used the experience to completely reinvent himself week after week while creating that character. And now he’s whatever he is now. The promos here are clearly the best part of this documentary.

Onto the Bella Twins, who had some heat from the other talent coming in from the Diva Search, so they struck a deal with Nattie to trade fashion advice for wrestling lessons. The other women wanted to be seen as different from the models and bathing suit competitors on the main roster at the time.

And of course there was a ton of second generation stars, like Leakee, Wes Brisco, Joe Hennig and Charlotte. Wes in particular wanted it really badly, but he got hurt and left the business. And of course that brings us to Richie Steamboat, who should have been gigantic but he couldn’t get out of his dad’s shadow and then he got hurt and never made it back. Gerry Brisco doesn’t think he had the passion anyway.

We get footage of their first house shows at a crappy bar called Bourbon Street, which held maybe 100 people and left them stinking of cigarettes and god knows what else. Steve Keirn ran the camera himself to save money, and then he could use the footage to teach the talent afterwards. They had to break down the rings themselves and clean the arenas. The trainees list off the random crappy Florida towns they would book because those were the only places they could get ring time. So they got dispatched to go put up posters on telephone poles (illegally!) and if you got caught you had to pay a ticket. Thankfully Keirn had legal connections in Florida and talked his way out of it. Baron Corbin is actually pretty likeable here, I should point out. Not sure why they couldn’t just let him have this personality on TV. Next up, a montage of their photos in the programs, where they’d get ambushed with a green screen in the office and had to do goofy poses, like Seth Rollins on a motorcycle. Heath loved it, he was a red headed Fabio!

The TV show was only aired locally in Florida because they wanted to develop characters and didn’t want them exposed before they were ready. They had cheap admission and cheap concessions just to get fans into the warehouse for the tapings, with Keirn running the concession himself when needed. The trainees talk about how isolated from the main company they felt down there. Corey Graves relates it to the claw machine in Toy Story coming down and plucking guys at random. And then NXT 1.0 happened and they started getting called up left and right. Meanwhile, Seth Rollins was frustrated because he had been ROH World champion and he was stuck in Florida while the twins and Nexus guys got the call, and he started getting heat from the office for his attitude and was close to getting fired as a result.

And then in 2013, FCW was abruptly shut down and the NXT Performance Center system was created with HHH in charge. The idea became training wrestlers, but also cameramen and directors and everything else associated with the company. Plus, you know, air conditioning. Dusty and Dr. Tom moved to Orlando, but Steve Keirn took a pass on relocating and ended his relationship with WWE.

And finally, we visit the FCW warehouse today, which is now a bouncy castle playground. And everyone wraps it up with their memories of training there. Seth even namedrops Juice Robinson!

What a wonderful little laid-back documentary full of people just being themselves and no bullshit agenda behind it. It’s not vital viewing but if you’re looking for something different and interesting to watch, give it a look.

Now why is there no FCW TV on the Network for me to review?!?