A British skilled wrestler is in talks with potential backers to safe hundreds of thousands of kilos in funding for a revamped European sequence that may purpose to capitalise on the game’s British fan base.
Sky Information has learnt that Ben Webb, who participated within the WWE franchise underneath the identify Trent Seven, is working with advisers to lift about £5m to assist construct Challenge Struggle into “Europe’s primary televised wrestling model”.
Mr Webb has enlisted Oakwell, the sports activities advisory agency which can be engaged on efforts to draw non-public capital into British biking, to advise on the fundraising and the event of the brand new product.
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The Challenge Struggle group is claimed to have held discussions with Sundown+Vine, the manufacturing firm and Paramount, the proprietor of Channel 5 within the UK, about collaborating on the brand new enterprise.
Talks with potential traders are understood to have been underway for weeks.
If efficiently secured, the brand new funding can be raised at a pre-money valuation of roughly £10m.
The capital would permit Challenge Struggle to interrupt even in its third 12 months, based on its architects.
Mr Webb stated the venture’s ambition was to “rework the UK and European skilled wrestling panorama and create a enterprise valued at over £100m over the following 5 years”.
It comes amid burgeoning curiosity in wrestling amongst worldwide audiences, with Netflix drawing practically 5 million world views for the debut of its RAW wrestling occasion in January.
In the meantime, All Elite Wrestling, based in 2019, has a US broadcast cope with Warner Bros Discovery stated to be value no less than $150m yearly.
Analysis means that as much as six million folks in Britain alone take into account themselves to be wrestling fanatics, with Challenge Struggle aiming to faucet into that base and bridge the hole between die-hard and informal followers, whereas additionally aiming to help the impartial wrestling scene.
“I constructed an organization from a disused scout hut with 40 family and friends within the crowd and grew it organically to 1000’s on the NEC, everywhere in the UK, Japan, Mexico, USA and the world, and it helped modified the panorama of British wrestling,” Mr Webb instructed Sky Information.
“There’s a large, passionate skilled wrestling fanbase within the UK that lacks a home promotion to observe and is underserved by present promotions.”
Mr Webb is a former two-times Tag Group Champion in WWE with 16 years’ expertise wrestling the world over for WWE, AEW, TNA, New Japan Professional Wrestling, and different backers.
He additionally owns the Struggle Membership Professional model, which has staged reveals on the Birmingham NEC, in addition to in Tokyo, Mexico and the US.
Challenge Struggle’s advisory board contains Roger Draper, former chief govt of Sport England and the Garden Tennis Affiliation, and Peter Angell, the CEO of Sundown+Vine.
The enterprise can be formulating a broader content material distribution technique geared toward utilising wrestlers’ present social media followers, and content-sharing partnerships with main wrestling-adjacent influencers.
Mr Webb stated Challenge Struggle would have a gender-balanced roster, together with feminine wrestlers from the UK, US, China, Japan, Australia, France, India, and Canada.
The roster of wrestlers being lined up is claimed to have a mixed social media following of greater than 12 million.
A premium pilot occasion is anticipated to happen subsequent 12 months, relying upon the profitable completion of the fundraising.
