BY BRUCE MITCHELL - PWTORCH SENIOR COLUMNIST

Sometimes lightning strikes.

It happened for Combat Zone Wrestling last week when the bizarre YouTube video of Chikara act Osirian Portal suddenly became a viral sensation. The pro wrestling skit/match - a goofy hypnotic smorgasbord - drove more than a million and a half views to the channel. You have to figure, even with folks watching the thing more than once, a hell of a lot of people saw the masked Egyptian demi-gods, or whatever they are, hypnotize that portly guy and made him dance, and that other portly guy and made him do the Worm, and that really fat guy waddled out and took most of his clothes off, and some other stuff happened, and then the Egyptians tied it all together into a neat little package by pinning the portly guys.

Honestly, everybody involved played the hell out of it.

The video got picked up by insatiable cable networks like ESPN and G4, adding who knows how many more people to the long list of total viewers. Clearly, people enjoyed it.

The question, obviously, is how to turn that into money for the performers, and money for the promotions. YouTube doesn't pay the people who appear on it, no matter how many millions of views performers might drive to the site.

Cable networks aren't paying for esoteric clips. Their money goes to the big money boys like the NFL, the NBA, and the NCAA. Clips like the one featuring the Osirian Portal disappear as quickly as they arrive in the insatiable cultural zeitgest we suffer through these days.

So what does CZW or Chikara do with this lightning bolt? Is there more they can do with this fortuitous break than hope for a few more indy bookings for the performers?

Let's fae it, the percentage of people who are willing to pay good money to see this kind of thing, as opposed to giggling through an Internet clip once or twice, well, it's what Chikara draws already. Everybody involved in this has to be ready to move in an Internet instant, because that's how long viral storms like this last.

Companies like CZW and Chikara and all the rest that regularly post clips on YouTube need to be ready when and if lightning strikes for them. CZW and, particularly, Chikara needed to change what they featured on their own sites to cater to people who might bought this, and more stuff like it on a impulse.

CZW and Chikara could have worked together on this. They could have set up advertising on their sites for - I don't know how to say it - maybe a hypnotic-centric DVD that played out of the images they say in that clip they liked so much. Hell, you can slap together the DVD later with old footage and get it out as fast as possible. Whatever DVDs they sell are found money, and who knows, maybe you hook a few more folks for your promotion along the way.

Then there's merchandising. Imagine if whatever percentage of viewers actually Googled what they saw on YouTube and found the fat almost-naked guy and the rest of these characters featured on a cheap t-shirt. Post the design, take the orders, and crank out the shirts. It's the American way.

Asking networks to pick up your show based on the possibility of one clip is a stretch – well, it's a stretch when you're Chikara. It's an impossibility when you're pushing the kind of sick, sadistic garbage Combat Zone Wrestling hypes, particularly if one of your older TV types knows exactly what the promotion is named for. CZW asking fans to contact G4 and finally give the promotion a time slot didn't work when Mickey Rourke and "The Wrestler" featured their crap, and it won't fly now.

We live in a quick world, with quick information, and a quick chances for a quick buck. Indy promotions need to be ready the next time - and there will be a next time - a bunch of people are hypnotized.

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