The world of professional wrestling is one part theatre, one part soap opera and three parts loud music, rabid redneck fans and outrageous wrestlers. Good or bad, everybody has a take on wrestling. Yet no one can argue with its marketing prowess. Imaging and branding have been prevalent in professional wrestling ever since Terrible Ted, the wrestling bear, took down Bunny Dunlop in the 1950s. But how do they do it now? As WWE’s senior production manager John D’Amico explains, it’s a lot good people, hard work, and of course, a lot of sweat.
PLSN: What’s your role at World Wrestling Entertainment?
John D’Amico: I’m the senior production manager. I oversee our non-televised live events. We do over 200 shows with each brand—RAW and SmackDown—and starting in June we’re going to add a third brand, ECW. It’s a smaller show than our TV production. It’s a one truck show with a 30-foot by 30-foot lighting rig with 24 PAR cans.
What is your typical day like?
We’re in Boise, Idaho, today. We start our load-in at 11 a.m., which is convenient for everybody. It’s a one truck show and we contain the lighting and the wrestling rig in that one truck. It takes about an hour to an hour-and-a-half to set up the lighting rig and about another hour to set up the wrestling ring. Usually, at about three or four o’clock in the afternoon, the talent arrives and they workout in the ring. Our shows generally kick-off at about 7:30 in the evening. They’re usually about two-and-a-half to three hour shows with about 10 matches. Then we do a breakdown; we’re usually out in about an hour to an hour-and-a-half. We actually do a lot of driving. Generally, it’s just myself and one production crew guy who’s also the referee in the show. So, he does double duty. During the show I call the spotlight cues, operate the lighting, and play all the entrance music for the talent.
That’s triple duty for you. Do you use local service providers?
We use local crews in each venue. I also do all the advance work for all non-televised events, the crews and catering. I also arrange for any lighting or audio we may need on these shows.
That sounds like a lot of work.
It is a 365-days-a-year job.
Do you use your non-televised events to create your branding?
This is how we get it out to the public. Of course, we have TV time—we’re live Monday nights on the USA network, on UPN on Friday nights, and ECW looks like it’s going to be taking a slot on the Sci-Fi Channel. We do the live events in each town so that people get to see the performance live.
How did you get started in this business?
I did some lighting in a small club in Providence, Rhode Island, back in the early ‘80s. It was called the Living Room. I’m sure a lot of guys that were touring back then are familiar with it. I really didn’t have a background in wrestling, so I guess I kind of stepped into it. I started by driving a truck and setting the wrestling ring up back in 1989. I’ve just grown in the company. I’ve done multiple duties within the company. Like I said, I started driving and setting up the ring, moved into refereeing for a few years, then I was stage manager for the TV show for a number of years. I’d always been more involved in the domestic events. But, in 1992, I did my first international event. Now we do Australia twice a year, we do Japan at least twice a year, and we do tours of Europe throughout the year. We are going to the Caribbean next month. And I’m very involved in the international shows also.
How does that work?
We have a production team in London that handles all the advance work. I pretty much fly in and take over the show, the day of the show, and follow it through. I have the same duties as I do on the domestic tours, but we’re a little more involved on those shows. We have a 45-foot by 45-foot truss set up, with 48K, plus 12 Martin MAC 600 movers on those shows. There, I become the LD and director on the show. On some shows, we also do some projection of entrance video, for the talent, that we use on the television shows. We also utilize pyro on most international tours.
What’s the goal of the lighting design?
Every wrestler on the television show has a specific lighting cue. The Undertaker, for example, was one of the first lighting cues we did in the early ‘90s. It started with one white spotlight and the rest of the house in blackout. It’s grown into this huge aura, his character, and people recognize that. The WWE fans also recognize the cues for all the talent.
You’re helping create the talent’s image using lighting cues and music, aren’t you?
Everything is involved—music, video lighting and pyro—it all rolls into one big package.
Since you’ve done both, tell us about the TV events and how they differ from the non-televised events.
On our non-televised events, we have a crew of about 14 people, plus the two or three people from WWE. On our televised events, it’s huge; you’re talking 14 trucks with all of our production gear, a television production truck, and a support truck with all the cabling. We travel with about 75 to 100 of our own people, depending on where we are and what show we are doing. And we pull in at least 90 to 100 local crew members in each city. We do this every Monday and Tuesday. Plus 15 pay-per-views. You’re talking about an eight or nine hour load-in and four to five hour load-out. It’s a pretty big deal. I still attend about half the Monday night RAW events just to keep up with the stories and get music updates.
That’s a big part of what you guys are doing—it’s living theatre.
You can compare it to theatre—some people compare it to soap opera. I like to compare it to theatre because we do a show in each city and we keep it going from town to town. If the storyline changes on the television show, the story line changes on our live events. It’s a lot of work but it is also a lot of fun. We have a good group of very professional and interesting people that I enjoy working with everyday.
