During a recent interview with The Chicago Tribune, Billy Corgan discussed his plans for the NWA, nearly getting out of the pro wrestling industry following the TNA debacle and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On almost getting out of the pro wrestling business after the TNA debacle: “The way the whole TNA thing went down, I felt pretty strongly there for a while there that maybe I should just get out of the business. Like the music business, there’s a lot of people in the wrestling business that aren’t really interested in the business moving forward. Their interest is self-interest. Which is fine, that’s capitalism. When you try to be a figure in wrestling that’s actually moving the product forward out of love and good business acumen, you face a lot of strange political forces that are more about fiefdoms and the way things used to be and all kinds of weirdness that goes on.”
On the pro wrestling industry not appealing to mainstream fans: “Wrestling has become kind of more insular and I think that’s hurt the business overall. Now to somebody who’s more of a hardcore fan, you could argue they’re getting more of what they want. But I would certainly argue that it’s hurt wrestling overall with the general mainstream fans.”
On trying to have the NWA target younger fans: “We are going to target the general fan. Wrestling needs to get younger in terms of the audience it’s after. I think wrestling as a business a lot of times kind of shrugs its shoulders how they track the 15- to 25-year-olds. I would argue if you can’t do that, you’re not going to have much of a future anyway.”
