With PROGRESS Wresting’s next show “Gene Munny’s Daft Lad Emporium” less than a week away, the burning question on everyone’s lips is “Gene, what the heck is a Daft Lad Emporium?! So we decided to ask him…
Gene: What the heck is a “Daft Lad”?
I started calling people “Daft Lads” because they willingly accepted to become part of this show. This is not your traditional kind of wrestling show, so anyone willing to participate in it or even buy a ticket and attend this event is a Daft Lad in themselves. That’s it, these are all wrestlers, these are all the people, but, they are Daft Lads because they willing to be participants in this.
What is your Emporium all about? We know it’s at the Dome, Tufnell Park, but it’s not exactly built to be an Emporium?
It’s an emporium in as much as you can come and take a look at my menagerie of Daft Lads. And you can buy their support throughout the evening. This is my butcher’s shop of wrestlers and we have some absolute prime rib up for sale on the show.
So who are some of your ‘prime ribs’ then? There are some PROGRESS wrestlers on the show, but there are also, some people they may not of heard of, so can you enlighten us please?
Absolutely. We’ve got some of your PROGRESS mainstays, we’ve got your Man like Doris, Drilla Moloney, we’ve got Big Wozza Banks. This is a PROGRESS show and PROGRESS are paying for it, so it would be remiss of me not to invite my mates down. But, we do have some new faces joining us, we have Jack Bandicoot, who is a fantastic wrestler from Yorkshire, who’s just a barrel of energy who just needs a opportunity to showcase his abilities on a bigger platform. We’ve got two Japanese lads who I first saw at wXw who are going to be smashing each other apart (Fuminori Abe Vs. Shigehiro Irie) and not only that, we’ve got the absolutely terrible, loth-able Session Moth Martina who nobody wants there, but for reasons beyond my control, I’ve got to have her there.
Also, you have Dean Allmark on the show in a ‘King Of The Campshow’ match. What is that all about?
I love campshow wrestling and have since I was a cheeky lil bambino and nobody excels in that arena quite like Dean Allmark.
So I want to bring that exact vibe to a PROGRESS setting. Get your foam fingers out lads!
How did you get this past PROGRESS management? How did Gene Munny get his dream show?
I still don’t know the answer to that. I dropped them a concept, I was like “Hey yo! I’ve got this show, I think it’s really good.” Shy kids don’t get sweets and all that stuff, so I sent them a pdf with this is what I want to do and for some reason they said yes, despite it being the least PROGRESS show there has ever been.
How have you brought this altogether, have you had to organise the whole thing yourself?
I’ve had to organise a lot of it myself. Yeah. Booking has been mostly up to me, but as you will see during the show, I didn’t just book my mates, “oh we should get these people on” otherwise you’d be seeing more Elijah’s more Liam Slater’s. We’ll be seeing a lot different people on there, but this show everyone has a role to play. You can’t just go and get anyone to play James Bond, so you’ve got to cast your roles very carefully. So everyone on the show is there for a reason. And if they let me down, then that’s their fault and I will blame all of the failure of the show on them.
How is this going to be different? We know it’s going to be different, because it’s run by you. But what makes it different? How will it be different?
It IS still a wrestling show and there are still 7 matches on this show, and all are going to be B-B-Bangerz, but it’s the case that on most wrestling shows the matches have stories in themselves. Look at PROGRESS right now, you’ve got Lizzy Evo feuding with Millie McKenzie, you’ve got Spike Trivet feuding with Cara Noir and they are all individual stories in themselves, but on my show, the show itself is the story. From start to finish, from the first beat to the last, we’ve got a story running throughout the show and that is the story that will affect every single match on the night.
So have we got any clues to who this legendary international luchador is?
Well, I can’t tell you much, but, I did just get off the phone with them in San Diego, California. Y’know it was great to speak to this person, it was fantastic, the international call only cost me £6.19, yeah 6-1-9. It wasn’t that expensive, but I swear y’know, when you get to the show, whether you are from the East coast or the West coast, you’re gonna POP. But I don’t think I could really tell anybody anymore. I refuse to give any clues away at all. *AtchShooyaka*(Gene sneezed at this point). But, no it should be good, PROGRESS have never had this person on before and I think it’s going to be incredible.
That sounds fantastic, are you sure that they are absolutely confirmed, you’re not worried they might miss a flight or…
They are absolutely confirmed, everything is booked and in place, however, way more exciting than that is that I’ve gone over budget just on their flight and fees alone. So I don’t think Lee and Martyn are going to be happy with me.
Did they give you a budget? Or did they just give you the company credit card?
They said “Go ahead” and then I went ahead and then they told me the budget, and I realised I shouldn’t have gone ahead.
Do they know you’ve gone over budget yet?
I mean, well they’ll find out eventually, surely?
They won’t mind…
Well, fingers crossed. Fingers crossed that Tranmere Rovers do really well this year.
So the show that ’s going to be amazing and people, really should get tickets for now as they are on sale now (HERE) , you did manage to get them on sale didn’t you?
Well, yes, yeah, err, I think so?
Well, I’m sure they are, we’ll move on, So the show will be great, nothing will go wrong on the night, everything will be fantastic, and will there be more Daft Lad Emporiums?
It entirely depends on whether people come along and go “Oh my that was such a fantastic evening, I want another one of these, then yeah we’ll have another one, absolutely. If this is a disaster and it does a death and so does my career, then so be it. We will find out.
So overall sum up the Daft Lad Emporium like you were trying to sell a ticket to me.
If I was going to sell a ticket to someone, I’d say “Please, please buy a ticket, I’m desperate at this point. Lee and Martyn will never want to see me again, I need this, I need this, HELP. Buy a ticket.
But for real though if you want comedy, action, mystery, adventure, 7 banging wrestling matches, then this is a wrestling show you and your friends will want to see – f you love wrestling, or if you’ve never seen a show. The entertainment of it, the sportsmanship of it, absolutely technical masterpiece matches, but it also a show for those who’ve never seen wrestling before. It’s accommodating, there’s no pretext, it’s not pretentious by any means, come in and be entertained from start to finish. And that’s what wrestling shows should be.
William Regal said “Always wrestle like no-one’s ever seen you before” and here’s a show even if you’ve never seen a wrestling show before.
