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Professional Wrestling League


bluechipper

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I was bored on this fine Sunday, so I created a fantasy digest for a professional wrestling league. I understand that this probably wouldn't happen (at least any time soon) and it would take a near half-billion dollars to responsibly allocate resources, but with all of that aside, I just want to hear some responses on whether or not you would watch and/or invest in this league. Feel free to offer any other ideas. Just wondering what others would think about this.

American Premier League (APL)

“To breed competition and provide our fans and communities with the ultimate entertainment experience, and to do so in a way that is consistent with our values.”

American Premier League

 

Sport

Folkstyle wrestling

Founded

August 20, 20xx

Inaugural season

20xx

Commissioner

TBD

No. of teams

32

Country

United States

Headquarters

New York City

Most recent
champion(s)

 

Most titles

 

TV partner(s)

CBS
Fox
NBC
ESPN
APL Access
Telemundo

Official website

www.apl.com

 

American Premier League (APL) is a professional wrestling organization consisting of thirty-two teams divided equally between the National Wrestling Conference (NWC) and the American Pro Conference (APC). The APL is the newest of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada, and is the highest professional level of Folkstyle wrestling in the world. The APL’s 17-week regular season runs from mid-October to late February, with each team wrestling 16 duals with one bye week. Following the conclusion of the regular season, the postseason begins with an individual tournament series to determine the weight class champion, which runs concurrent to the team tournament series that will conclude with the World Finals to determine the overall team champion. The APL is governed by the Universal Federation for Professional Athletes, whose focus is to ensure the safety and fairness amongst teams and wrestlers.

Weight classes

The Universal Federation for Professional Athletes is the organization that regulates the APL. The UFPA has set 12 main weight classes that are currently open to professional competition, ranging from 118 lbs. to heavyweight, which is set at 285 lbs. A wrestler may go up or down from a weight at the start of the postseason if he has recorded at least four weigh-ins of the new weight during the regular season. On the day of a meet, a wrestler may only go up one weight from the weight class he has weighed in at. (Ex: Wrestler normally wrestles 134 lbs., but plans to wrestle 148 for dual, must weigh in at 142 or 148 to be able to wrestle that weight.) Only two wrestlers can weigh in per weight for a team.

118 – 126 – 134 – 142 – 148 – 155 – 163 – 170 – 184 – 197 – 235 – 285

Teams

The APL consists of 32 clubs divided into two conferences of 16 teams in each. Each conference is divided into two divisions of eight clubs in each. During the regular season, each team is allowed a maximum of 36 wrestlers on its roster;[43] only 24 of these may be active (eligible to wrestle) on dual days. Each team can also have a 10-man practice squad separate from its main roster, but the practice squad may only be composed of players who were not active for at least nine duals in any of their seasons in the league. A wrestler can only be on a practice squad for a maximum of three seasons.

Season format

The APL season format consists of a four-week preseason, a seventeen-week regular season (each team wrestles 16 duals), and an eight-team single-elimination tournament culminating in the World Finals, the league's championship dual.

Preseason

The APL preseason begins with an intrasquad dual meet on each team to determine what wrestler will be awarded the starting job. Since a team is only allowed a maximum of three wrestlers per weight, a round-robin will be used by each team (privately) to determine the intrasquad competitors. Once the intrasquad meets conclude, the preseason continues the next week with a team competing in an exhibition dual against another team outside of their division. The third week of preseason will then see a team compete in an exhibition dual with a team who is in their division. The APL preseason will conclude with the Who’s #1 event to determine initial weight class rankings. A tournament committee will determine seeds based upon preseason record, head-to-head competition, and credentials (e.g.: Olympic, World, or NCAA champion).

Regular Season

The APL regular season is conducted over 17 weeks with sixteen duals and a bye week. Each team will compete in eight conference and non-conference duals, with at least four duals coming from their own division.

Postseason

The APL postseason begins with the individual tournament series to determine the official champion for each of the 12 weights.

Individual Tournament Series

Divisional Championship

The divisional championship tournament is an “all-in” format. Each wrestler from all 32 teams automatically qualify for their division tournament. The tournament has an 8-man bracket with full wrestlebacks with seeding criteria based upon having at least one match toward their record, winning percentage, actual record, at least one matches toward division record and head-to-head competition. Only the top four places will move on to the conference championship.

Conference Championship

The conference championship tournament takes the top four finishers from each of its divisions and places them in an 8-man bracket with full wrestlebacks. Wrestlers will be paired based upon finish in division tournament (e.g.: champion wrestles fourth place finisher, runner-up wrestles third place finisher). Only the top seven places will move on to the individual world finals.

World Finals

The world championship tournament takes the top seven finishers from each conference and aligns them in a 16-man bracket with full wrestlebacks, only the top four will place. The conference champions and runners-up automatically secure the top four seeds with the champions taking #1 and #2 and runners-up garnering #3 and #4. The conference champions receive an automatic first round bye and move directly into the quarterfinals. For placement, all bronze matches will be conducted at the same time across four mats in increments of four. (e.g.: 118-142, 148-170, 184-285) For championship bouts, an introduction ceremony will take place with wrestlers being brought out along with coaches. The matches will be wrestled under a spotlight and will be followed by a post-match interview, then awards.

Awards

-          Third and fourth place finishers will be introduced first, followed by runner-up, and then champion

-          Third and fourth place finishers will receive bronze medals and plaque along with team flag and coaches honored

-          Runner-up will receive a silver medal and plaque, along with team flag and coaches honored

-          Champion will receive a gold medal, championship belt, plaque, bouquet, and championship ring, along with team song played and coaches honored

Team Tournament Series

Divisional Championship

The divisional championship will be awarded to the team who holds the best record in their division. The top six teams in each division will move on to the conference championship.

Conference Championship

The conference championship takes the top six teams from each division and places them in a 12-man bracket with the top four seeds earning a first-round bye. The tournament is single-elimination and all semi-finalists will advance to the World Finals. Champions will toggle the #1 and #2 seeds in the world tournament. Semi-final losers will wrestle for third/fourth place to help determine match pairings.

World Finals

The APL team championship will take the top four teams from each conference and place them in an 8-man bracket with no wrestlebacks. The finals will be conducted under a spotlight with team and starting lineup introductions. The match will be followed by awards.

Awards

-          The runner-up team will be introduced first, championship team will follow

-          Runners-up will receive silver medals, a runner-up trophy, a plaque, along with their flag to be raised and coaches honored.

-          Champions will receive gold medals, a championship trophy, plaque, and rings, along with their flag to be raised, coaches honored, team song played, and a speech or tribute given by coaches and wrestlers.

Year-End Awards

Honors

-          All-APL Team

-          All-Conference Team

-          All-Division Team

-          All-Rookie Team

-          Iron League (compare to NFL Pro Bowl or MLB/NBA All-Star Team)

Individual Awards

-          APL Finals Most Valuable Wrestler (Cael Sanderson Trophy)

-          APL Mental Attitude Award

-          APL Most Valuable Wrestler (John Smith Trophy)

-          Citizenship Award (J’Den Cox Trophy)

-          Coach of the Year (Dan Gable Trophy)

-          Iron League Most Valuable Wrestler (Robin Reed Trophy)

-          Most Improved Wrestler

-          Rookie of the Year (Jordan Burroughs Trophy)

-          Sportsmanship Award

-          Teammate of the Year (Nittany Lion Trophy)

-          Lifetime Achievement Award (Dave Schultz Trophy)

 

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Holy Headgear Bluechipper!  You wrote and thought all that up?!

i like the concept quite a bit. Would you see olympians participating in this or only non-Olympic team members?  Folk style or freestyle?  Must be post college age, or could athletes Go straight to pro?

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Be awesome as I'm not a UFC fan or the fake crap fan either. Just not sure how realistic it is. Number of teams would be much less imo, but I'd love to be wrong. Have to find a way to market it and bring interest to the non-wrestling fans to become fans. I too have pondered how to get such a league to come to fruition while mixing Freestyle and GR with it. Also creating a 4th style called combined putting all 3 others into 1.

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16 minutes ago, gogoplata89 said:

Very cool, but why not just use the senior level weight classes? 

I think just because I was trying to offer some variation. I know everything gets smaller over time, but there’s always talk of the NCAA creating new weights, so I tried to offer that here so all sizes of wrestlers could be accommodated.

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11 minutes ago, base said:

Holy Headgear Bluechipper!  You wrote and thought all that up?!

i like the concept quite a bit. Would you see olympians participating in this or only non-Olympic team members?  Folk style or freestyle?  Must be post college age, or could athletes Go straight to pro?

When it appeared in my head, I was actually on Twitter looking at Kyle Dake’s poll asking how would fans want to see a pro wrestling league. I don’t know, I guess as a visionary, I thought that was the wrong thing to do and you give them what they want and tell them why they want it. I was looking at it like I would the NFL or NBA in that the entire world has wrestling, but we do it best in the United States with our own Folkstyle rules. We know we can be, at the very least, moderately successful internationally, but how well can we draw at home is the question. If Penn State can constantly sell out the Bryce Jordan Center, a 17,000+ seat multi-purpose arena, and the entire NCAA as a whole can sell out Madison Square Garden, I have some hope. Obviously, we would need to test a prototype, and it may need testing many times over, which is okay. Nothing is ever perfect the first time. For eligibility, my idea is that they must be a recent college graduate (I’m big on education), or at least 22 years of age with some senior level experience (2 years). Much like football and basketball, we can see potential prospects in high school, follow them through college, and be overjoyed when they’re drafted to the APL. I also was trying to keep it simple in that it’s essentially no different than what we do already. After high school or college season, wrestlers do freestyle and Greco to get better, or NBA stars join Team USA. It’s encouraged. The point is to breed competition within our own system and make it harder to win an APL title versus that of an Olympic title.

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18 minutes ago, casualwrestlingfan said:

Be awesome as I'm not a UFC fan or the fake crap fan either. Just not sure how realistic it is. Number of teams would be much less imo, but I'd love to be wrong. Have to find a way to market it and bring interest to the non-wrestling fans to become fans. I too have pondered how to get such a league to come to fruition while mixing Freestyle and GR with it. Also creating a 4th style called combined putting all 3 others into 1.

This is the whole marketing point right here. Your favorite UFC stars can only fight about three times a year, and the other “professional wrestling” isn’t real. The American people love some level of danger, but they also love finesse. A Greco-Roman highlight package was enough to get my friends into wrestling, so promoting our wrestlers’ impressive body control, strength, and unreal athletic ability would have to be a pivotal focus. As humans, we generally aren’t that receptive to change, so I thought if we keep it Folkstyle, people will respond better because it’s something they already know.

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4 minutes ago, bluechipper said:

This is the whole marketing point right here. Your favorite UFC stars can only fight about three times a year, and the other “professional wrestling” isn’t real. The American people love some level of danger, but they also love finesse. A Greco-Roman highlight package was enough to get my friends into wrestling, so promoting our wrestlers’ impressive body control, strength, and unreal athletic ability would have to be a pivotal focus. As humans, we generally aren’t that receptive to change, so I thought if we keep it Folkstyle, people will respond better because it’s something they already know.

Hope you are right. My biggest concern is that it becomes the Arena League compared to the NFL when talking about it vs UFC and etc. That's when it gets dicey. Think PA, OH, Iowa, and Oklahoma would be great starting locations. Make it a big time atmosphere somehow. Also maybe do it in the dead time of the sports year between June and September to attract more eyes and less competition.

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4 minutes ago, casualwrestlingfan said:

Hope you are right. My biggest concern is that it becomes the Arena League compared to the NFL when talking about it vs UFC and etc. That's when it gets dicey. Think PA, OH, Iowa, and Oklahoma would be great starting locations. Make it a big time atmosphere somehow. Also maybe do it in the dead time of the sports year between June and September to attract more eyes and less competition.

I think we have similar views on this. However, I had decided against a summer schedule because I didn’t want to eliminate or limit our international participation. That’s the time we would evaluate. On the cities, I definitely think we’d have to market the landmark locations. You hit most, but I would include Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, and New Jersey among others. We have to make wrestling a priority in order for others to watch.

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Some left out information:

A draft being held to ensure the league gets the top prospects. For those not draft eligible, an open tryout would be held for two weeks by each team according to their summer schedule for a spot on the roster. This would help those who didn’t compete in college or don’t have the most impressive international resumé. Sometimes, you just need an opportunity. So, this is that moment for those to try and shine. I also thought about the league hosting a combine much like Oak Park-River Forest’s stud combine when college coaches come watch the guys work to see how they train, their effort, where they are proficient, and where they need work. This would be the time wrestlers should network and familiarize themselves with the coaches and make themselves known.

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I love it......I would say that I think there is to many weight classes. Just thinking of time involved of programing and length of event (mostly TV). I would also take it to an odd number of weight classes making easier tie breaker criteria. I don't see the need in having wrestlers going to college to qualify. Some kids are just not good in school or fail out. Not giving them a chance to make a team could cause wrestling to lose quality wrestlers. I also don't see the need for the weight qualifying restrictions. The only reason they are in high school and college is to protect the organizations.

Otherwise, I think a lot of the top 20 college teams have a great or at least a good start to being able to create a pro-team and could help off set some or all of their team cost. I also think that it wouldn't be unrealistic to see some of the UFC/MMA gyms to sponsor teams to bring in better practice partners for their superstars.  It is really not that unrealistic of a situation because of the creation of club programs that some of these better colleges are building.  I think like you said that Folkstyle would have to be the option, even though I think it would be more beneficial if it was Freestyle for world competitions.

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