Opinionated Thoughts Number Two

The last post dealt with just one opinion, and what an open ended opinion it was. It was long winded, and I have several more to go, so I decided to do one opinion a post for your reading ease.

The Rise And Fall And Rise Again Of Independent Wrestling Promotions.

Vince McMahon is a genius businessman. Vince McMahon is directly responsible for the death of wrestling as we know it. Or knew it rather. Vince coined the term "Sports Entertainment", he threw out the time honored tradition of Kayfabe. With that being said, if I was in his shoes I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing. The object of any businessman is to make as much money as possible, to take your business further then any other business in the same league to new heights, which he has done. However with the rise of his personal bank account came the fall of the Indies.

Back in the Seventies it was much easier for a wrestler to find a place to ply his trade. It was typical for a wrestler to work a territory for a while, then move on to another place to see if he could get as hot as he was in the previous place. They would work the WWWF, AWA, Mid South, Carolinas and Portland, to name but a few. However when Vince JR bought the WWF from his father, it began a change that evolved wrestling into what we know today. The first thing Vince did was rob all the other promotions of their best talent. He got Hulk Hogan and Gene Okerlund from the AWA. He got Roddy Piper from Portland. He went and gutted a key core group consisting of all the best talent and brought them aboard the WWF. He then went around and systematically shut down every small promotion he could, one by one. If he couldn't buy you out, he just shut you down by sucking your entire fan base away from you, and more then one promotion just folded. The one promotion that held it all up for awhile was The Briscoes out of Florida. They finally fell, and that left WWF and WCW as the giants on the hill. I often liken the rating wars of the nineties between WCW and the WWF to the fall of Communism. Ronald Reagan out spent and out thought the Soviet Union until he bankrupted the USSR, and that's basically what Vince did to the WCW.

My Opinion:
An up and coming wrestler of yesteryear had it tough, but honest. They put in the work, they drove the miles, they worked for small payoffs where oftentimes the expenses came to more then the payoff. THEY PAID THEIR DUES. Today it is very much different. I'll put it to you this way in a shoot promo I am coming up with off the seat of my pants, here it goes:
"Ric Flair. Paul Orndorf. Rowdy Roddy Piper. Dusty Rhodes! The son of a plumber! Digging ditches with his daddy at eight years old, hell man, I never even had it that good! Do you know what the difference between new wrestlers and me is? OLD SCHOOL. Let me tell you the difference so you can understand. The problem with today's wrestlers is that they have it to damn good and don't know it! It's true. Some young kid is hanging out at the mall, scarfing pizza and drinking Cokes when a WWE talent scout just happens to be walking by and thinks he just discovered the next big thing! So they sign him to a big money contract and send him off to Ohio Valley Wrestling to learn a few moves, the next thing you know he is main eventing at Madison Square Garden! I go to wrestling school and Buddy Rose says to me, "So Kid, you want to be a wrestler?" All the while I am driving my 86 Ranger 100 miles to Portland to an empty gym where it's all about the wrestling. There are no fans chanting my name. There is no big money contracts thrown my way. But that's ok. That's alright. Do you want to know why? Because that way worked for Ric Flair. It worked for Paul Orndorff. It worked for Dusty Rhodes, and it will work for me too. So, yes Buddy, I want to be a wrestler. I'll see YOU at Madison Square Garden."

Well, I hope that wasn't to bad for something just thrown together. I am so happy that Indies are starting to make a comeback. Let me set something straight here for a second. I am never going to make it to the WWE, I know that. I am never going to make it to TNA, I know that too. I didn't get into this to become rich and famous, I will probably lose more money in this then I make, but that's ok, because it isn't about fame or money for me. I am not now, nor will I ever be a professional wrestler. I am simply a huge wrestling fan that just happens to wrestle. It is the ultimate in fan participation, like a Nascar fan who gets to drive the race cars, or a baseball fan who gets to go to spring training with his favorite team. That is who I am, and how I wrestle. And I think that will show in my performance in the end. So, since I am never going to make the big time, THANK GOD for the Indies, because that is the only way for me to live this dream out, it's my fantasy that I can further then the average person.