Pizza for the Audience! Pro Wrestling Company Feeds the Fans!

November 3, 2014 (MMD Newswire) October 31, 2014 — West Coast Wrestling Connection (WCWC) spokesperson Jeff Manning explained why he provides free food for all who are associated with his wrestling promotion. Is he simply a really nice guy or is it part of an insidious plan to move his company into professional wrestling’s #1 position?

By 11:00 o’clock Saturday morning, dozens of fans had lined up at Portland’s historic Bob White Theater. Within an hour, there were hundreds more. All were excited to witness the live taping of four 60-minute professional wrestling shows that would air on PDX-TV.

The wrestling was “old school” and it was superb. The fans were excited and they showed it as they expended energy jumping up and down cheering for their heroes and booing for the bad guys. Around the two-hour mark, they noticed a welcome aroma filling the theater. WCWC announcer and PDX-TV Personality Joe V made the announcement: “Ladies and Gentlemen, you are correct; that is the wonderful smell of pizza, and it is a gift from your hosts here at the West Coast Wrestling Connection.”

We asked CEO Jeff Manning why he feeds the fans. “Quite frankly,” he responded, “because we’re nice people and we care. Sure, we could charge high ticket prices and exorbitant amounts at the snack bar, but we don’t believe that’s the thing to do. We appreciate our fans and our wrestlers and our crew. We feed everybody. Come with me; I’ll show you.”

Manning took us “to the back” and gave us a quick tour. There were dozens of boxes of amazing VooDoo Donuts, hundreds of Pita Pit sandwiches, at least a dozen additional pizzas and tubs of assorted non-alcoholic beverages. We asked if there was any beer. “No, we’re professional athletes,” offered the muscular 6’4″, 252-lb. Alexander Hammerstone as he pushed aside a VooDoo bacon maple bar.

When asked about the rumors that his wrestling promotion was about to go national, Manning smiled slightly and motioned with his palm-up hand rising – a sign we took to mean, “Think bigger!”

“We will,” Manning explained, “be making some major announcements in the very near future, including news about our national network TV weekly show. Yes, I did say ‘national,’ and we also have international distribution.” With a twinkle in his eye and a slight smile on his face, Manning put his forefinger to his lips and said, “Shhhh! Our publicist will release that information as soon as it’s appropriate – and, yes, he is absolutely correct (referring to publicist and veteran pro wrestler Rock Riddle) – we are about to make history!”

The WCWC Management Team: The West Coast Wrestling Connection and Paragon Pro Wrestling Management Teams are unique in the world of professional wrestling. In addition to impressive business backgrounds, each person at the top level of WCWC and PPW management shares extensive experience in both broadcasting and professional wrestling – quite a departure from other wrestling companies with management comprised of either wrestlers or broadcasters, but not both.

JEFF MANNING* – CEO

At twenty years of age, Jeff Manning began a 15-year career as a professional radio personality, working his way up to a major Los Angeles station – the one that made the legendary Wolfman Jack famous. Manning’s radio career included stints as Morning Personality, Talk Show Host, Program Director and Operations Manager.

Professional wrestling has been in Manning’s blood most of his life. As a youngster, he routinely watched top wrestling stars such as John Tolos, Freddy Blassie and Pedro Morales compete at Los Angeles’ world-famous Olympic Auditorium. Manning began his wrestling career in Northern California wrestling promotions in the late 1980s. That career blossomed into work as a referee and wrestling manager.

In 2005, his own professional wrestling promotion was born in Salem, Oregon. His West Coast Wrestling Connection celebrated its 9th anniversary in March, 2014. To the professional wrestling community, he is also known as the on-air personality, Morty Lipschitz.

HERB KRAFT – COO

Popularly known as WMDL (the World’s Most Dangerous Lawyer), Herb Kraft began his successful broadcasting career as a young teenager. While continuing as a broadcaster and radio personality, he was graduated from law school at age 21. As an attorney, he specialized in broadcasting and corporate and securities law.

Never one to waste a moment, he continued to work full-time in broadcasting while practicing law. He began an additional side business promoting wrestling with the top wrestling organizations in northern Florida and Alabama. While hosting a national radio network legal advice program, he creating a best-selling legal forms software package and worked as the Senior Vice President of Publishing for a top-ranked software publisher.

Combining broadcasting and wrestling again, Kraft joined Ring of Honor Wrestling in 2008 and worked with several California-based wrestling promotions before he found his home in top management at the West Coast Wrestling Connection and Paragon Pro Wrestling.

ROBERT BLAGMAN* – CMO AND MANAGER OF GLOBAL SYNDICATION

Robert Blagman creates, produces, and syndicates television programming for national and international TV networks. His company, Media Fusion, and its affiliates will be bringing a new slate of TV series to market in 2015. Robert is CMO and manager of global syndication and sales for West Coast Wrestling Connection and Paragon Pro Wrestling. Paragon is an exciting new direction in international pro wrestling, a sport that ranks with NASCAR, the NFL and World Cup Soccer in consumer popularity.

The Media Fusion group of companies was created in 2002 to serve the changing global media landscape. Robert expanded a consultancy to include advertising and marketing in more than 20 countries, including western and eastern Europe, Russia and Asia. His annual marketing billing averaged $60 million from 2002-2011 and included companies in varied industries.

In 1998, Robert, partnered with Eicoff & Co., a division of Ogilvy & Mather, and won the “Best Corporate Transactional TV Program” award for Kodak and was also named “One of The Top Ten Media Executives Leading Us Into the 21st Century” by Response Magazine.

Robert’s previous work involved the extraordinary creation, development and management of a new TV network in a newly post-Communist Eastern Europe in 1995. He also created the sales division from the bottom up – training, managing, and setting budget goals and new business strategies.

The Walt Disney Company brought him in as the Vice President, National Sales Manager for their broadcast division after he had held a similar position at local Los Angeles KCOP-TV.

In 1985 he was named Vice President, National Sales Manager at Katz Communications, American TV Sales division. He was the youngest executive to be promoted to Vice President in the company’s 80-year history. As V.P. and National Sales Manager, Robert managed 91 TV ad sales executives in 21 U.S. cities and trained more than 25 sales candidates. During his ten years at Katz, Robert sold and created more than a documented $1.4 billion of commercial airtime.

LEN DENTON* – DIRECTOR OF WRESTLING OPERATIONS

Director of Wrestling Operations for the WCWC and Paragon Pro Wrestling, Len Denton is a Hall of Famer and one of professional wrestling’s best-known living legends. Although he was successful wrestling under his own name and as one of the “Dirty White Boys,” Denton is best known as the iconic masked “Grappler.”

He was – and still is – a top main event wrestling star. He began his career as a teenager, quickly becoming a mainstay of Big Bill Watt’s Universal Wresting Federation, where he wrestled all of the major stars in professional wrestling.

Amongst his many “firsts” in wrestling was his dubious honor of being the first victim of Jake “The Snake” Robert’s DDT, the most famous wrestling maneuver of the 1980s and ’90s. He was the booker (matchmaker and TV writer/manager) for Harley Race’s Central States Wrestling and for Don Owens’ Pacific Northwest Wrestling.

His autobiography “Grappler: Memoirs of a Masked Madman” is the #1 ranked professional wrestling book at Amazon.com.

ROCK RIDDLE* – DIRECTOR OF TALENT AND MEDIA RELATIONS

The official publicist for WCWC and Paragon Pro Wrestling, Rock has over thirty years of professional experience in the film and television industry. His background includes: Chief Publicist and President of APS Entertainment and Hollywood Success Marketing & Public Relations as well as Screen Actors’ Guild franchised talent agent and agency co-owner, personal manager, producer, casting director, stunt person, radio and television talk show host, film and television actor, Amazon.com #1 best-selling award-winning author, and professional speaker – not to mention his “legend” status as the original “Mr. Wonderful” of professional wrestling, and professional wrestling Hall of Famer.

Rock Riddle is a recipient of the prestigious Reel Honoree Award. For fifty years this award has been presented to outstanding professionals who have made a contribution to both professional wrestling and the entertainment industry. Past recipients have included Sylvester Stallone, Charles Bronson, David Carradine, Robert Conrad, Kirk Douglas, Cesar Romero, Mickey Rooney, James Cagney and forty-plus additional notables.

Riddle is also a recurring on-air personality for the TV shows and makes personal appearances at most of the live events.

*Jeff Manning, Robert Blagman, Len Denton, and Rock Riddle are available for interviews. Please e-mail PR@ParagonProWrestling.com for additional information and/or to schedule an interview. For advertising opportunities on the local, national, and/or international TV shows, please call the WCWC Hotline: (971) 600-8215 or email Info@WC-WC.com

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