John Thorne and Adam Wilde Talk "Slowburn Shoot", Absolute Intense Wrestling and Ethan Page Joining WWE

By Graham "GSM" Matthews

Absolute Intense Wrestling has been the premier independent wrestling promotions in the country for many years, and now it's finally getting the mainstream spotlight it deserves.

Slowburn Shoot is an all-new documentary that offers viewers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the stars of AIW and everything that makes the company and its incredible roster so special. Some of the biggest names in WWE and AEW today once walked through the doors of AIW, most notably Ethan Page right before he put pen to paper with WWE.

In the midst of special screenings across the country, WrestleRant caught up with AIW founder John Thorne and director Adam Wilde to talk why now was the right time for Slowburn Shoot, how it came to be, how All Ego ended up in the doc ahead of his WWE debut, and more.

I got to tell you guys right out of the gate, I'm not overly familiar with AIW being a Northeast guy, so this was my first look at the promotion from watching this. And I thought you guys did such a fantastic job of not only covering the promotion itself, but talking about Chandler's story, and the retirement match at the end for Josh, that kind of culminates the entire documentary. And honestly, I found myself getting emotional just watching it, having been introduced to these characters for the very first time from watching it.

Wilde: Thank you. I mean, like, that was the intended goal right there, is what you felt. We tried to make this about indie wrestling, and it could be indie wrestling anywhere in the country, but basically, we're shooting it through the lens of John's company, AIW. But the fact that it can resonate like that for anyone who just doesn't even know AIW, I think is the intended goal. So I'm glad it worked.”

Thorne: “Yeah, I think what's interesting about this is you can plug and play kind of these scenarios in any independent wrestling company organizations throughout the country, and you're going to find very similar stories of the people going up, the people coming down, the people kind of struggling with that, never making it, the people who are kind of bright-eyed and new to the business, trying to make it, like the Tyler Jordan story that's in there. There's all sorts of different, you know, kind of different periods of careers covered in this documentary, but it very much can apply to just any independent wrestling in general, because these stories, very similar are taking place in every locker room across this country.”


Talking about the process and getting this made and your interest in covering AIW specifically of all the promotions out there. Why AIW?

Wilde: I gotta be honest, like I was a wrestling fan, just like everyone in the world was a wrestling fan when they were a kid. And then like at a certain point, you sometimes grow out of that and then something pulls you back in. So, after my son was born, one of my buddies got me out of the house because my son was sleeping a lot. And he said, “Let me just take you to this wrestling show.” And I was like, “All right, sure.” He actually took me to an AIW show in Cleveland. It was like 10 minutes from my house. It was in an old church gymnasium. It was an oversold crowd, crazy, just raucous, high energy. The house lights were on, like classic indie wrestling environment. And it was Johnny Gargano's last night in Cleveland, which was just like just the most random show to ever go to, right? So he put on the performance of a lifetime.

Then he gave an hour long speech in the gym. He was crying. The crowd was crying. And right there, I was like, “What is this untapped subculture that's 10 minutes from my house that I had no idea even existed? And then I ended up talking to John through some back channels. And I said, I came up as a photographer, so I was like, “I want to just do a photo project.” He's like, “Yeah, sure. You can go down by the ring. You can shoot the wrestling.” I was like, I actually care less about the wrestling because I love the wrestling. But everyone knows the wrestling. I want to do character portraits in the back. I want to catch these guys before the intensity, after the intensity, during their match, as they're preparing. I want that. So he said, “Yeah, sure. Go ahead.” That's whatever you want. So, I followed them for every show, every six weeks. It was almost maybe even like every three or four weeks for an entire year, I went to every show. And I learned them and I earned the trust and I earned the respect to be able to approach John a year later and say, “Hey, there's some real good stories here. And I want to make it bigger. So that's when I said, I want to do a documentary.

Thorne: Yeah, we get approached all the time by people that are just kind of looking to find their way to get into the business or get backstage or see what it's like backstage. And there's like some college student or somebody that's like, “Hey, I'm doing this project.” “I'm going to make this documentary.” And we've kind of appeased that here and there over the years. And it turns out to be 15, 20 minute kind of compressed thing on YouTube. And we send it out as good content and then we kind of move along. And that's kind of what I thought this was going to be. I thought he was, because I just knew him as a guy, a photographer taking pictures in the back. They're great. He would send them to me after every single show. But a photographer and a documentary filmmaker, two completely different things.

​So, I didn't put a lot of faith in this proposition. I said, “Yeah, go ahead. You can come bring a camera.” And the day the first day of shooting, I showed up and there's what appears to be semi-truck trailer parked in front of the venue. It's not the U-Haul or anything. We bring the ring in and I look and there's all this camera equipment coming off the back of it. There's craft services catering setting up and I'm walking up to the venue and people are walking up to me with paperwork to sign and releases to sign. I said, “Oh, I think this is way bigger than I thought it was going to be.”

There's so many wrestling documentaries out there, but Adam, I think the way that you covered it was really, really well done. But the production alone, like this is like what you would see on Peacock with like what WWE does. I think you did a fantastic job of that.

Wilde: Thank you, thank you. So, it's a little bit of a cheat. I mean, I run one of the largest commercial studios in the country out of my house. We've got 160,000 square feet and constantly working with national brands for like all of their content needs. I do it for the brands all the time. This one's for me. I just brought my whole commercial world into this space in order to kind of tell the story.


Josh Prohibition's last match was the culmination of the documentary. I was curious while watching it, because Ethan Page was backstage at that match. You see him talking to Josh and sharing memories and stuff like that. Was that right before he went to WWE?

Thorne: So, that event took place, john, what around May of 2024. And yes, literally, maybe two weeks later, he goes to WWE. Actually, I think it was two or three days later. Ethan Page is in this in between phase after leaving AEW. We set him up for a bunch of dates because he's filling his schedule with independent dates and he's kind of getting back into it. He's coming back as a surprise at that show. Then we're in the parking lot and we're walking to his car. He's just like, “I think this is my last night.” And I said, “What? This is your first night.” He just kind of looked at me and said, “Thanks for everything, man,” and gave me a hug and walked away. He does not elaborate on any of it. I'm just like, “What are you talking about? Like, did I do something wrong?” I'm just like, “That's weird.” Ethan Page is a guy I talked to every day. The show was on a Friday and then on Tuesday, I believe he walks out on NXT. And I'm just like, “Oh, I get it now.” Then he texted me after it happened saying sorry and that he wasn't allowed to say anything. The deal wasn't done at that point.


Was this the right time for a documentary like this?

Wilde: With that AEW influx, a lot of those guys that are in AEW were AIW guys prior to AEW happening. So, Eddie Kingston is in the movie. We talked to him before he got signed and we kind of talked through that entire journey for him. It's kind of really exciting, but it also really hurt and crippled John's business with AIW because he couldn't rely on these veterans to kind of come in anymore. That's where we kind of really shifted that focus to the school and like the guys that he's home growing in order to kind of go out and do other things. I think it's really kind of exciting in that regard, as far as like the timing, as far as what else is going on in the wrestling world.

Thorne: I think there's some some further context needs to be given to this to the time of now, because I don't know if you're aware of this, but Adam shot this film over about seven years. When he first started coming around, AEW is just launching essentially. Several times, he thought that he had a finished product and he could probably speak to this more than I can. There's probably been 10 different cuts of this film and then something happens and he goes, “Oh, well, you know, maybe maybe I should add this in or maybe I should get a little bit of this.” The Josh Prohibition thing, for example. The film was done. The film was totally wrapped and he thought he had a story. And Josh Prohibition had reached out to me privately and said, “Hey, I think, you know, this is going to be it.” And I reached out to Adam. I said, “Hey, I know that you think you got everything you've shot forever. But, you know, I think there's a really good story in here.” And they don't even really touch upon it in the film, but like the first show that I promoted when I was 15 years old, pre-AIW, that's the first time that Josh Prohibition ever got into a wrestling ring.

We grew up in the same town. He's a little bit older than me. I thought that adding this kind of little twist to the film would be great. But as far as the right time, like Adam said, there's been reality shows and things like that. And I do think a lot of the time, people want to portray indie wrestling as this lowbrow sort of thing when it is a very serious thing that these performers take very seriously. It's like starving artists, musicians, honestly. You could take this story and it could be in the music world or it could be in the wrestling world or it could be in the comedy world. It really fits in all of them because while it is in AIW, it's certainly focused on wrestling. The character struggles can fit anywhere. It's just kind of a human story with a wrestling backdrop.

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