I thought what would be interesting is that if I revisited a few tenets I wrote previously in a hope to perhaps look at how my experience has changed my outlook on wrestling life. Only natural that I start with my very first tenet, which was Camaraderie in wrestling.

I guess when experienced wrestlers read my views on gym camaraderie they probably just shook their heads, smiled and thought to themselves “He’ll learn”.

Learn I did.

I have always listened to the experience of other wrestlers as I have gone about trying to entertain the fans and I have been told that one bad egg usually makes it their business to ruin the harmony of the gym.

So Camaraderie has its counter force which is, well politics.

For example, a champion who takes it far too personally about losing their title or the guy who gets more agitated about not getting the “exposure they deserve”.

I have never experienced this myself in wrestling, but I have in one of the bands I was asked to join. The premise was that the bandleader had this vision of being the lead singer in a super group. I was part of that vision and in the end had to translate this guy’s songs into music. To be fair to the guy his ideas weren’t bad at all, but he had only written 4 songs.

So I was asked to write some songs for the band, so I did and that was when the problems began. As it turned out most of the songs he couldn’t sing because they were in the wrong key, so I had to sing them.

That’s where the problems started, soon I was accused of trying to take over the band and I just said an expletive and walked out.

It is a serious problem the human factor, especially when you discover that there is always two sides to a story and a victim is usually just as guilty as the attacker.

My band story? Easy, I felt the guy was useless as a lead singer if he could only sing in one key and I probably came off as though I was taking over.

So camaraderie exists when two people don’t vie for power, we can get on with things and work together just as I mentioned in my first tenet.

My philosophy is now to wrestle for myself, not for anyone else, however (and this is the most important bit) this includes working with people I trust and to work towards their goals as well as they are working towards yours.

So in the end camaraderie works as long as your goals co-exist; even if it isn’t all of them.

I think some people took it the wrong way about my comments towards Ukworkers.net, I wasn’t talking about forcing workers to pay to advertise. What I was actually talking about was just having a donation point so that people can donate to the site, nothing more, nothing less.

Till next time

Saz