Setting the Scene
The story starts in the Summer of 2025. The wrestling landscape is one of big ideas and big money but no true alternative to the usual weekly episodic soap opera with the same in ring promos, the same gimmick matches, the same false finishes. An ambitious Las Vegas based private equity group looking at ways to build they're portfolio saw potential in pro-wrestling. Matt Manson was a 37 year old British Sports Executive who had built an extensive CV working within the Hong Kong and North American Soccer league systems.
Manson was living in Las Vegas, a city where had been based for over 8 years, moving to the USA in 2016 as part of 'Project 26', designed to create a UK style Soccer League pyramid in North America. Manson had moved to Las Vegas from Hong Kong in 2016. He had been living in Hong Kong since leaving the UK aged 20 in 2007. As with all these things, it was a girl he was seeing who's father worked for the British Embassy in Hong Kong meant when she asked Manson to come with her he jumped at the chance.
Life in Hong Kong was initially tough, with Manson only knowing very basic words in Cantonese but he loved the social aspect of the big city. As the months went by he picked up more and more words and also went to language class. By the time 2009 came round he was a lot more comfortable in conversations with locals and in his role working for a Boxing Promotion where he would assist a friend with seeing up events locally. Around the same time he got a major job at the HK Football Association as a competition assistant helping with all areas of the league, updating the social media accounts and website. He realised quite quickly that he believed the league system needed a lot of work and put forward some proposals to the HK Senior Management. They were impressed and believed having a younger person leading a new project would make sense.
As the years went by he split with the girl he had first met in 2006 and now had quite the impressive social circle. A good group of friends, mainly other expats and had quite the life. Living in Kennedy Town from 2009 to 2014 he was playing football a couple of times a week for a local team. Family would come over a couple of times a year and he would return back to the UK around once every two years. It was a great time.
Manson first came into contact with Tony Khan in June 2010. He and Khan had been introduced with each other in Hong Kong at a Commercial Sports event. Most of the conversation was about the growth of football in Hong Kong. Khans father Shahid was in the process of building his own sporting empire taking over the Jacksonville Jaguars earlier in the year and were looking at other investments. But talk soon turned to Pro-Wrestling. Manson was what you would call a 'Part-Time' fan. Something he watched as a kid during the 90's and kind of kept up with what was going on but seemed less and less. He had become more interested in Boxing and MMA, like many others.
Part of Manson and Khans initial conversations both in person and by email was how would a new promotion work? For Khan, it would be a mix of all non WWE organisations. Manson disagreed. He believed it needed to be a true alternative. For him, WWE were always going to be the best at everything but what they didnt do was pro-wrestling as a pseudo legitimate sport. Weight classes, Time limits, a sports presentation. Khan understood and the two would spend the next 6 years talking about ways to start a new promotion.
Khan had the money, Manson had the vision. In the end, after many years of back and forth Khan decided on what he believed it was going to be and asked Manson to come on board. Manson knew that if he decided to take Khans offer, he wouldn't have the autonomy to create and mould what he believed would be a successful alternative to WWE. He understood it wasn't his money so it wasn't his place and knew Khan had the passion and ambition himself. He knew he would be treading on toes so decided to decline the offer.
It was around the same time, the Summer of 2015 that Manson got another offer, this time to head 'Project 26' a huge plan to create a UK style Soccer League pyramid in North America. The offer came from two capital investment firms as well as the US Soccer Federation. This offer gave Manson the opportunity to plan the next 10 years himself. He would be given full control of the project which allowed him to plan ahead. In May 2016 he moved from Hong Kong to Las Vegas to start the next chapter of his life.
