I was able to chat with StarBuck who is the owner and promoter of SLAM! Wrestling in Finland. He took time out of his vacation in Japan to talk to me about the beginnings of the company, international exposure, bringing in international talent to Finland, and much more!
I wanted to start this out by asking you to give a little background about yourself, and Slam Wrestling. When the company started, why it started, etc.
I started in pro wrestling back in 1992 in Calgary, Canada. I had dropped out of art college and was driving bottled water around town. One day in the summer of 1992, I delivered water to a taxi company run by former Stampede Wrestling manager, Abu Wizal of Karachi Vice. I asked him if there was any pro wrestling going on in Calgary, being that this was before the age of the internet, so I had no way of really knowing. Wizal told me Steve DiSalvo and Biff Wellington were starting up Rocky Mountain Pro Wrestling that autumn. I went to DiSalvo’s realty office and made my pitch. He heard my voice, thought I’d make a decent ring announcer, and I was off to the races.
During 1992, I got to know Chris Jericho, Lenny St. Clair (Luther of AEW) and Lance Storm, whom I became training partners with at The Gym in Calgary for a year. One day, Lance asked if I’d like to get trained, seeing the heart that I had for the business. He trained me out of friendship, never taking a penny of my money. My other coach was Jason the Terrible of Stampede fame. He was booking for Rocky Mountain and offered for me to join his Wednesday classes for younger talents.
My first match was January 7, 1994 against my coach, Lance Storm, in Calgary. Since then, I’ve wrestled the world over in 22 countries on four continents over the past three decades plus. I’ve also coached in nine countries on two continents for 21 years now.
I pioneered pro wrestling in Finland back in 2003 and in 2018, I took it upon myself to start SLAM! Wrestling Finland as a serious business in lieu of operating as a non-profit, which is how most independent wrestling companies are run. I accrued shareholders, began selling events, procuring coops et al, as I strove to turn a lifetime in the industry into something that would pay the bills and produce business for those involved. It’s been a trying and hard road, due to the pandemic and then the Russia-Ukraine war hurting business and the economy all across the board. But we’re pushing forward and making headway, as one of the only European promotions on TrillerTV today.
In 2019 you brought in one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, Meiko Satomura where she competed in a triple threat versus Ivelisse and Sadie Gibbs. I wanted to hear your experience working with a wrestler as well respected and talented as her. Have you kept in contact with her, and are you interested in bringing any of the Sendai Girls in for a show?
I have all the time in the world for Meiko. She’s a tremendous human being. I just wrote back and forth with her as we’re trying to meet up now that I’m in Japan currently for Tajiri’s 30th anniversary show on September 28 in Kumamoto.
Bringing in overseas talent is a very trying proposition unless you have a sponsor, as the name of pretty much anyone from abroad won’t generate enough ticket sales to cover the expense of bringing them in. All the stars have to align, as the saying goes, to have an international name come in, simply due to the considerable overhead involved in such cases.
You recently brought in a good friend of mine in Vinny Pacifico to wrestle his first match in Finland. What got Vinny on your radar, and how was it working with him as well?
Vinny was great. We both share the same faith in Christ as Lord. It immediately brought kinship and common ground. He’s hungry to get himself out there and he has ears to take in guidance. He reached out to us, saying that he was going to be coming to Europe, and we signed him on for three shows in August of this year.
Are you guys interested in bringing in more international talent or more focused on continuing to build your internal roster?
We’ve hosted many international talents, like Meiko Satomura, Tajiri, Matt Cross, Heidi Katrina, Ivelisse, Jake Omen and loads of others. But of course, our main goal is to build our domestic roster, as they are the backbone of the operation. I’ve put my guys against the foreigners on a regular basis, in order to get my crew up to where they need to be. I feel we’ve done a very good job in that department.
International wrestling (from any locations point of view) is more accessible than it’s ever been. Is international attention, IE fans from the US, important to you or Slam Wrestling? If so what is Slam Wrestling doing to stand out in a global sea of promotions fighting for the fans attention?
Yes, international acclaim is the key to growth across the overall landscape in my opinion. People consume content virtually now more than ever and streaming is a big part of that. Our niche is in offering pro wrestling the way that you remember it: classic and traditional in approach. We are much in the vein of late ’80s and early ’90s wrestling in flavor. We certainly aren’t indieriffic. And from what I’ve gained from listening to the wrestling audience worldwide at large, there is a big demographic that fondly remembers pro wrestling the way it used to be versus what it has become as an aggressive parkour demonstration these days, especially outside of the mainstream WWE product.
Looking at your company’s roster page you have 23 members on your roster, and including yourself 3 of them come from other countries. How was the process of building your current roster, and really building wrestling in Finland in general? Can you give us some back story on your roster, like how they got into wrestling, or any unique stories you can offer.
Our crew is diverse in that we have immigrants that have gotten involved with SLAM! Wrestling and otherwise, Estonia is right across the pond, where we’ve had recruits also. We also have an Estonian wing called SLAM! Wrestling Tallinn. For example, Artur Arder from Estonia joined our SLAM! Boot Camp at the age of 17 after attending our George Hackenschmidt European Invitational Cup in Tallinn on May 14, 2022. Artur had trained freestyle under Russian coaches for almost four years when he joined us. Nick Lukkonen gas moved from Duluth, Minnesota to Helsinki and was playing Australian and Gaelic football as well as roller derby on the competitive level when he joined us. Dylan Broda had done some indie promoting in Toronto before he moved to Finland, where he initially became a referee before being trained at SLAM! Boot Camp to become a wrestler in 2020.
European wrestling has exploded lately. Obviously, Gunther is a world champion in WWE. But wrestlers like Aigle Blanco (France) getting booked for multiple shows in America during WrestleMania weekend, Arrows of Hungary are getting movement on social media, and many more. Not just wrestlers individually but outside of wXw that people know companies like PWÖ, Passion Pro, RCW, and of course your own Slam Wrestling. I just wanted to get your comment on how much attention the scene is getting and what it means to you to see countries not known for wrestling, getting attention and respect.
The internet has both hurt and helped independent wrestling and pro wrestling in general. You have got to be really good, or unique, or special to stand out of the deluge nowadays. The internet is like infinite space: it’s very hard to get noticed due to algorithms, pay to play platforms and short-circuited attention spans in the age of TikTok. Nonetheless, as the saying goes: the cream always rises to the top.
I believe in what my former booker Yoshihiro Tajiri once told me, as he said “I believe pro wrestling is a character-driven business.”
People gravitate towards big personalities, not just bing-bang-boom action, much of which is copy-paste spots these days all across the wrestling landscape. Hopefully, with SLAM!
Wrestling Finland, we can offer some of that big personality in the form of talents like Dylan “Back Breaker” Broda, Artur Arder, “Metal Warrior ‘ Stark Adder and myself.
Lastly, if there’s any message, you’d like fans to take home from this interview, what would it be?
If you miss old-school wrestling in the vein of classic Mid-South/UWF, Crockett-era NWA and the whole late ’80s/early ’90s vibe, give SLAM! Wrestling Finland a try.
With us, you won’t get the tope con hilos, Canadian destroyers and poison ranas. What you will get is wrestling that you can believe in. Because, after all, we are in the make-believe business: we make believers put of people.
Thank you so much for StarBuck taking the time to chat with me. And thank you to Vinnie Pacifico for linking us together for this interview.
You can find their socials here:
www.slamwres.com
www.facebook.com/slamwres
www.youtube.com/slamwres
www.instagram.com/slamwres
www.twitter.com/slamwres
www.tiktok.com/@slamwres
www.reddit.com/r/SLAMWrestlingFinland/
www.wrestleaid.fi
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