SuperKick ready to burst onto scene with debut show
There are hundreds of wrestling promotions — big and small — throughout the world.
Aside from finances, one thing that prevents smaller promotions from being larger promotions is finding a way to create its own niche within the market place.
There is only one WWE and any promotion that tries to follow that model will finish second at best to the sports entertainment juggernaut.
The reason why promotions such as New Japan Pro-Wrestling and Ring of Honor have the dedicated followings they have is because they all present something either slightly or very different from what most casual wrestling fans see on Monday nights. There are numerous others that follow that same mindset.
Even though it is not a typical wrestling promotion, even Lucha Underground has garnered quite the following because it has its own unique space within the professional wrestling landscape.
That landscape is quite crowded, but Alex Abrahantes and his production team are trying to carve out yet another space in it with SuperKick.
What is SuperKick?
In this context it is not the move the Young Bucks and many others do on a nightly basis. It is also not is a wrestling promotion. It has the qualities of a wrestling promotion in the sense that fans can buy tickets to see a show that is based around wrestling, but according to Abrahantes, it is not even a wrestling show.
Abrahantes envisions SuperKick to be a theatrical production where fans of professional wrestling and fans of live theatrical productions can sit down in the same audience and enjoy the same interactive experience.
For some, that may be hard to wrap your head around, but on Saturday, April 16, at the House of Independents in Asbury Park, N.J., Abrahantes' vision will come to life with SuperKick's debut offering.
(For more info on the event, visit SuperKick's web site HERE.)
"We really saw an opportunity to create something new and different for a mainstream audience and not just our typical demographic," Abrahantes said during an interview with philly.com. "We began brainstorming and this concept of SuperKick came to be, where it's not just another professional wrestling promotion, it's not a wrestling company per se. It really is a theatrical Lucha performance and production."
What drives Abrahantes to attempt to build something brand new from scratch in the world of wrestling? Well, he has been around many forms of it over the course of his 20 years in the wrestling business.
Once upon a time, Abrahantes trained to be a wrestler himself in Calgary with the famous Hart family in their school dubbed "the dungeon."
He has since worked for multiple wrestling promotions, including TNA and Lucha Libre USA and is now the Spanish play-by-play announcer for Ring of Honor.
"It is a lot of work," he said. "Starting something from scratch is always a lot of work and it becomes easier as you go along and do it. Fortunately, we've had the experience with Lucha Libre USA where we created a brand pretty much from scratch."
Starting from scratch is something every promotion does at some point, but Abrahantes is starting SuperKick with a completely blank canvas. That means starting the promotion with original characters and an original story.
"We're looking at building a complete package from not only the entertainment side, but the in-ring work as well," he said. "You could certainly expect to see incredible action, not people that have just started out and matches that aren't really that good."
Abrahantes will seek experienced talent to portray the characters that are in the SuperKick story, but will not rely big names just for the sake of selling tickets. Some fans may recognize the talent playing the character, but Abrahantes does not want to divulge who is involved with production just yet. He wants fans to go to the show and find out.
"It's so much more fun when you can create a character that's larger than life than just another wrestler that's wearing generic tights and boots and has to go out there and win over the crowd," Abrahantes said. "Automatically, when you step through the curtain and you're dressed a certain way and you've got perhaps a gimmick that people can immediately identify with, that's already half the battle."
As far as the story behind SuperKick, it is about a third-generation promoter that yearns to step out from under his father's shadow. Thus, he begins his own Lucha Libre promotion. According to Abrahantes, everything the fans will see April 16 will revolve around that main storyline.
"Every match has a purpose, every match has a meaning," he said. "All of the talent that are involved are characters that have been created for the Superkick world and all of them have a meaning and purpose for the story, where that's not necessarily the case in predominantly all of the wrestling companies."
With any new endeavor, Abrahantes expects growing pains, which is why he and his team want to do things one step at a time. There is no rush. The first step is putting quality productions that fans of all demographics can enjoy. From there, expansion may be considered.
Part of that expansion is taking the show on the road and finalizing ways to distribute the product. Abrahantes said that his team is currently having talks about distribution models and is finalizing a deal to take the show to Atlanta at some point this year.
However, he stressed that he wants to focus on SuperKick planting its flag in Asbury Park, N.J. and entertaining the fans that see the show April 16.
That night will be the first and most important t test for SuperKick. Will it live it live up to what Abrahantes envisions it to be or will it fall in line with all of the other products that involve wrestling?
Time will tell.
"We want people to go there and expect the unexpected and know that they're going to walk out of there having a great time regardless of whether they like wrestling, whether they don't like wrestling, whether they've never seen wrestling," Abrahantes said. "It's really a show that anybody can have a great time at."
(Video courtesy of SuperKick on YouTube)