Post by Alex Kincaid on Mar 7, 2018 14:17:29 GMT -5
Watch The Throne
by Sloan Altamount | March 3rd, 2018
Most people find it difficult to imagine the sort of lifestyle you’d have to keep up to be an athlete at the highest level. It’s easy to find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of it, by the weight of carrying a thousand expectations from a thousand different people. In professional wrestling, it’s even harder. Every professional wrestler is their own marketing department. They have to be their own biggest fans, to get out there why you should pay your earned entertainment dollar to see them versus a thousand different other athletes.
I understand why you’d pay to see Alex Kincaid.
I’ve spent three days on the ground with Alex and Alyssa Kincaid while he prepares to wrestle his first match in India. I’ve spent most of that time with Alyssa, getting the inside track on the promotional efforts that go into making Alex Kincaid the man into Alex Kincaid the brand. I haven’t had much time to sit down and have a conversation with the man himself about his career. It wouldn’t be true to say Alex avoids the press, but it’s certainly true to say that he steers it.
“I couldn’t tell you what she’s working on now.” Alex grins in the back sit of our limousine, his arms hanging over seat while he tries to sneak a look at his wife’s phone sitting next to him “It’s merchandise stuff. I know that. Because whenever she tells me ‘Work things’ it’s usually her writing whatever crazy tchotchke just jumped into her head for a second before it escapes.”
Of course, by then I’m scribbling something into my own notebook: liar.
Alex Kincaid is The Bullet King. If you were to mark the point on his timeline where he went from just another professional wrestler to a true superstar, you’d mark it in early 2017 where a controversial victory in the United Kingdom Wrestling Federation turned a crowd of some of the most fiercely loyal wrestling fans on earth against him. Alex’s response was to steer into the skid, to rechristen himself with a smart sounding nickname and make a conscious effort to become a star for the first time.
He is hesitant to talk about why he made the decision to take on the Bullet King brand. When I ask him what he was hoping to accomplish with it, there’s a small exchange of looks that I still can’t decide if it was between husband/wife or manager/client.
Finally, he smiles and shrugs “I thought it looked good on a t-shirt.”
The public certainly agrees with him. The simple Bullet King logo has been smacked onto everything from lunch pails to posters. You look through a crowd of wrestling fans in any arena in the world and you’re likely to spot several dozen wearing the simple rings and bullet design. He’s been in championship matches all over the world, and he’s one of the featured stars in a rapidly expanding company but if you really want to ask yourself how he’s gone from a small coal town in Nothern Alberta to a beachfront property in Platinum Coasts, Florida over the past year the answer is t-shirts.
“I guess I wanted my Shield, my Arc Reactor, my little black bat on yellow.” He says “If you’re going to be a superhero you’re going to need that little symbol you can smack on the front of your suit. I put mine on my tights, but whatever. No one looks good in a singlet.”
So does that mean Alex Kincaid considers himself a superhero? His reply is starkly serious.
“No. No Sloan, I’m not a superhero. I’m a King.”
It takes a certain something to call yourself King. It takes even more to believe it, but he’s wholly confident in it when I ask for a further explanation back at their hotel room. I’m surprised to learn that proclaiming yourself king is more than you might think. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s an industry built on characters, the more colorful the better, and few things are more colorful than self-appointed monarchy. But to hear Alex tell it, The Bullet King represents more than just a bit of colorful branding.
“I think if you call yourself King you become responsible for your kingdom. I didn’t think that at first, at first it was just something that I thought sounded neat. But over time it started to mean something. I want to be the leader of an industry people don’t take seriously. An industry built on blood and broken bones that every once in a while gives you something spectacular. It’s the fire that forges exceptional people. But fire is fire no matter what you use it for. Someone’s got to keep an eye on it, someone’s got to control it and someone’s got to stop people from using it the wrong way. I decided to step up and do it because it needed doing.”
He remains a creature of contradiction. This dead serious primer about his core philosophy is interrupted when the families adopted daughter returns from a whirlwind tour around the city with friends. To see Alex Kincaid dote over his family is to get a look inside his thought process. He whirlwinds from breezy, detached questions about his day to stark defensiveness whenever the teenager’s question turn toward wrestling. She’s interested, but it seems like he’d do anything he can to keep her away from it.
“That’s why things kicked off the way they did with Kira. Because I was trying to keep Maggie away from becoming a prop. Wrestling is…” He hesitates for a second “It’s the best thing in the world but sometimes the core elements it brings out in people can be kind of ugly. It’s good to learn who they really are, even if it’s uncomfortable. I think I learned I’m a little set in my ways.”
‘A little set in his ways’ is his vague way of referencing nearly two months of conflict between the two men that he seems to believe finally ended with the Lights Out show in Shanghai. I’m less certain than he is. I was unable to secure an interview with Kira or any of the other members of his stable, but I’ve spent countless hours watching every show I can get my hands on as research for this piece and the only conclusion I can draw is: Personal issues die hard in wrestling, no matter how much one party wants to move on.
“Kira can keep coming at me if he wants. He can have the first Warhorse Championship match. I don’t think that’s a thread he wants to keep pulling.”
Contradiction. Again. Even in the jokes he tells about his career, there’s an underlying menace. I suppose the problem with all kings is that if you aren’t behind their vision of the world around you they’ll try to force you into it. Alex Kincaid knows something about leadership, his father being Northern Canada’s greatest coal magnate and his mentor being European catch wrestling technician Steve Llewellyn. To try and unpack Alex is to try and reconcile those two great influences, the father figures that made him into who he is. Maybe coming from wealth and culture like that made him a prince. Obviously, from there it’s a short walk to King.
I think I believe in what he’s selling. Maybe he’s telling the truth, maybe he’s a spectacular liar. But I believe Union Battleground will become impossible to ignore over the next year and it’s going to do it by presenting a version of professional wrestling no one else can. I can’t explain to you the complexities of it, of the men and monsters that make up its locker room but I can tell you it’s giving some of the most unique athletes on the planet access to a platform they’ve never had before. Hungry, young talent that exist in the truly international digital space with the sort of practiced skill that only comes from a lifetime of exposure. Alyssa Kincaid told me during my three days with them in India that all of the fighting you see on a Union Battleground broadcast eventually comes down to clashes of ideas. That if you listen to the fighters, it’s a complex web of experience and worldviews that motivate them to get into the ring for fight for more than shiny belts.
Alex Kincaid seems to be fighting for the structure itself. It’s a worthwhile exercise, moving past the good to try and do some broader meta-good. But there are obvious questions about trying to fight for a structure that you benefit from. I can’t help but wonder if this is all a game, if he’s playing both sides against the middle to set himself up as champion down the line. Maybe I’m cynical. Maybe I don’t understand him or his industry enough to see when someone is telling the truth about it. Maybes. Lots of them.
If The Bullet King wants to lead wrestling and hold it accountable to itself, he’s going to face people who disagree with him. After all, what gives him the right to declare himself King? But if you ask him that he’s got an easy smile and a simple answer.
“I do. Where do you think the first Kings came from?”
by Sloan Altamount | March 3rd, 2018
Most people find it difficult to imagine the sort of lifestyle you’d have to keep up to be an athlete at the highest level. It’s easy to find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of it, by the weight of carrying a thousand expectations from a thousand different people. In professional wrestling, it’s even harder. Every professional wrestler is their own marketing department. They have to be their own biggest fans, to get out there why you should pay your earned entertainment dollar to see them versus a thousand different other athletes.
I understand why you’d pay to see Alex Kincaid.
I’ve spent three days on the ground with Alex and Alyssa Kincaid while he prepares to wrestle his first match in India. I’ve spent most of that time with Alyssa, getting the inside track on the promotional efforts that go into making Alex Kincaid the man into Alex Kincaid the brand. I haven’t had much time to sit down and have a conversation with the man himself about his career. It wouldn’t be true to say Alex avoids the press, but it’s certainly true to say that he steers it.
“I couldn’t tell you what she’s working on now.” Alex grins in the back sit of our limousine, his arms hanging over seat while he tries to sneak a look at his wife’s phone sitting next to him “It’s merchandise stuff. I know that. Because whenever she tells me ‘Work things’ it’s usually her writing whatever crazy tchotchke just jumped into her head for a second before it escapes.”
Of course, by then I’m scribbling something into my own notebook: liar.
Alex Kincaid is The Bullet King. If you were to mark the point on his timeline where he went from just another professional wrestler to a true superstar, you’d mark it in early 2017 where a controversial victory in the United Kingdom Wrestling Federation turned a crowd of some of the most fiercely loyal wrestling fans on earth against him. Alex’s response was to steer into the skid, to rechristen himself with a smart sounding nickname and make a conscious effort to become a star for the first time.
He is hesitant to talk about why he made the decision to take on the Bullet King brand. When I ask him what he was hoping to accomplish with it, there’s a small exchange of looks that I still can’t decide if it was between husband/wife or manager/client.
Finally, he smiles and shrugs “I thought it looked good on a t-shirt.”
The public certainly agrees with him. The simple Bullet King logo has been smacked onto everything from lunch pails to posters. You look through a crowd of wrestling fans in any arena in the world and you’re likely to spot several dozen wearing the simple rings and bullet design. He’s been in championship matches all over the world, and he’s one of the featured stars in a rapidly expanding company but if you really want to ask yourself how he’s gone from a small coal town in Nothern Alberta to a beachfront property in Platinum Coasts, Florida over the past year the answer is t-shirts.
“I guess I wanted my Shield, my Arc Reactor, my little black bat on yellow.” He says “If you’re going to be a superhero you’re going to need that little symbol you can smack on the front of your suit. I put mine on my tights, but whatever. No one looks good in a singlet.”
So does that mean Alex Kincaid considers himself a superhero? His reply is starkly serious.
“No. No Sloan, I’m not a superhero. I’m a King.”
It takes a certain something to call yourself King. It takes even more to believe it, but he’s wholly confident in it when I ask for a further explanation back at their hotel room. I’m surprised to learn that proclaiming yourself king is more than you might think. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s an industry built on characters, the more colorful the better, and few things are more colorful than self-appointed monarchy. But to hear Alex tell it, The Bullet King represents more than just a bit of colorful branding.
“I think if you call yourself King you become responsible for your kingdom. I didn’t think that at first, at first it was just something that I thought sounded neat. But over time it started to mean something. I want to be the leader of an industry people don’t take seriously. An industry built on blood and broken bones that every once in a while gives you something spectacular. It’s the fire that forges exceptional people. But fire is fire no matter what you use it for. Someone’s got to keep an eye on it, someone’s got to control it and someone’s got to stop people from using it the wrong way. I decided to step up and do it because it needed doing.”
He remains a creature of contradiction. This dead serious primer about his core philosophy is interrupted when the families adopted daughter returns from a whirlwind tour around the city with friends. To see Alex Kincaid dote over his family is to get a look inside his thought process. He whirlwinds from breezy, detached questions about his day to stark defensiveness whenever the teenager’s question turn toward wrestling. She’s interested, but it seems like he’d do anything he can to keep her away from it.
“That’s why things kicked off the way they did with Kira. Because I was trying to keep Maggie away from becoming a prop. Wrestling is…” He hesitates for a second “It’s the best thing in the world but sometimes the core elements it brings out in people can be kind of ugly. It’s good to learn who they really are, even if it’s uncomfortable. I think I learned I’m a little set in my ways.”
‘A little set in his ways’ is his vague way of referencing nearly two months of conflict between the two men that he seems to believe finally ended with the Lights Out show in Shanghai. I’m less certain than he is. I was unable to secure an interview with Kira or any of the other members of his stable, but I’ve spent countless hours watching every show I can get my hands on as research for this piece and the only conclusion I can draw is: Personal issues die hard in wrestling, no matter how much one party wants to move on.
“Kira can keep coming at me if he wants. He can have the first Warhorse Championship match. I don’t think that’s a thread he wants to keep pulling.”
Contradiction. Again. Even in the jokes he tells about his career, there’s an underlying menace. I suppose the problem with all kings is that if you aren’t behind their vision of the world around you they’ll try to force you into it. Alex Kincaid knows something about leadership, his father being Northern Canada’s greatest coal magnate and his mentor being European catch wrestling technician Steve Llewellyn. To try and unpack Alex is to try and reconcile those two great influences, the father figures that made him into who he is. Maybe coming from wealth and culture like that made him a prince. Obviously, from there it’s a short walk to King.
I think I believe in what he’s selling. Maybe he’s telling the truth, maybe he’s a spectacular liar. But I believe Union Battleground will become impossible to ignore over the next year and it’s going to do it by presenting a version of professional wrestling no one else can. I can’t explain to you the complexities of it, of the men and monsters that make up its locker room but I can tell you it’s giving some of the most unique athletes on the planet access to a platform they’ve never had before. Hungry, young talent that exist in the truly international digital space with the sort of practiced skill that only comes from a lifetime of exposure. Alyssa Kincaid told me during my three days with them in India that all of the fighting you see on a Union Battleground broadcast eventually comes down to clashes of ideas. That if you listen to the fighters, it’s a complex web of experience and worldviews that motivate them to get into the ring for fight for more than shiny belts.
Alex Kincaid seems to be fighting for the structure itself. It’s a worthwhile exercise, moving past the good to try and do some broader meta-good. But there are obvious questions about trying to fight for a structure that you benefit from. I can’t help but wonder if this is all a game, if he’s playing both sides against the middle to set himself up as champion down the line. Maybe I’m cynical. Maybe I don’t understand him or his industry enough to see when someone is telling the truth about it. Maybes. Lots of them.
If The Bullet King wants to lead wrestling and hold it accountable to itself, he’s going to face people who disagree with him. After all, what gives him the right to declare himself King? But if you ask him that he’s got an easy smile and a simple answer.
“I do. Where do you think the first Kings came from?”