On a frigid night back in December of 2018, then-E3 President Gary Gribble put in a phone call to Cal Brawnley, E3's road manager. "It was the hardest phone call I've ever had to make, bar none," Gribble sourly remembered. "I told Cal to tell the roster that we were ceasing the current tour. Cal wanted answers. I didn't have any for him."
On 12/11/18, E3 Wrestling ran their last event, and then disappeared without a peep. On March 30th, 2020, the news broke that E3 had been sold to original E3 owner and founder, Lexicon. For over a year, a wrestling promotion that had been running for the better part of 7 years was in limbo. We sat down with both Gary Gribble and Lexicon to get the real story about the missing 15 months of E3 Wrestling...
Interviewer: Mr. Gribble... Lexicon... Thank you so much for sitting down with us. There are many people out there that were left in the dark when E3 ceased operations...
Lexicon: So were we.
Gary: Yes, this has been one of the most agonizing time periods of my life.
Interviewer: Well, let's start from December 12th, 2018. That's the day you made the call to halt operations, correct?
Gary: Yeah, that was the night I had to make the call to Cal to stop the tour. I really didn't have any choice at that point. Would have killed the company to go on for another day, even.
Interviewer: From the outside looking in, E3 was a successful company, employing dozens of people and touring the US, with regular shows on the schedule. What did the financials really look like behind the scenes?
Gary: I still consider E3 to be a successful venture, but we bit off way more than we could chew in 2018. We were making money, drawing decent crowds... but the overhead cost was killing us. The venue prices were rising right in the midst of our tour, and it would have been way too much work to try and switch venues on the fly, especially when you consider that you've advertised a specific building for weeks. Would have been a disaster trying to get fans to go to a new location with a day's notice. We were trying to use profits from the tour to fuel the continuation of the tour, and even though we were trying to stay a few weeks ahead with booking venues and such, we just couldn't keep up.
Interviewer: Lexicon, from a talent standpoint, what was it like when you got the news that E3 was stopping the tour? What was the feeling in the locker room?
Lexicon: The air was let out of the room. People just kind of froze up, you know? I mean, you're in a town that's not your own, and no offense to the town we were in, but the only reason you're there is to wrestle, and then you move on to the next town. Now, it's like, "Ok, now what?" And the thought of how you're going to pay your bills pops into your head, and it's easy to get freaked out in that situation.
Interviewer: Obviously, you and Gary have a pretty good relationship. Lex, you founded E3 in 2011 and sold it to Gary a few years later. Now, Gary is selling it back to you. Can you speak on that?
Lexicon: When I started E3, I wanted to create a sports-based wrestling promotion, where wins and losses matter. I think if you look at people who have also promised that in the past, most of them have failed and have failed quickly. They all either resort to "sports-entertainment" or they fold. Once we wrapped up Season 1, I saw the true potential of E3, but I also got the bug to get back into the ring and be larger part of E3. Not long after, I figured it was in the best interest of E3 if I weren't in charge of day-to-day operations, so I called on my good friend Gary and asked him if he was interested in buying it. He's been with me since 2010. He worked as a ref, an announcer, an interviewer... he knew E3 better than anyone, so I felt comfortable selling him the promotion. There was never an agreement to sell the company back to me.
Interviewer: And yet here we are...
Lexicon: Right. And I can't really speak on that situation. That's Gary's story to tell. All I can say is that I heard Gary was shopping the company, I made my pitch, and Gary felt comfortable taking what was probably a really low offer compared to the other offers he had.
*Lex and Gary chuckle*
Gary: That last part is very true. We had bigger offers, but that also came with the unknown of what they'd do with the property. Some probably wouldn't care, but I love E3 Wrestling, and I trust Lex to keep E3 true to what I love about it.
Interviewer: So, we know why E3 was halted, we know about the sale of the company, but we have many months from the timeline missing here. What happened between halting operations and the sale to Lexicon?
Gary: A whole lot of sleepless nights, depression, health issues, negotiations, etc. It was a rough year. In January of 2019, we made the decision to let all E3 wrestlers and staff out of their contracts; Free them up to work elsewhere. That may sound like we gave up hope early on, but we just wanted the roster and staff to be paid, and we couldn't do that if we weren't running any shows. After that, we went on a worldwide search for possible funding; Potential investors and things of that nature. It took me until June of 2019 to find someone who was willing to put the money in to continue the tour we had left back in December. After several meetings in New York and after drawing up the proper paperwork, our investor was arrested for insider trading.
Interviewer: Woah.
*Gary chuckles*
Gary: Yeah, I can laugh about it now, but that was a pretty dark day. After that, I took a few months off. I wasn't ready to throw the idea away of an investor yet, but I was pretty defeated. All the while, I felt like I was alone in this. I felt like my wife and kids had left me, and I was living in this empty house. I had this wrestling promotion, but no wrestlers, no staff, and because of that, no fans. I felt like the only way out was to sell and move on. So, back in January of this year, I put E3 on the market.
Interviewer: What was the interest level?
Gary: There was a lot of interest from the jump. There were a lot of offers from other countries; Canada, England, Japan, Mexico, China. There were some great offers, there really were. But as I was fielding these offers, and as my mood was starting to improve, I realized that I needed to be a part of E3 Wrestling, if it was indeed going to continue on. I think the only thing worse than owning something that once brought you joy but doesn't work anymore is giving it to someone else and seeing them do something to hurt it.
Interviewer: And that's when you got the call from Lex?
Lexicon: Well, I had heard from former E3 Champion Michael Morris, who is a native of London, that there were some blokes out that way that had put in an offer. So I literally spent the next day or two securing funds and building a proposal for Gary to look over. The money offer was probably exponentially lower than even the lowest offer Gary received from others, but I think the actual plan was probably exponentially better than anything else he was pitched. And I promised Gary that he'd have a position with E3. I'm not going to make him go back to reffing or anything like that, although I'm sure he'd be more than willing to do that, but he'll have an important job with the company for the foreseeable future.
Gary: It really was, especially when you're talking about keeping E3 Wrestling in the United States. It really wasn't that tough of a decision. The money was enough; I don't need millions of dollars in the bank to live. But I realized that in order to live the life I want to live, I need E3 Wrestling. I need E3 Wrestling from the guy who started E3 Wrestling. To me, that's way more valuable than money.
Interview: Well put, Mr. Gribble. Ok, so we've taken up a lot of your time, and it sounds like you have a lot of work to do, but can we get an idea of what this E3 reboot will look like going forward? When do you plan to start? Who will be a part of it? Format?
Lexicon: Well, I don't anticipate things to kick off until probably late-Summer. We have a ton of work to do. However, we've been getting a lot of things done in a short amount of time, so I don't see why we couldn't be kicking off by August at the latest. We'll be announcing the roster over the course of the next few months, but I can confirm that we wrapped up contract negotiations yesterday. I personally contacted everyone who was on the roster when E3 halted operations back in 2018, and while there were a fair amount of declines, we were able to secure 18 men and women total to be on the roster for this year. Obviously, that's a fraction of what the roster was during the last season, but we were planning to cap the roster at 20 anyway, so this is still in line with our plans. We're cutting things down a lot. We'll be running shows mostly in Austin, TX, and we'll be running a Dojo class in San Antonio. We really are going back to basics here. Maybe two shows per month, at most. We'll also be streaming our shows from now on, posting the results on our website and Facebook page afterwards. We'll be re-branding, as well, keeping the E3 moniker, but changing the meaning. We've got a new logo in development and all that. It's going to be a massive project to get this thing going by August, but I think I speak for Gary and all others involved when I say that it's a project we're all looking forward to. It's going to be a lot of fun.
On 12/11/18, E3 Wrestling ran their last event, and then disappeared without a peep. On March 30th, 2020, the news broke that E3 had been sold to original E3 owner and founder, Lexicon. For over a year, a wrestling promotion that had been running for the better part of 7 years was in limbo. We sat down with both Gary Gribble and Lexicon to get the real story about the missing 15 months of E3 Wrestling...
Interviewer: Mr. Gribble... Lexicon... Thank you so much for sitting down with us. There are many people out there that were left in the dark when E3 ceased operations...
Lexicon: So were we.
Gary: Yes, this has been one of the most agonizing time periods of my life.
Interviewer: Well, let's start from December 12th, 2018. That's the day you made the call to halt operations, correct?
Gary: Yeah, that was the night I had to make the call to Cal to stop the tour. I really didn't have any choice at that point. Would have killed the company to go on for another day, even.
Interviewer: From the outside looking in, E3 was a successful company, employing dozens of people and touring the US, with regular shows on the schedule. What did the financials really look like behind the scenes?
Gary: I still consider E3 to be a successful venture, but we bit off way more than we could chew in 2018. We were making money, drawing decent crowds... but the overhead cost was killing us. The venue prices were rising right in the midst of our tour, and it would have been way too much work to try and switch venues on the fly, especially when you consider that you've advertised a specific building for weeks. Would have been a disaster trying to get fans to go to a new location with a day's notice. We were trying to use profits from the tour to fuel the continuation of the tour, and even though we were trying to stay a few weeks ahead with booking venues and such, we just couldn't keep up.
Interviewer: Lexicon, from a talent standpoint, what was it like when you got the news that E3 was stopping the tour? What was the feeling in the locker room?
Lexicon: The air was let out of the room. People just kind of froze up, you know? I mean, you're in a town that's not your own, and no offense to the town we were in, but the only reason you're there is to wrestle, and then you move on to the next town. Now, it's like, "Ok, now what?" And the thought of how you're going to pay your bills pops into your head, and it's easy to get freaked out in that situation.
Interviewer: Obviously, you and Gary have a pretty good relationship. Lex, you founded E3 in 2011 and sold it to Gary a few years later. Now, Gary is selling it back to you. Can you speak on that?
Lexicon: When I started E3, I wanted to create a sports-based wrestling promotion, where wins and losses matter. I think if you look at people who have also promised that in the past, most of them have failed and have failed quickly. They all either resort to "sports-entertainment" or they fold. Once we wrapped up Season 1, I saw the true potential of E3, but I also got the bug to get back into the ring and be larger part of E3. Not long after, I figured it was in the best interest of E3 if I weren't in charge of day-to-day operations, so I called on my good friend Gary and asked him if he was interested in buying it. He's been with me since 2010. He worked as a ref, an announcer, an interviewer... he knew E3 better than anyone, so I felt comfortable selling him the promotion. There was never an agreement to sell the company back to me.
Interviewer: And yet here we are...
Lexicon: Right. And I can't really speak on that situation. That's Gary's story to tell. All I can say is that I heard Gary was shopping the company, I made my pitch, and Gary felt comfortable taking what was probably a really low offer compared to the other offers he had.
*Lex and Gary chuckle*
Gary: That last part is very true. We had bigger offers, but that also came with the unknown of what they'd do with the property. Some probably wouldn't care, but I love E3 Wrestling, and I trust Lex to keep E3 true to what I love about it.
Interviewer: So, we know why E3 was halted, we know about the sale of the company, but we have many months from the timeline missing here. What happened between halting operations and the sale to Lexicon?
Gary: A whole lot of sleepless nights, depression, health issues, negotiations, etc. It was a rough year. In January of 2019, we made the decision to let all E3 wrestlers and staff out of their contracts; Free them up to work elsewhere. That may sound like we gave up hope early on, but we just wanted the roster and staff to be paid, and we couldn't do that if we weren't running any shows. After that, we went on a worldwide search for possible funding; Potential investors and things of that nature. It took me until June of 2019 to find someone who was willing to put the money in to continue the tour we had left back in December. After several meetings in New York and after drawing up the proper paperwork, our investor was arrested for insider trading.
Interviewer: Woah.
*Gary chuckles*
Gary: Yeah, I can laugh about it now, but that was a pretty dark day. After that, I took a few months off. I wasn't ready to throw the idea away of an investor yet, but I was pretty defeated. All the while, I felt like I was alone in this. I felt like my wife and kids had left me, and I was living in this empty house. I had this wrestling promotion, but no wrestlers, no staff, and because of that, no fans. I felt like the only way out was to sell and move on. So, back in January of this year, I put E3 on the market.
Interviewer: What was the interest level?
Gary: There was a lot of interest from the jump. There were a lot of offers from other countries; Canada, England, Japan, Mexico, China. There were some great offers, there really were. But as I was fielding these offers, and as my mood was starting to improve, I realized that I needed to be a part of E3 Wrestling, if it was indeed going to continue on. I think the only thing worse than owning something that once brought you joy but doesn't work anymore is giving it to someone else and seeing them do something to hurt it.
Interviewer: And that's when you got the call from Lex?
Lexicon: Well, I had heard from former E3 Champion Michael Morris, who is a native of London, that there were some blokes out that way that had put in an offer. So I literally spent the next day or two securing funds and building a proposal for Gary to look over. The money offer was probably exponentially lower than even the lowest offer Gary received from others, but I think the actual plan was probably exponentially better than anything else he was pitched. And I promised Gary that he'd have a position with E3. I'm not going to make him go back to reffing or anything like that, although I'm sure he'd be more than willing to do that, but he'll have an important job with the company for the foreseeable future.
Gary: It really was, especially when you're talking about keeping E3 Wrestling in the United States. It really wasn't that tough of a decision. The money was enough; I don't need millions of dollars in the bank to live. But I realized that in order to live the life I want to live, I need E3 Wrestling. I need E3 Wrestling from the guy who started E3 Wrestling. To me, that's way more valuable than money.
Interview: Well put, Mr. Gribble. Ok, so we've taken up a lot of your time, and it sounds like you have a lot of work to do, but can we get an idea of what this E3 reboot will look like going forward? When do you plan to start? Who will be a part of it? Format?
Lexicon: Well, I don't anticipate things to kick off until probably late-Summer. We have a ton of work to do. However, we've been getting a lot of things done in a short amount of time, so I don't see why we couldn't be kicking off by August at the latest. We'll be announcing the roster over the course of the next few months, but I can confirm that we wrapped up contract negotiations yesterday. I personally contacted everyone who was on the roster when E3 halted operations back in 2018, and while there were a fair amount of declines, we were able to secure 18 men and women total to be on the roster for this year. Obviously, that's a fraction of what the roster was during the last season, but we were planning to cap the roster at 20 anyway, so this is still in line with our plans. We're cutting things down a lot. We'll be running shows mostly in Austin, TX, and we'll be running a Dojo class in San Antonio. We really are going back to basics here. Maybe two shows per month, at most. We'll also be streaming our shows from now on, posting the results on our website and Facebook page afterwards. We'll be re-branding, as well, keeping the E3 moniker, but changing the meaning. We've got a new logo in development and all that. It's going to be a massive project to get this thing going by August, but I think I speak for Gary and all others involved when I say that it's a project we're all looking forward to. It's going to be a lot of fun.