In a follow-up to our story yesterday, Goldberg’s return to Pay-Per-View as part of the Hockey Fights Pay-Per-View is now cancelled.
Reuters reports that Canadian police delivered a fatal blow to a contest that planned to focus on the fights in hockey the organizer of Hockey Gladiators PPV said on yesterday.
The plan was for a two-night tournament of brawls at center ice in a Winnipeg arena next weekend, featuring 32 amateur and former professional players known for their ability to drop their gloves and land punches. Goldberg would have been featured as a special referee.
But after police said the televised pay-per-view event would break the law, arena owners got nervous and promoters decided to cancel the event.
“It’s like the day after a funeral for me,” said Darryl Wolski, the Canadian who invested and came up with the concept of the show.
Wolski had planned to pay the participants “performance fees,” and hoped to generate revenues of more than $2.3 million U.S. from the event.
The key point was that the event was not sanctioned by a boxing association and as a result, police said they would attend and could charge and fine promoters, fighters, referees, and even reporters covering the event.
“Our event is not a prize fight,” Wolski argued. “This is like wrestling, this is a TV show, everybody in our event is almost like paid actors.”
Thousands bought $20 Canadian tickets for the fights and now that money will have to be refunded.
Finding a venue was always the biggest hurdle that the promoters had to face. The event was originally planned for an arena in Grand Forks, North Dakota, then Minneapolis, and finally Winnipeg.
Wolski says “It’s a big nail in the coffin, but the coffin … isn’t shut forever…”
Credit: 1wrestling.com
