Saturday night means the end of the week for most New Zealand wrestlers. Matches done, boots come off, halls empty, and rings return to training facilities around the country for another month. But for Tyler King, the end of a live event is just the start of what’s to come.
King is the man behind Good Cheerful Productions, the company responsible for Aftershock Pro Wrestling on CTV (Saturdays, from 8pm).
“The bulk of the work is in the weeks following show day where I’m cutting all the cameras and audio together,” King told NZPWI.
King can be spotted ringside, camera in hand, during most pro-wrestling events held in the South Island. Once they’re over, he heads home to go over the footage. A typical set-up for an APW event in Christchurch has three cameras (one stationary and two hand-held), audio recording direct from the sound-desk, and a separate recording for commentary live-to-tape.
“There’s a lot to do before the show, prepping all the videos and music, a lot to do on show day, setting it all up and recording, and a lot to do after the show, pulling it all together in post production,” King said.
Like many wrestling fans, King became enamoured with WWF during the late 90s. A chance encounter with Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker (prior to their Hell in a Cell match at Badd Blood) while his parents were channel surfing started a nine-year-old King down the path to becoming a wrestling fan. The debut of Kane confirmed it, King was hooked on pro-wrestling.
As he matured, King started to watch pro-wrestling programming differently, paying particular attention to the production side of things.
“I spent my teen years watching a lot of wrestling, and I began to really notice the video packages and how well made they were,” he said. “They can make the most mediocre feud seem monumental. I started trying to make my own wrestling videos with whatever I had – tape-to-tape VCR recording and then later on teaching myself how to use editing software like Adobe Premier, and cutting together whatever clips were available online at the time.”
King pursued a career in editing—fuelled by his wrestling passion—after he left school, and studied post-production at the New Zealand Broadcasting School. He currently works as an editor for WhitebaitMedia, with his work appearing on shows including The Adam & Eve Show, The Erin Simpson Show, and What Now.
King attended the first Aftershock Pro Wrestling event, Emergence (March 2015), as a fan and approached APW about filming their future shows. A deal was soon struck between both parties and now APW joins the likes of IPW Ignition, KPW Off the Ropes, and Steve Rickard’s On the Mat, with a regular television show on New Zealand screens.
“It feels great to be able to apply what I’ve learned from my years working in TV, to my lifelong passion of pro wrestling,” King said.
“Watching the first episode air with a group of people from APW was really special. It was weird though – I’ve been seeing my own work on TV for years now and so you kind of get used to it, but this was different, I was actually a bit nervous before it aired! The feeling when it finally came on was hard to describe. This is probably the most rewarding project I’ve ever been a part of and it’s been amazing to see the buzz that I’ve been able to help generate in the NZ wrestling community.”
Aftershock Pro Wrestling airs Saturdays from 8pm on CTV, with a replay on Sundays from 1.30pm. CTV is available on Freeview Channel 40 or can be streamed live from ctv.co.nz/livestream.
