OTT Wrestling creator and owner Joe Cabray spoke with Post Wrestling’s Andrew Thompson to talk about the state of the company following the cancellation of ScapperMania 6 due to COVID-19, as well as the generous donation made to the promotion by AEW world champion Jon Moxley. Highlights are below.
Says ScrapperMania 6 being canceled nearly put OTT out of business:
“Yeah it was crazy because I remember that week leading up to it, I remember saying to some friends, ‘I don’t know, there might be a chance I might have to cancel this show.’ But it was just amazing inside a week as to how rapid it all just grew and as I said, the week previously, I was saying, ‘I might have to cancel.’ In my own mind, I didn’t really believe it, but it just escalated so, so fast that we just had no other choice. The safety of everybody was the priority I suppose but yeah, it was such a killer. When you’ve booked all the hotels, the venue, flights, the security, you put so much money into advertising and it all — and we also had an amazing hype video as well that kind of just went to the side and yeah, it was a massive blow but at the same point, I was completely overwhelmed by the response. I think there were so many people that thought that this might be something that could sink OTT and it could’ve, but fans setting up GoFundMe’s and all that and we had an out pour of fans just buying merchandise and its really helped us survive this pandemic.”
On AEW world champion Jon Moxley making a large donation:
“Yeah, just amazing. That’s what I’m saying. I was saying from the fans’ point of view just how overwhelming its been but when you see somebody like Moxley kinda reaching out as well, just amazing. We did lose a lot of international flights as well but, to see him as well support independent wrestling as well, again, just shows that he’s a top, top guy.”
OTT planning to run the National Stadium in October/wanting to run a few shows before that October date:
“So, our issue as well is that we lost our training school as well to this pandemic, which was another massive hit so, kind of our priority right now is looking to getting the school back open and running, and then just kind of seeing — again, in a time of uncertainty, just seeing what kind of restrictions are gonna be put into place, is it going to be valuable to run the National Stadium? I’m very hopeful that it will be, but safety for the fans and our performers and staff is the priority but, it’s just waiting to see what the landscape will be around October. It’s even hard to put tickets on sale because you don’t know what kind of social distance will be required in venues at that time so, it’s just a wait and see but I’m really, really hopeful that we will be back in October and if it is possible, I’d like to come back before October if [it’s] possible and safe.”
Full interview is below.