Howdo,
Your friendly neighbourhood Saz here, coming to you live from Tarragona, that would be on the South coast of Spain for all you non geography types.
Yup, ole Sazza is sitting here supping Cevesa enjoying the sand, sea, sun, sangria and senoritas!
So what on earth could I write that’s UK Scene wrestling related?
Well, as I have had time to think about things and matters, I felt a little reflection over the past few months would be wise, so once I did that I noticed that, within certain camps, an amount of arrogance is beginning to set in with some of the “more established” wrestling companies.
From the stories I have been told from my friends who have been in the business a lot longer than me have, there have been many times when professional wrestling in Britain has been in a golden period. However, as quickly as they come, they go.
There is another saying in the business “Be careful of who you step on when climbing the ladder to success, because they will be there on the way back down again.” In short, don’t be a pretentious asshole or you will make things pretty bad for yourself when the glory is taken away.
The same applies for conduct, if a wrestler is known to work for a particular company, they are expected to tow the party line, simply because a bad word, a comment will reflect on the company as a whole and I will make this very clear, no wrestler is bigger than any company, that’s ANY company.
The same mistakes always seem to happen though, I hear on the inside of wrestlers who’ve pushed things too far, categorical mistakes made by promoters and more evidence for the Old School wrestlers to look at their heritage and shake their heads sadly at what the business has become.
I was even witness to one occasion as well, a wrestler took it upon himself to challenge the champion under the pretence of wanting a photograph with him, I won’t go into details, but suffice to say, that wrestler found local work dried up very, very quickly.
Then there is the new journeyman phenomenon, which, I will state for the record is keeping the British Wrestling scene alive in times of troubled American wrestling programming. To explain, a journeyman is a wrestler who will willingly work for any company as long as expenses have been paid and a little (or a lot) of money exchanges hands for their brand of expertise. However, as my inbox swells with applications for work every day, there seems to be an influx of new wrestlers who are out there to gain experience.
Not a problem, but they need to actually be good first, no one should be wrestling for free and if they are it’s usually because they need the experience, the worse thing is, greedy promoters are willing to take use of these free people and stick them in half arsed matches that serve no purpose as to fill a card and sit back and count the money whilst British wrestling fans get turned off wrestling by two greens fumbling through a match trying to do as many spots to make them look as good as possible.
Whenever a promotion shows the audience a new wrestler, especially if they are new to the business, the company is taking a risk on the individual and should make 100% sure that the new guy is going to learn from their experience in the ring, I mean, if you have two new kids facing each other, what are they going to learn? Absolutely nothing.
Promoters are the keepers of British wrestling’s reputation and you can understand why the old schoolers tend to be hypercritical of new promotions popping up here and there. The problem is that it is too easy to start a promotion up, bring in a load of wrestlers looking for work and willing to work for free, get an old boxing ring, that’ll do and a mate’s dad’s club as a venue and you’re now your own promotion, helll bent on beating Vinny Mac at his game.
New wrestlers should spend time with their training schools, working their way onto the circuits instead of doing 5 minutes worth of training and then declaring themselves professional, have patience, your time will come!
So back to the arrogance. It is easy to start up a promotion, it is easy to keep it running on minimum overheads, or if you have a little bit of money you can pay some of the bigger names of the UK Scene to wrestle for you, then you can get on TV and once you’re on TV, you are the only thing that matters!!!
I remember when wrestling used to entertain the audience and not just the wrestlers and promoters who perform.
I sit here and envision some of the things I have seen in wrestling that make me want to pack my bags and leave it behind, hell, I can say I am not the best wrestler in the world but I know that the person who pays to see me is the most important person in that room.
Anyway, I need another beer… “Oh Senorita!”
Saz
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