Thoughts on Beyond Wrestling/Women Superstars Uncensored

WSU's New Logo. Pretty sharp.

When it was announced on June 16th that Drew Cordeiro, the owner of Beyond Wrestling, had purchased Women Superstars Uncensored, there were mostly two reactions. The first one, for those who knew of Beyond, was fairly positive. The second, for those who did not (like me), was mostly confusion. As in, "What is Beyond Wrestling?" Given that former owner Sean McCaffrey had said that a "big name Indy promotion" had bought WSU, the fact that a lot of fans didn't know who or what Beyond was said something. When someone says "big name Indy promotion" you might think of CHIKARA, Anarchy Championship Wrestling or EVOLVE. As for myself, I was skeptical.

After doing some research, I realised that the name did ring a bell - the promotion often has inter-gender wrestling matches. Hailey Hatred and Veda Scott both wrestled there. But the premise was unusual. Starting up in 2009, the shows weren't open to the public. The wrestlers had matches in front of other wrestlers. Their website name showcased this: lookmanofans.com. It was only in July of 2011 did they have their first show that was open to the public. It was a double header with another promotion, Inter-Species Wrestling, called "About Time."  Since then all their shows (with the exception of "Tournament for Tomorrow") have been open. In fact, it was during a show they were running together with St. Louis Anarchy that the purchase of WSU was announced.

So, what to make of this development? From their past results, there's some notable names that compete for Beyond, such as Sugar Dunkerton, RD Evans, Pinkie Sanchez and, as mentioned above, Hailey Hatred and Veda Scott. Their events are shot in High Definition which makes for great viewing. They have a solid online presence with Twitter, Facebook and a popular YouTube channel that is fifth behind TNA, WWE, New Japan Pro Wrestling and ROH in the amount of subscribers. The owner, Mr. Cordeiro, is very willing and able to answer any and all questions from fans, and he comes across very well spoken, friendly and, above all, passionate.

Here's links to the most recent interviews he's done after the WSU purchase:

He speaks to the Ringbelles crew as half of the latest Women of Wrestling podcast (in a double shot with Pro-Wrestling EVE Champion, Alpha Female):

http://ringbellesonline.com/2012/06/29/wow-podcast-42-with-alpha-female-and-new-wsu-promoter-drew-cordeiro/

Here, Drew speaks with Leslie Lee of DirtyDirtySheets.com and Thomas Holzerman of "The Wrestling Blog":

http://wallsofjerichoholic.blogspot.com/2012/07/one-where-leslie-lee-and-i-interview.html

As a bonus, here's a written interview he did with DirtyDirtySheets.com prior to the WSU purchase:

http://www.dirtydirtysheets.com/2012/06/12/drew-cordeiro-the-dirty-dirty-sheets-interview/

And lastly, here's one with the trio of Shining Wizards:

http://shiningwizards.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/call-time-4/

What really stood out to me was his excitement and his conviction that gender really doesn't mean anything in wrestling. He sounded genuinely enthusiastic about the future of WSU, wanting them to be bigger and better. I've heard people deride promoters for being fans of wrestling, but honestly how can you be in wrestling and not a fan? Drew sounds like a fan and I think that's a good thing.

I heard him describe the "Tournament for Tomorrow" and it's a great concept. Basically you gather together a group of wrestlers who are fairly unknown and have them compete in a tournament to see who is the best. The matches are put online for free, thereby giving the competitors more exposure to fans. In November, the tournament will be inter-gender: 8 men versus 8 women. We can probably expect that some of the WSU women will be involved, which would be a great opportunity for them.

Some of the perks named in the aforementioned interviews were that a new website for WSU is coming (which this is a huge improvement, given that the old one was incredibly difficult to navigate and downright confusing); they will be working with SmartMarkVideo.com which is one of the best websites out there as far as DVD and Video On Demand services are concerned, and in the future WSU events will be available for VOD. They will also be shot in High Definition, as all of Beyond's events are shot. Given that a large complaint with WSU was the low production values, this is great news. It was often difficult to make out what was happening with camera angles that were off and bad lighting in the arena.

Two quotes stood out for me. One was when Drew said, "I think that there should be one standard, and that should be based on good wrestling." He talks about how people have different standards for men and women in wrestling and disagrees with that. I fully agree with him. Great wrestlers like Sara Del Rey, LuFisto, and Mercedes Martinez weren't trained to be women wrestlers - they were trained to be wrestlers, period. That's partly why they are so highly regarded. They go out and wrestle. He wants to raise WSU to that level, where no one can say that the women therein are good "for women" - he wants people to say that they're good, period.

The second quote was, "People are adverse to change." This is so true, in wrestling as much as anywhere else. When the news hit that Beyond had bought WSU, a lot of the die hard fans panicked. Even before any details were announced, you read things such as, "They're going to be family friendly!" (Like that's a bad thing?); "This sucks, they're going to change everything that makes WSU great."; "Oh man I know they're going to move the shows so that they're in Massachusetts and not in Jersey!"; and so on. I was hesitant but only because I wasn't sure of who/what Beyond was, but I didn't panic. I sat back and waited to see what Drew would say.

Sure enough, listening to the above interviews, I found Drew to come across as an intelligent, well spoken, passionate person. He has clear goals he wants to achieve with WSU, and all of them worthy goals. What I liked most though was that he made it clear he doesn't want to be combative with other promoters/promotions. He told Leslie and Thomas that he would love to work with women from other countries, like Japan. He had nothing but good things to say about SHIMMER, Femmes Fatales, etc. He seems very open to working with others. Given how the former owner, Sean, was to lashing out in public towards other promotions, the fact that Drew is going in the opposite direction is a breath of fresh air.

Seeing as how he is open to taking suggestions from fans, I would like to offer a few myself.

1) Follow through with being willing to work together with other promotions. One thing that really turned me off of Sean was his disregard for remaining professional in public. I'm sure people in wrestling have their private feuds and disagreements but they should remain just that, private. Plus, in his "Farewell Address" he said that everyone does need to work together - then proceeded to take shots at SHIMMER, SHINE, Anarchy Championship Wrestling and even a small dig at the promotion WSU is working with, Femmes Fatales. You very rarely hear Dave Prazak or Stephane Bruyere speak in public about other promotions, let alone speak negatively. I would encourage Drew to follow their example, not Sean's. If there's a disagreement, talk about it in private. Don't air dirty laundry. As a fan, I want to support every promotion that respects women as wrestlers and gives them the opportunity to showcase what they can do in a respectable manner. I don't need or want to know about the politics or the negativity. It turns me off and looks unprofessional to me. Given the fact that WSU, SHIMMER, SHINE, ACW, FF, etc all run in different areas of the country, they aren't direct competition (and they rarely run shows on the same days). So please, do work together.

2) Up the production. Of course, you've already said you're going to do this, so this isn't a problem. This is a huge reason why I haven't bought any of the DVDs, because their production values are so low it's not worth the money. The iPPVs have been iffy, with sound/picture issues and sometimes the camera people not catching big spots. Given the good quality of Beyond events that I've seen online, I'm sure production will be much, much better in the future.

3) Tone down the cussing. Seriously. I know it's Women Superstars Uncensored, but how many times do we need Amy Lee out there using "cunt" "bitch" "ho" and other words? Words have power, and I've heard and seen several great promos that either used no curse words or used one - and that one had a maximum impact. It's like on Impact Wrestling, the Knockouts have regularly called each other "whores" and at first it had an impact (no pun intended) but now it comes across as crass and unnecessary. It gets to be too much, so if Amy Lee is going to continue on in any capacity, I would really like to see the language toned down. That also goes for Annie Social, she curses as much as Amy.

4) Fresh blood. WSU has a good roster, but the under card is a bit underwhelming. Leva Bates had a great showing on the 6/16 iPPV, showing she's much more than a character but is becoming a really good wrestler as well. She would be a good permanent addition. Scout some talent from the east coast, if not from all over, and if cost can be negotiated bring them in. Mia Svensson, Su Yung, Mia Yim, Kimberly (WXW) - there's plenty of women who would be great additions to the roster. Avoid bringing in former Divas or Knockouts, as the price is usually high and it would be better long term to have someone who wants the opportunity to prove herself and stick around rather than a one off appearance.


Personally, I'm excited to see what will happen to WSU under new management. I'm very willing to pay to support a product that deserves it, and there's a lot of women that are already in WSU that deserve our support, but there are changes that do need to be made. Going forward, I along with other fans will be watching to see what happens. I wish Drew nothing but the best - here's hoping for bigger and better things for WSU and their roster!