Al Snow Purchases Ohio Valley Wrestling, Talks Future Plans For The Company
Last weekend, it was announced via WDRB 41 that former WWE European and Hardcore Champion Al Snow is buying Ohio Valley Wrestling. OVW was founded by former wrestler "Nightmare" Danny Davis in 1997, and has been one of the longest-running televised wrestling shows ever since.
Over the years, OVW is also known for being the developmental territory for both WWE and Impact Wrestling creating WWE stars such as Brock Lesnar, John Cena, and WWE Hall of Famer Beth Phoenix, among many others. For many years, Snow was a trainer in OVW, and helped build several successful WWE names.
After 21 years as the founder of OVW, Davis is now retiring to Florida, and Snow will take over as the lead executive. Currently, OVW features mostly indie talent. However, former WWE and Impact Wrestling star Elijah Burke is active in the company.
"What I have in mind is to create a great developmental center for wrestling talent to come find themselves, learn their craft, and learn it from truly experienced professional wrestlers," said Snow in an interview with FITE TV. "I've always said that when you attend a wrestling school, or a wrestling training academy of any sort, that you take it much like if you were going to a university. If you want to go for accounting, you go in, you pay your tuition, you ask the Dean, 'Ok, what's my professor?' and he goes, 'this guy's really good, he's very talented.' Well great! Who's he work for? What's he done? What kind of experience he has?
"Well, he's never really went anywhere, he's never really done anything, but he's really good, he's at the top of his class. That's great, but if he doesn't have experience, that means he has no real knowledge. If he has no real knowledge, there's no way that he can communicate to you what you need to know. So you better take advance of any opportunities that may come up for you."
The announcement of Snow taking over was well-received by both the current roster, as well as former Impact Wrestling stars, with names such as Hornswoggle and Madison Rayne sending their congratulations. As far as when the first show of Snow taking over will be, he stated, "it will be soon and I will let everyone know."
Source: WDRB 41
Josh Eblen, Sean Whalen and Chip Butterfield contributed to this article.