Billy Corgan purchased the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) in 2017 at a time when its name value couldn't have been lower.
The Smashing Pumpkins frontman had been exploring his pro wrestling passion for decades but there were many who questioned his decision to buy the NWA rather than start a fresh promotion.
Corgan was even told he had bought 'three worthless letters' at the time of his purchase. Now, five years on, Corgan is preparing to celebrate the NWA's 74th anniversary with a huge two-night show at the historic Chase Park Plaza Royal in St. Louis.
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Speaking exclusively to Digital Spy, Corgan shared how he rebuilt the NWA to fit into the modern wrestling landscape, without banking on nostalgia.
"When I first bought the NWA, because I'm a little bit older, I'd grown up with the NWA, I thought the NWA name would mean more to the general public," Corgan explained.
"But unfortunately, the past 20 years of the NWA had kind of convinced people that the NWA didn't have a future, the NWA was still around but it didn't have a future.
"So nostalgia really didn't carry much at all. So we had to learn, what is the NWA in 2022? And, of course, we'd seen the rise of independent wrestling across the world and most notably the rise of that through the Being The Elite series that culminated in AEW now being so successful.
"So I think what's incumbent upon the NWA is to carve out a territory, which is wholly its own and what was strange to me about the journey was, I didn't necessarily think I would circle back to the NWA style," he continued.
"I thought maybe I would be able to circle back to the NWA's historical place but I've circled back to what I would call a more traditional wrestling style which is actually also very based in the UK style – more rough, more rugged, and more tough.
"So I think we've circled back around in a very circuitous way, to the fact that the NWA is really going to be representative of the toughest standard in professional wrestling and as we move forward, I think you'll see that more and more."
Corgan launched NWA Powerrr on YouTube in October 2019 and the show quickly grew a large fanbase but the Covid-19 pandemic put a halt to the NWA's momentum, forcing the company to go on hiatus for a number of months.
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So did Corgan ever consider shutting down completely? "I thought long and hard about not bringing it back," he admitted. "Not because I didn't care. It's just very difficult for me between my musical life and my wrestling life.
"And so, the advantage of all that time being down was, it allowed me a lot of time to really think: 'Okay, well, what do I want to do here? If it's really down to me, if I have to choose between music and wrestling or my personal life and wrestling, what is the commitment level that I'm going to have?'
"And the positive side that came out of it was: 'No I really, really want to do this, this is really important to me, this is probably even more important to me than I thought it was.'
"That time allowed me the chance to really think it through so that, when I came back and I brought it back, I reorganised the company, I got way, way more involved on a daily level than I'd been before and I think you can see the results of that, not just my own participation but getting other people involved behind the scenes, and I think that's really been critical," he continued.
"So, in a weird way, taking a step backwards, taking a moment to breathe, because producing weekly television can be exhausting, but it has really allowed me the focus that I needed to bring it forward.
"As much as I don't like that time and having to shut down, I really think it was probably the best thing that could happen to us, because making that commitment has been everything for us."
Now, five years on from his purchase of those three letters, how does Corgan feel about being the one who put the NWA back on the wrestling map and back in the conversation in 2022?
"Personally, I feel a lot of pride about it," Corgan said. "I grew up with AWA, NWA, WWA, being from Chicago, so that physical style, that's the style that I grew up on.
"So to not only lead the NWA but to bring that style back into the mainstream conversation, in essence to create a very competitive contrast to what is very currently trendy in professional wrestling, that means a lot to me.
"The fact that I get a lot of feedback from the wrestling talent behind the scenes who aren't in the NWA but really enjoy the product because that's what they're attracted to, even though they might wrestle for a company that doesn't necessarily feature that style, that means a lot to me.
"But more importantly I would point out to anybody that the NWA is just getting started in its new modern era. We're still rebuilding something which, as Jim Cornette pointed out, was completely broken.
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"So to take something literally off the ground and dust it off and get it back to where it has respectability, it has credibility, we can run pay-per-views that people will discuss and talk about and the results do matter, that is super important in today's wrestling ecosystem.
"The fact that we're still here and we're still fighting and we're still growing and now we're about to put on our biggest shows ever, I think that says something about everybody involved, not just myself," he added.
"I've been able to enlist people who believe in the vision of the NWA and believe the NWA really does have a future and I feel like I'm at a point now where I can start talking about what that future actually looks like.
"It's not just about, can we make it to the next year? Certainly the pandemic was very tough to navigate for me but beyond that, I think we've done great.
"We're still here, we're still fighting and that's what you would want from any kind of babyface, right? You want them to fight out from underneath. We're still kicking out, you know."
Catch NWA POWERRR on Tuesdays and NWA USA, Saturdays on FITE with an NWA All Access Subscription. NWA 74 airs August 27 and 28 on FITE. You can also catch up on NWA on their YouTube channel.
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