Ok, I have been "missing" for about 3 months now. Long story, but the short version is - my place got flooded in Ridgeland, Ms. on Labor Day, salvaged what I could and stayed in North Mississippi for a couple of months with no internet service, had to decide where to go from there, and the good news is, I have moved to the beautiful Mississippi Gulf Coast where I lived for awhile about 12 years ago, had always planned to move back here, and I Love It!! So, after getting back in the groove of being an official beach bum again, I will try and pick up where I left off in my last post.I had talked about a couple of Indy (Independent) shows I had been to, and about the wannabe promoters and wrestlers, who just don't have a clue. Well, I went to another one this past Saturday night and the result was about the same, about what I had expected. 30-40 people in attendance, half of the "wrestlers" should have been ashamed to even climb in the ring and attempt to convince the few fans there that they should be taken seriously, and obviously almost no serious promotional effort was put into this. Now, let's look at this from a promoter and wrestler view point. Let's just say I counted wrong and there were 50 people there. The ticket price was $8, or $6 if you brought a toy for the needy children at Christmas, which was a great cause. By the way, the "promoter" also wrestled in the main event and actually was fairly decent. I had never seen him before but there was an obvious crooked referee involved, which at the end brought out a good referee, which was to lead up to another match later on (I think they run this town maybe 3 times a year) and they are going to draw a big crowd the next time? Gimme a damn break here! Lousy finishes with no rhyme or reason. Back to my point, just say you had 50 fans that paid $8.00 to attend, which is a total of $400.00. You had 13 "wrestlers" (one wrestled twice) and 2 referees, plus 1 "manager", plus 2 lady "valets". Now if I added correctly, you have 18 "entertainers"? that should expect to be paid something. Well, let me back up here, you have maybe 5 that would I would even consider paying anything. The rest I would never even consider booking on a card that I promoted unless it would be to put a couple of these punks in the ring with a real professional wrestler that would stretch them and chew them up in about 90 seconds and have their butts carried out of the ring knowing that they should NEVER, EVER claim to be a wrestler again, and should never even come close to a wrestling ring again unless they buy a ticket and sit in the back. So, 18 folks on the card, $400.00 gross ticket sales, Now let's divide this money up. WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS DOING?
For all the playtime promoters out there I will say this. You are giving such a slap in the face to any legitimate wrestling promotion out there that would come into your towns that you are putting on shows that are a damn disgrace to the sport. You CANNOT just say that you are bringing wrestling to the town and maybe, rely on Facebook to bring in the crowd! You CANNOT have a card where half the guys weigh maybe 130-150 lbs with no clue of how to work and obviously have never been trained by anyone with real experience and knowledge of the wrestling business. AND IF you continue to book shows with this kind of talent that will work for nothing, then you can expect to get nothing in return. BUT PLEASE don't book it as "Professional" or "Championship" Wrestling, because it is not. You would be doing the fans a favor if you would just say something like "Hey, we have a little wrestling club where guys are going to get in the ring and pretend to be wrestlers, FREE ADMISSION, and if you are entertained at all and got a few laughs, you may leave a donation in the cup on your way out so we can buy these guys a coke and hotdog after they are through"! For all you playtime wrestlers out there, well... never mind.
OK, now that I got that off my chest and ran my mouth on the subject, I will give you my calmed down opinion of the few wrestlers this past Saturday night worth mentioning. You had one masked wrestler, big and impressive, that I could tell knew his way around the ring and had probably been trained well. You had one tag team that I had seen before with potential that work well together, although the finish was not great and the team they worked against was fair at best. If these guys had the opportunity to work with some real talent on a regular basis I think they could develop a great deal. In the main event, you had the "Promoter/Wrestler" who actually worked hard and was not bad at all but again, lousy finish. The guy he worked against was a young impressive looking guy which I had also seen before and actually had improved somewhat. I think the first time I saw him he had only had a few matches, but he seems to be a good natural heel with potential. I just wish these guys could get the proper training.
So, all that being said the bottom line is this. You have a few guys out there that just need to be working with better talent in order to improve. Most of the others should duck their heads and go home, and stay there. As for the promoters, they "just ain't got a clue!"
Thanks for stopping by, more to come, and I welcome your comments!
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