Eddie Hamer (RLS CAS)

Edward James Hamer (known as Eddie Hamer, born 15th May 1963 in Fort Worth, Texas) is a professional wrestling booker1, currently the Director of Wrestling for British-based promotion UNION Wrestling, which he co-founded. From October 2015 to May 2017 he was also the on-air General Manager for the promotion, and made the Director of Wrestling role an on-air authority position during his November 2021 return.A polarising figure at times, Hamer has garnered attention both for his experiments in Texas with younger wrestlers (the "Juniors" in EHP, for example, were between the ages of 16 and 19) and for a staunch belief in women's wrestling being crucially important throughout his career.
==Career==
===Assistant Booker for various promotions (1989-1996)===
Hamer got his first big break in 1989, joining Powerful Wrestling Zone in Texas as an Assistant Booker following some light trial work in the Summer of that year. He was put to work on the fledgling, and not too well regarded, women's division of the promotion. It was here that his lifelong passion for booking women's competition strongly began, and within six months he had turned several of PWZ's female talent into legitimate stars in the company.
He was headhunted several times over the next few years, spending time in promotions all over Texas, and in England (where he'd lived previously and met his wife). His reigns were all notable for putting an emphasis on men and women competing equally and the titles being defended in "Co-Main Events", a philosophy that, while being noble, hurt his reputation with some of the more old school promoters.
In 1996 he was essentially forced out into very niche wrestling by disillusioned promoters, landing in Canada to work as a booker and creative agent for the then fledgling Exhibition Wrestling. He would remain a consultant there until the early 2000s.
===Founding Eddie Hamer Presents (1998-2011)===
In March 1998, Hamer founded Eddie Hamer Presents. Intended to cover several passions of his, including wrestling, cabaret and live comedy, Eddie Hamer Presents: Pro Wrestling was the only element to take off. He signed many of the talent he'd worked with in the early nineties and began work on the concept of getting younger wrestlers in to work less dangerous matches, thus being able to train his own young locker room.
This concept was the biggest talking point upon it's long awaited inception in 2005. Positive reaction came for the reduced danger of the matches, continued education initiative and strong anti-bullying message given by the training. Negative reaction came from the fact he was perceived by some to be exploiting naïve "children", some of whom would lie about their age. This turned out to be true in 2007 when it was confirmed that EHP wonderkid Dynamite (later known as Ace) had lied, saying he was 17 when he joined despite only just turning 15.
Despite these small concerns, EHP became moderately successful, and helped to launch names like "The Cowpokes" Sean & Jordan Hamer (two of Hamer's sons), Ace, Piranha, Mr. Meaner and Miss Deeds. In 2004, Hamer left his consultancy position to focus full-time on EHP. However, in 2008, he began cutting costs across the board. In a move that he later stated was "absolutely the right one... done all wrong", he cut most of the funding to the Juniors Division to fund his Women's Division and main event scene. This enraged current Junior Champion Ace, who along with Piranha and many others, walked out upon their contracts expiring in late-2008. EHP closed it's doors three year later, having never recovered from the loss of arguably it's biggest attraction.
===WWE Backlash Wrestling Consultant (2014)===
Hamer was brought in my WWE to consult on the formation of it's Backlash Wrestling Tour in 2014. However, he only reluctantly took this job knowing both Ace and Piranha had signed up, and not knowing if they'd forgiven him. Despite trying to stay as far from the locker room as possible, he was able to patch things up with both men during this period, partly thanks to his son Jordan, which would prove crucial following the end of the BWT.
===UNION Wrestling (2015-present)===
Hamer, along with son Jordan, Ace, and fellow England-based Americans and former wrestlers Paul Vega and Bill Arson, founded PWU in 2015 with a view to tour the UK and North America for a year to build up the funds for a regular arena in the north of England and the equipment needed to stream shows online. The UK portion of the tour was boosted by a special guest appearance from WWE legend The Rock. Despite only being pencilled in for a short stay, he ended up forming Team Bring It with fellow Floridian Zodiak, and the two won the Tag Team Championships.
This early success helped the Canadian Tour in early-2016 sell out in record time, and guest appearances again from The Rock (who dropped the Tag Team Championships during this tour) and fellow WWE mainstay Christian saw profits soar to the point that they were able to buy the rundown NewSquare Arena in Newcastle, Tyne-and-Wear, renovate it into The Union Arena, and begin preparations to stream their Live From The Union series.
However, in April 2016 Exhibition Wrestling came calling, wanting to expand into the English wrestling market by assimilating PWU. Hamer was thrust into the chief negotiating role during this time, and was instrumental in keeping talks going as long as they did. The other co-founders, Ace particularly, were angered by the insistence by EW that PWU rebrand as "Exhibition Wrestling: UK", and by their other demands, which even Hamer admitted in interviews in later months were "unreasonable and unrealistic". 
Though the deal collapsing wasn't too damaging for PWU, WWE stepped in offer a much more amenable deal, which was confirmed in September 2016 as an affiliate deal giving exclusive broadcast rights and a percentage of profits to WWE, with PWU gaining certain trademarks and use of facilities and talent. Over the first few months of existence several of these trademarks (Capitol Punishment and The Wrestling Classic), facilities (the Performance Centre during the run-up to Capitol Punishment) and talent (Christian appeared in the Brawl Championship Tournament and The Dudley Boyz challenged for the Tag Team Championships).
The WWE partnership was well received, with Live From The Union as a major show soon being joined by Union Unleashed on the Network, a smaller show that showcased more mid-card and Women's Division talent and also toured away from the Newcastle-based LFTU. Hamer was credited by several inside sources as being the facilitator and leading negotiator once again with the WWE, and his confidence in the role allowed them to grow the promotion beyond any projections. During all of this period, Hamer also acted as on-air General Manager, a face GM who acted as a constant foil to the heel World Champions (Virgil Baker and Broderick) or ally to the face champion (Ryan Burton).
In December 2017 Hamer made the decision to hold back the date of the promotion's second Live Event, PWU Capitol Punishment, due to concerns over financial issues and the political upheaval in his home country. The event was, according to Hamer, considered for a closer, European capitol city, before the event eventually went ahead in the States in February 2017. 
In May 2017 Hamer was criticised by former EHP wrestler Rebecca "Angel" Marin for building a World Championship Division "based around his North American friends" to the detriment of more homegrown talent. Hamer refuted this, stating that of the three world champions, he'd actually only pushed for and signed one of them, Broderick, and that Ace and his son Jordan were the ones who signed and booked Baker and Burton (though Ace has since disputed this). It was at this time that he was also written off the shows (ironically by Broderick) due to his desire to get back to the behind-the-scenes work more in the company, and to spend more time with his family. He was replaced in the interim by The Maverick.
He spearheaded The UNION Wrestling Classic Live Event and it's Women's Division Tournament, which was a success despite technical issues plaguing it, in July 2017. He appeared at the last Live from the UNION from the Union Arena in Newcastle, in October 2017, saying a tearful goodbye to the crowd before getting to hit his son's Cattle Prod finisher on Bobby the Fan. 
Hamer didn't appear on programming during the second season, preferring to work behind-the-scenes, and being preoccupied with their affiliate promotion Turbo Wrestling Alliance (formerly BOW) being embroiled in a hazing scandal. He confirmed in November 2017 that the two promotions had severed ties, and condemned the behaviour as being antithetical to his and UW's values. 
In early 2018, Hamer was thrust back into the limelight when his real-life feud with Mikey Ace was reignited. Ace left UNION Wrestling, citing the backstage "politics" of the locker room, and Hamer specifically, and an apathy for how bog-standard and boring the promotion's programming had become. Hamer responded, calling Ace a "loser, a liar and a professional dramatist", comments he'd later state he regretted.2 
Soon after, he'd confirm that financial restraints and a small roster exodus had forced him to consider plans to downsize, returning the promotion to their roots as a live touring promotion. They had done so entirely by 2019, with Hamer contemplating selling the promotion during this time. The COVID-19 pandemic stopped this plan, and during the hiatus caused by the lockdown he had a change of heart. 
During the timespan where many alternative wrestling promotions in Britain were beginning to try and recover from the initial lockdowns, UNION caused controversy by firstly allowing their remaining roster to join in with the "Indy Wrestling Lives" promotion-supporting shows, before withdrawing this in mid-2021 on the grounds that they were planning to come back, too. Hamer defended this decision as being pragmatic, and out of concern for his own employees.3 
He'd bring the promotion back in November 2021, emotionally addressing the live crowd and thanking them for not abandoning UNION Wrestling during the "dark times". He'd find himself being criticised again when UNION confirmed the signing of Wroe, who'd agreed to main event an IWL show that, due to it's subsequent cancellation, spelled the end for the initiative. He confirmed in December that UNION Wrestling had sealed a deal to fund their March relaunch plans. 
==In-Wrestling==
===Nicknames:===
Ready Eddie (in EHP)
The General (in UNION Wrestling)
==Accomplishments==
-
==Trivia==
*Hamer is the father of Jordan "The Cowpoke" Hamer, Sean "The Ultimate Cowpoke" Hamer and Edward Hamer Jr., who previously wrestled for PWU as Kid Hammer.4
*Hamer is a noted Anglophile, attributing this to falling in love with both the country and an English woman during his first stint living there. He currently resides in Blackpool, where his youngest children were born. Oddly, they're both still billed as being from Texas despite being born in Lancashire and holding British passports.5
*He has never wrestled a match in his life, the closest being several beat-downs received in on-air positions, like Broderick's attack to end his tenure as UW General Manager.6
*Hamer has a noted disdain for the more "character-based" gimmicks of professional wrestling, disliking his sons' choice of the "Cowpoke" gimmick, having to be persuaded on signing Blush and originally wanting JWM star Hubris to perform as a more grounded character.7
==Behind-the-Scenes==
#Hamer was created to serve as the overall "booker" character when my notes were turned into a narrative universe.
#The feuding with my personal CAS is a reference to my rewrite, redo, scrap, bring back, disregard and defend my ideas to myself during the development phase constantly.
#I'm running this angle in the "real world" side of the narrative to set up UNION Wrestling as having something of a dual reputation, lauded for treating their talent well and nurturing both talent and good shows, but being considered aloof and ruthless in keeping themselves dominant in the alternative wrestling scene.
#I created him as having something of a dynasty to create parallels to the McMahon family. As that has lessened over the years, I think certain parallels remain, including points 6 and 7.
#Quirk of the narrative, mostly.
#This is one of those parallels between Hamer and Vince McMahon, that I chose because I thought it would be interesting to have him essentially be Vince's opposite.
#Similarly, this is intended as an opposite foible created as a jokey reference to some of the silly characters Vince McMahon has created/overseen/signed off on over his tenure.
Eddie Hamer (RLS CAW)