Home Featured News World Wrestling Entertainment ends affiliation with Ohio Valley Wrestling
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World Wrestling Entertainment ends affiliation with Ohio Valley Wrestling Print E-mail
Friday, February 08, 2008
ImageWorld Wrestling Entertainment ended its affiliation with Ohio Valley Wrestling yesterday, and will be moving all contracted talent to Florida Championship Wrestling within the next couple of weeks. In the eight or so years the two were affiliated, OVW helped produce such WWE stars as John Cena, Brock Lesnar, Batista, Bobby Lashley, Ken Kennedy, Randy Orton, Santino Marella, CM Punk, John Morrison, Eugene, The Basham Brothers, Ron Conway and more.

World Wrestling Entertainment has also released OVW head trainer Al Snow from his trainer contract, according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer. Snow had become unpopular amongst some of the WWE contracted talent who believed that he let his dislike for certain people influence the way he treated and booked them in OVW, which certainly doesn't help with morale that is already low and constantly taking hits due to large scale releases and the fear that you could be next on the chopping block.

Ohio Valley Wrestling was created in 1997 when Danny Davis (not to be confused with the WWF referee of the same name) began running shows at his "Danny Davis School of Wrestling" in Jeffersonville, IN every Sunday night as a way to give his students ring time in front of a crowd. The shows were filled with students and wrestlers who had worked for the United States Wrestling Association prior to its closing down in 1997, and the shows did so well that they eventually began running shows at the legendary Louisville Gardens in Louisville, Kentucky. As the company quickly grew it joined the National Wrestling Alliance and secured a television slot on both WBNA TV-21 and WYCS-TV.

OVW was a rarity at this point because they were one of the only active companies that had a training school, local television, and ran a lot of shows. By 2000 Ohio Valley Wrestling would officially become a developmental territory, joining Memphis Championship Wrestling as one of two official developmental territories of the World Wrestling Federation. It was also around this time that the WWF signed OVW mainstays Flash Flanagan, Nick Dinsmore, Doug Basham, The Damaja, and Rob Conway to WWF developmental deals. OVW would soon move from it's Jeffersonville building into a larger facility in Louisville where training and weekly TV tapings would be held.

Famed wrestling manager and WWF employee Jim Cornette, who lived in Louisville and was already involved with the company prior to its agreement with the WWF, would become the head of the WWF's OVW developmental program, the head booker and also part owner. It was under the Cornette regime that some of the WWF's most successful stars were produced, including Randy Orton, John Cena, Batista, Brock Lesnar and Shelton Benjamin. After five years Cornette was fired following a physical incident between OVW student Anthony Carelli (Santino Marella) and him.  Cornette later sold his part of the company.

Cornette was replaced by Paul Heyman, who headed OVW creative and helped develop talent for a little less than a year before becoming involved in ECW's relaunch in 2006. OVW changed directions, taking a more modern approach under Heyman, as opposed to Cornette's more traditional approach. Soon Heyman's work began to receive lots of praise and soon OVW surged in popularity, going from a company that few people outside of Louisville cared about to a company who's DVDs became a hit among internet fans all over the country and were in large demand. During Heyman's tenure with OVW he helped develop such talent as CM Punk, Bobby Lashley, Ken Kennedy, Kenny Dykstra, Elijah Burke, Deuce & Domino and others.

After Heyman's tenure ended, World Wrestling Entertainment sent Greg Gagne to take his place. Gagne was a odd choice considering he had never had any real experience in developing talent and booking. As it turned out Gagne would only last for around three months before being fired anyway. Al Snow, who by that time had become head trainer, took over from Gagne and served as head of creative up until OVW's dismissal as a developmental territory yesterday.

It wasn't really that much of a shock when WWE decided to end its affiliation with OVW, as most recent signees were being sent to Florida Championship Wrestling, the new developmental territory under Steve Keirn that was set up last year in Tampa. WWE also had shown more interest in FCW of late, sending more of their talent to appear on shows, though that might have been more because a lot of wrestlers live close to the Tampa area as opposed to Louisville. Still OVW throughout its history as a developmental territory had used a large number of WWE stars, including The Undertaker, Kane, The Big Show, Steve Austin, Ric Flair and others, but that seemed to occur less frequently in the last six months to a year. The changes make sense logistically for the above reason, as WWE talent in the area can stop by more frequently and work with the developmental talent more often.

Perhaps the biggest losers in all of this are the wrestlers who moved to Louisville or Florida in hopes of getting a WWE developmental deal. With all contracted wrestlers being located in one area there are bound to be far fewer spots for non-contracted talent, which has to be a big blow to them considering they uprooted their entire lives in an attempt to get signed. It also raises questions as to how FCW will be able to use all of the talent on shows as they will have close to 50 wrestlers at their disposal with more coming as WWE meets their stated goal of having 70 performers under developmental deals. That has to make it a lot harder to get everyone in front of crowds to help them gain experience, which is an important part of the whole developmental process.

As far as the future of Ohio Valley Wrestling is concerned, it is possible that they will continue on like they did before. They had enough students that they felt they needed to start a second company, Derby City Wrestling, so it's entirely possible that DCW or OVW could be phased out in favor of the other. One problem with that though is that some of the talent in DCW are guys who had moved to the area in pursuit of a WWE deal and thus might not stick around. There is also the concern that some of the appeal of the school will be lost since it's no longer affiliated with the WWE. I'm sure that we'll start to hear more about OVW's future in the coming days, so that will be something interesting to watch for.

We'll continue to provide updates as soon as we get them, so stay tuned to Indy Wrestling News.
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