21 May 23 - 29, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Live Ringer Smashing Pumpkins singer Billy Corgan brings wrestling to Dallas. BY EVA RAGGIO A nyone who’s been even mildly lucid through the past few decades knows Billy Corgan as the frontman of the Smashing Pumpkins — the dress-coat-wearing, nasal-voiced alt- rocker behind undying hits such as “1979” and “Bullet With Butterfly Wings.” But for those who haven’t kept up with Corgan-centric headlines (obligatory love- and-hate public displays with Courtney Love, the erratic lineup changes in his band and becoming a voice in poetry and politics) for the past six years, Corgan has taken on a monster project: buying, resurrecting and repackaging the National Wrestling Alli- ance, the association founded in the 1940s that dominated the world of wrestling be- fore the WWE captivated the collective imagination of American families. The artist spoke to us via Zoom from his native Chicago a week before the NWA’s Crockett Cup competition makes its Dallas debut. “Well, I do run the company from the top down, and so every day is a complete make- it-up-as-you-go-along thing,” he says of his daily operations. “We have the reality show coming out on May 14th, and so we’re work- ing up promotional activities for that. We’re obviously promoting the event in Dallas.” The Crockett Cup, took place Saturday, May 18, at Forney’s OC Theatre, offers dozens of NWA wrestlers with scripted feuds and storylines as they engage in showy theatrics while dirty-fighting for the win. Vampire Diaries He’s also starring in a CW reality show, Ad- ventures in Carnyland, which debuted Tues- day, May 14. The series, which Corgan executive produces and narrates, has a bor- dering-on-camp, early 2000s VH1 reality show feel and follows the musician’s efforts to bring the NWA back to its ‘80s glory while managing life as a rock star, cafe owner and father of two. It also shows the lead-up to his wedding to longtime partner Chloe Mendel. Despite an ocean of naysayers criticizing his move into wrestling, Corgan asserts that the worlds of the sport and music aren’t dis- similar, as they’re both part of the broader world of entertainment. The biggest obsta- cle he’s had to overcome, he says, “Honestly, it’s doubt.” “Wrestling, much like rock ’n’ roll, it’s just kind of a ‘What have you done for me lately?’ business. I’ve certainly experienced that many times in my musical life where people are like, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, you were good be- fore, but now I don’t know. I’m not so sure.’ You almost have to win people back, and in many ways, winning them back is twice as hard as winning them the first time because they’ve already made up their minds.” It wasn’t only outsiders whom Corgan had to convince that rebuilding a wrestling brand was a worthwhile effort. “Many people in wrestling have very nar- row minds,” he says. “I bought the NWA about six years ago, and for about five years, I was continually treated like I was crazy, not only by people in wrestling, but also by people in rock ’n’ roll, because they’re like, ‘Why would you even bother with that? You have such a great life in music.’ Once WWE sold for $9 billion to William Morris, that was the end of people thinking I was crazy.” For him, the rise in popularity of wom- en’s basketball thanks to players like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese is indicative of the fact that the “biggest growth in digital broadcasting is going to be sports.” “Sports is something, you get that FOMO, you want to go see it live, or you want to be there to watch the game on television like the Super Bowl, right?” he says. “The growth of sports in the digital realm is on an upward trajectory, so professional wrestling falls within that realm of live event sports. So suddenly, I don’t seem so crazy to be in the live event sports business as an enter- tainment product.” Corgan is fresh off a concert in Chicago, and the band, which reunites him with long- time Pumpkins players James Iha and Jimmy Chamberlin, is gearing up to tour with Green Day. Needless to say, Corgan wears more wildly varying hats than a Dr. Seuss character. “Every day, it’s like ‘What wrestlers? Who’s flying from where?’ I booked the cards as well,” he says of the competition. “I’m putting together who’s going to fight each other. We’re also producing weekly television. I was up at 6 this morning watch- ing a screener of a [wrestling] television show [NWA Powerrr] that’s going to be on CW here in a few weeks. So every day is just this constant ball of activity.” His major responsibilities, Corgan says, include the fact that he funds “everything.” “Everything’s out of pocket,” he says. “There’s no other investors. I’m in charge of who we hire along with our head of talent rela- tions. So I mean basically … think of the CEO of a company. I have to make every major deci- sion. And I’m working on a new album, so lit- erally between every available moment in the studio, I’m looking at my phone because some- body has a question. I was literally, just before we got on, I was rewriting copy for some ads that are going to go out.” Though Corgan is in good company with past rock star reality TV stars from Ozzy Os- bourne to Travis Barker, he never imagined joining in that lineage until he met the owner of production company Nacelle, which made Netflix series The Toys That Made Us. The company, which also makes toys, initially met Corgan with the plan to make wrestling toys for the NWA. “By the end of the meeting he was off the toy idea and he was pitching me on a reality show and I said, ‘I don’t want to do a reality show. I never want to do a reality show,’” Corgan says. “But he talked me into it. It took a year. We became friends on the side, and he talked to me and he had a good vision for it. And ultimately convincing fans to watch wrestling is always a difficult thing. It’s not for everyone.” Leveraging Musical Fame Going against the WWE isn’t easy for Cor- gan, but he has some unmistakable leverage as one of the most recognizable names in modern music. “Of course, in the American market, you’re dealing with two very large companies in terms of competition,” he says. “WWE ob- viously is now with the UFC parent company that’s, I think, combined they’re a $23 billion company. So to compete at some point you look around and say, what can you compete with? Well, in terms of the NWA, my celeb- rity is part of what we used to compete.” When he bought the NWA, “it was like three worthless letters,” Corgan says in the series. His plans for those letters are now wildly ambitious. The singer wants to see wrestling return to its status as an Ameri- can pastime. “I was born in 1967, so wrestling in terms of how it was voiced in the 1970s was very family-oriented,” he says. “You wanted a kid to enjoy the product, and you wanted Grandma to enjoy the product. Literally, the first time I watched wrestling in my life, I was 4 years old with my 81-year-old great-grand- mother who didn’t even speak English. So I grew up believing that wrestling was very much a family entertainment, much like go- ing to the circus or a county fair, and that is the root of professional wrestling. Now, not everyone agrees in the 21st first century, but the NWA’s voice is a family product. So my ar- gument would be, who doesn’t want to be en- tertained? I guarantee you, even if you’re not a wrestling fan, you come see the NWA in Dallas, you’re just going to have a good time.” Another myth Corgan wants to end is the idea that wrestling is not for women. “One of the greatest compliments we re- ceive is a lot of times a guy who’s totally into wrestling will bring his wife or his partner to a show, and the partner ends up having a bet- ter time than the person who brought them,” he says. “They love the way that the women are presented as strong and independent. We try to avoid the sexist tropes that plagued wrestling in the past 50 years. So that’s sort of what we’re trying to sell. We’re trying to sell like, look, you want to go have a unique time out. It’s like, why would you go see the circus? It’s like you go to see something you can only see at the circus. So wrestling provides that sort of hyperreality, and at the end of the day, it’s supposed to be fun.” For Corgan, the feminist plight in wres- tling parallels his experience in the music industry, when bassist D’arcy Wretzky joined the lineup of male players. “And so this is a little bit personal, but when we started the band in the late ‘80s, the Pumpkins, people would ask us, ‘Why is there a girl in the band?’” he says. “And we used to shake our heads. What does that even mean? Why wouldn’t there be a girl in the band? So we grew up in that age where people were still wrestling with the idea of like, ‘Do girls play rock?’ Let me tell you, the women in wrestling are some of the tough- est wrestlers in the world, not just ▼ Music Edward-Daniel Simons Corgan has bought and resurrected the National Wrestling Alliance. >> p22
