Welcome to JAMROCK, a professional wrestling show to be staged on Saturday by All Caribbean Wrestling (ACW), has been postponed.

The event, which would have been Jamaica’s first professional wrestling event by an overseas promotion in around 25 years, was to be staged at Alfred Sangster Auditorium (ASA) at the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech) in St Andrew. But ACW promoter JB Cool says a number of permits were not secured in time for the event to take place.

Cool, based in Florida, says he was notified about the required permits by ASA operators long after he made a deposit to rent the venue, even though both parties had been in correspondence for some time to negotiate the logistics.

“The people at UTech did not tell me I needed permits for everything,” Cool told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday. “We just found out and they’re holding us to not having the event because we did not have a music licence permit. I’ve travelled around this entire world and I’ve never had to deal with this.”

This music permit relates to the use of music at public events and ensuring that copyrighted audio is not used without the permission of its authors. Cool says they would not have infringed on any artiste’s intellectual property as the music used at these events are entrance themes for wrestlers while they make their way to the ring for matches. In ACW’s case, themes are owned by the wrestlers themselves.

“The music we use is no one else’s; it’s the individuals’ personal music,” Cool said. “Because they don’t know, they’re saying, ‘Oh, you may be using somebody else’s music.’

“No. The music that we have, you would actually have to pay us if we catch you using it. It was a back and forth about it.”

Cool says a total of five permits was needed, the others related to security, fire safety, and other licences from the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation. He says this was new to him because when organising shows in other countries, these matters would have been handled by the venue operators once the deposit has been made.

“The problem is when we first reserved the place to do the event, they didn’t tell us any of this until this week,” he said. “I’ve done shows in Trinidad, the Bahamas, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Israel, India and this is the only place where this happens.

“The venue is supposed to let us know we need all this, but they did not. They took the money to reserve, now we gotta do all this stuff and I’m like, ‘That’s not fair because you took the money to reserve the venue.’

The Observer obtained e-mail exchanged between ACW and UTech’s Sports Facilities Officer Carola Russell. Russell responded on Monday, May 22, to ACW’s request for use of the venue explaining the relevant requirements. The e-mail said that the ASA rental fee is $200,000 but a 50 per cent deposit would be needed to secure the venue for the date requested and the remaining balance at least one week before the date of the event.

UTech also requested a copy of ACW’s liability insurance coverage for the event, or an indemnity form if insurance is not in place.

ASA officials also requested “a letter detailing specific arrangement for on-site provision of medical treatment and emergency during the hours of the event,” and said it must include an ambulance.

“Our Safety and Security Department will notify you regarding security for your event,” the email said. “The security service attracts an additional fee that must be paid prior to the date of your event.”

There was no mention of permits needed in this email.

When contacted for a response, Russell told the Observer that UTech has nothing to do with the event and declined to comment on the matter.

Cool says the ring for the event is already at the wharves and waiting to be cleared and 22 in-ring talents have also arrived.

“Trust me, I have 22 other people who are upset as well because of all the flights and hotels and everything that we had arranged,” he said.

ACW says it is now considering whether it should refund tickets already bought for the event or allow their validity for another date as the promotion is now working on a new date and different venue for the show.