Some of the more popular wrestlers from the pre-1990s World
Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling days are coming together for an
October pay-per-view event.
If successful, the Oct. 10 The Heroes of Wrestling
event could spur a series of PPV events similar to the current crop of wrestling
organizations, PPV executives said.
The show will include wrestlers from the 1970s and 1980s
such as King Kong Bundy, Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka, George "The Animal"
Steele, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, The Bushwackers, Captain Lou Albano and Greg
"The Hammer" Valentine, Fosstone Productions president Bill Stone said.
Fosstone will produce and distribute the event, which will
retail at $19.95.
"There are a lot of guys who made wrestling popular
years ago and who weren't getting any credit for it," Stone said. "We wanted to
create an event for people to see the people who made wrestling what it is today.
Fosstone is hoping to capitalize on the enormous success of professional wrestling.
Through the first half of 1999, the genre has generated more than $140 million in PPV
revenues, representing 53 percent of all PPV-event revenues, according to a Showtime Event
Television report.
Stone said the company is hoping to generate a 0.1 or 0.2
percent buy-rate for the event. If it proves successful, Fosstone may offer several
similar shows in 2000, as well as a possible weekly cable show similar to the WWF, WCW and
Extreme Championship Wrestling organizations.
"We feel that this has serious potential, and we would
look to do several of these next year," Stone said. "Wrestling is so popular now
that we felt this was an opportunity to do a quality show at a reasonable price point,
featuring wrestlers who people are familiar with."
Along with significant cable promotion, Stone said, the
event will be marketed heavily on several wrestling Internet sites. He added that recent
research shows that more than 12 million wrestling fans access at least one wrestling Web
site per day.
"Between the Internet and the efforts of the cable
operators, we should be able to build awareness for the event," he said.
