It's the biggest weekend of the year for WSU as on March 5th they hold their 4th Anniversary Show.  Mercedes Martinez defends her WSU World title against Serene Deeb and it's the WSU Hall of Fame ceremony with the late Luna Vachon being inducted alongside Ivory and April Hunter.

 

Here's an exclusive FF interview with the boss of WSU  Sean McCaffrey as he looks back at the last year, helps preview the 4th Anniversary show and the Hall of Fame ceremony and looks forward to the future.

 

 

I think WSU has progressed nicely. Every year you want to keep advancing. In 2010, we launched the WSU Uncensored program on Inasectv.com. We debuted on iPPV, which I believe will be the future format for all of indy wrestling, similar to the way DVDs are today. We had some excellent matches this year and I was impressed with the improvement of our undercard. I always pride WSU as being a place where you can see the best in the world with people like Mercedes Martinez, Alicia, Rain, Nikki Roxx, etc, the big names like Jazz, Kong, etc and a place where you can see the future stars of tomorrow like Brittney Savage,  Jessicka Havok, Sassy Stephanie, The Belles Saints etc. I think we made great strides and we were able to do it that made sense financially, which is why you see WSU run more female wrestling events than any other company today. We just got to keep moving forward and continue to prove that womens wrestling, not diva wrestling or custom wrestling, is the best way to display female professional wrestling.

 

For me personally, it's not even the defenses, it's the way she carries herself.  If you knew Mercedes 3, 5, 10 years ago, she's still the same person today. She does a lot for WSU, and helps a lot of the other wrestlers with their careers. She's not a selfish or egotistical champion at all, and that's what Mercedes Martinez is like outside the ring. Even if she knows she's helping people that could possibly surpass her, she just wants to see womens wrestling do well, and every womens promoter wishes they could have 10 Martinez's in their locker room. I'm grateful we have at least one.

 

As far as her matches, her series of matches with Rain, the Ironwoman match, main eventing the first ever WSU iPPV  with Jazz and her match with Alicia, really stood out to me as special matches.

 

I love this question because it is hard to answer which means WSU's future is shining really bright right now. Brittney Savage is a home-made WSU wrestler, and there's no stopping where she can go. Jessicka Havok, who started off as a tag team, could be the next Amazing Kong of womens wrestling within a 2 year time frame if you ask me. Sassy Stephanie, who only has 4 years in the business, is coming into her own. The Belle Saints, who don't even have two years in the business are coming a long nicely. I was also very impressed with the strides Athena and Niya have taken. Just thinking about it now, the potential amount of new main eventers is higher than it ever has been and I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out.

 

The online show, "WSU Uncensored" on inasectv has been huge in helping us develop matches and characters, where it creates a buzz where people want to see the DVDs and iPPVs to see how everything plays out.  Rob Sternberg does a phenomenal job with that show.

 

The move to iPPV is too early to see any big monetary gains as of now, as it lowers our DVD sales. However, it opens us up into wider markets and I always believe in wanting to see things live. Live is better than taped stuff. Not too many people watch old sports games over and over, and want to experience the unpredictable nature of sporting events live. That's what we're trying to do with the iPPV.

As I said before in this interview, I think iPPV will be the future of all of indy wrestling, where every indy group will be doing it down the road. WSU has always prided ourselves in being innovators and we're happy to be here at the ground floor and going up.

 

It spells trouble for anyone with a championship. I don't think Alicia will settle for anything less than the WSU World title, as that's always been her intention since returning to the company. Either Martinez or Serena will be looking at Alicia, in my opinion, before 3/5 comes to a close.

 

Luna was huge for WSU in our early days. I did a column about this on DOIWrestling.com. When I first started this company, my goal was to build around Alicia and start from there. However, I needed someone to make Alicia a bonafide star. When I called Luna up and told her my ideas, she was all for it. Luna and Alicia had a awesome match that got great reviews which created the buzz in our product. We weren't going to be a boring every-match-on-the-card is the same thing type of place. WSU was going to be a place where the girls could do anything they wanted, creativity would be encouraged and the focus on realism would be at an all-time high. Alicia & Luna tore the house down in front of 100 or so people live, but thousands have seen that match since. They brought attention to this company from day one

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From there, Luna and Amy Lee would destroy the Diva Killaz in a match that really got us a big buzz, whether for positive or negative reasons, as one of the Diva Killaz kicked Luna in the neck, which led to Luna showing the wrestling world why you never take advantage of your opponent in the ring.Two of WSU's most buzz-worthy moments from our initial year came from Luna Vachon. It's something I'll never forget, nor do I think the fans will forget.

 

April Hunter has been huge for womens wrestling, especially in the northeast area. Unfortunately, there wasn't a place like WSU when April was in her peak and tearing up the northeast circuit every weekend. April embodies what WSU is about - in your face and takes no crap from anyone. It's a privilege to honor her and her achievements, especially here in the northeast which allows a place like WSU to operate.

Ivory is one of the best of all time and always stuck true to her principles and morals. Womens wrestling is a tough business and while some girls will trade their ring gear for bras and panties, Ivory stayed true to herself. I really respect that. She was a great wrestler and maybe one day she'll be in that WSU ring, maybe sooner than we think...

 

 

I don't think it's tough to maintain a standard of main eventers. As a promoter, it's my job to bring the best out of people. What it does hurt is trying to do things long-term. We are not like other women companies that run 2 weekends a year and call it a day. We have been averaging 12-18 shows a year and we try to build matches from show-to-show. It's tough when you can't get everyone you want because of either WWE/TNA or just because of other promotions. Would the Rain/Martinez or Orsini/Martinez feuds mean as much if one of them abruptly got signed? Most likely not.

 

 

We will continue to follow course and continue to bring you the very best in womens wrestling.  One of my main goals, away from the ring this year, is to beefen up our production budget and present everything in HD. We just signed a deal with Highspots and a deal to bring WSU to retail chains in America. We are hoping with increased revenue, we can increase our production so WSU is smoother and cleaner to enjoy.

 

I'm really banking on our future stars to start coming into their own this year. There are plans to hopefully see 4-5 new people get opportunities where they can carry this company.  We will also be adding more veterans to help these young wrestlers develop faster and hopefully absorb some knowledge.

I just want to thank the fans for sticking with us. We have grown so much and it doesn't happen without the fan support and media support, such as  your magazine featuring us.