Capitol Wrestling's Matt Ryan On Teaming With Kevin Nash To Help Man Whose Conviction Was Overturned
Capitol Wrestling is going on the road. The independent pro wrestling promotion is heading south after years of putting on shows in the tri-state area. Matthew Ryan, who is the co-creator and executive producer of Capitol Wrestling, talked more the company heading to Nashville, Tennessee for an upcoming event when he spoke to Wrestling Inc. on our WINCLY podcast.
"This is something means a lot to me because it's our first show out of the New York metro area. We've ran exclusively in New Jersey for two-and-a-half years. We just ran two shows in Brooklyn that almost killed me," Ryan said with a laugh.
"But it means a lot to us as a company because of why we're going to Nashville. We're going there because of Adam Braseel who was wrongly convicted of murder over a decade ago. He spent over 12 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. His conviction was overturned but charges were re-filed and Adam was sent back to prison."
Ryan then mentioned that the proceeds raised from this show will go towards Braseel's defense fund and legal team.
"This will help him get out of jail and start his life again after some of the most egregious incompetence and police corruption I have ever seen in my life," stated Ryan.
The headliners for the show are Kevin Nash and Scott Hall who will be reuniting. Ryan talked about how he was able to land The Outsiders for Capitol Wrestling.
"Hall and Nash were on our want list for over a year now," Ryan said before adding that one of their producers has worked with Wrestling For Innocence and made contact with Nash first. "After talking with Kevin Nash about Adam's case, Kevin texted back 'We wanna do this. We wanna help them. We don't just wanna raise awareness; we want to help get him out of jail.'
"That kind of struck a chord with everyone about how f***ing cool Kevin Nash is."
Like all promoters or producers, Ryan is a pro wrestling fan at heart and he talked about his memories of Nash and Hall in WCW.
"Oh I remember the whole thing, that was my prime childhood. I have over 270 VHS tapes of the Attitude Era and the Monday Night Wars. I was at the Raws, ppvs, all of them," said Ryan.
He then talked about how intrigued he was and how his mom had an "uncomfortable" crush on Nash. That then made him hate Nash and root for Goldberg in his feud with Nash.
"That stuff changed the way we look at pro wrestling and changed the entire industry," said Ryan. "It was a shockwave just of how you could present pro wrestling, characters and the levels of reality you could bring back to a sport that was really heavily fictionalized in the early 90s. That and ECW were the lynchpins of this reality era that a lot of fans and peers are trying to bring back in 2019.
"It's not an easy thing to accomplish because you need that authenticity and Hall and Nash brought it back."
Ryan said his earliest wrestling memories go back to the weekend programming that WCW used to offer.
"It's actually my first memory," Ryan replied when asked of his first wrestling memory, "sitting on my couch with my grandmother at one years old and watching WCW Worldwide on Channel 9 in New York."
Capitol Wrestling will present it's next international television tapings August 11th at the Marathon Music Hall in Nashville, TN. Kevin Nash and Scott Hall will be re-uniting at those tapings. Proceeds from the event will go towards then Wrestling For Innocence. Tickets can be purchased here: https://bit.ly/2JEFEcm.