Professional Wrestling

I don't know why I like it so much, I just always have. Summer of '09 is when I first became addicted. I spent countless hours planted in front of the TV mesmerize by images of these strong men and powerful women taking matters to their own hands. Watching. fascinating. Two and a half years later I'm a average ninth grader by day.....same thing by night. I still watch wrestling. "Can you believe the mindless human beings that watches wrestling? Its so fake!" I don't care. I love the athleticism, the storyline, and even the incredibly chessey acting. I mean, what other TV sows has a deadman, rockstar, masked Mexican wrestler, a millionaire who drives different cars each day, frats, some of the world's most beautiful women, a rapper, giants, pop princess, world's top 5 most egotistical people, a superman, a 7 foot Indian giant, and a leprechaun? You cant make these stuffs up, its wrestling anything is possible. I look at wrestling as theater as it's best. And guess what? So does most of the fans. We know what's going on. Is it sports? Is it entertainment? IT’S BOTH!! It’s um..…wrestling!

The men of professional wrestling are easily stenotype as tattooed meat heads fake punching each others and the women are sluts who's always either stripping for the audience or wrestling in their bikinis. However, once you watch a wrestling show, it'll change the way you think of professional wrestling forever.  Now let’s get something straight, I know wrestling is a show. The winners are predetermined and the violent is choreographed. However the result of the violent is very very real. All these years watching wrestling, one thought still bounces in my mind. What sorts of human beings bashes another man’s skull for a living? Who are these guys? So I got off my couch and decided to find out.

Picture yourself as a wrestler. You wake up at 5:00 in the morning. You get to the airport at 6:30. You take a flight across the country and arrive at 10:00. After renting a car and checking in a hotel room, and getting something to eat it’s 1:00. Time to go to a photo shoot. So you arrive to a mall and sign autographs and take pictures with the fans until 3:00. After you that you head for a local news channel and do a short interview and it’s 3:30. It’s time to head over to the arena. Getting through traffic, you might make it by 4:50. After you eat something and do a short workout its 6:00. At that time you head over and talk to one of the bookers and he goes over your match with you and let you know who’ll win and who'll lose. If you cant find time, you and your opponent do quick rundown of what’s going to happen. By then it’s 7:00 and it’s time to go on. As your theme song hits, you crowd goes wild. They’re either cheering or booing you. Either way is good as long as they’re not dead silent. It's a lot harder than it sounds. Going out and talking in front of 40,00 people while being on national live TV. You wrestle a match and leave the arena at 10:00. You get to the hotel by 12:00 and get some sleep before you do it all over again in the morning. Now imagine doing this 300 TIMES A YEAR and imagine doing this while trying to find time to workout and keep a marvelous body a wrestler has. And you want some sort of social life don’t you?

But those are just the EASY parts of being a wrestler. The crappy part is when you first start out. In order to become a wrestler you must do is to go to a wrestling school. A good phone book should supply you with information on at least one facility. When you signed up (the average cost for a decent wrestling school is $2000 for two months) you begin to train. 99 percent of people never make it past the school. Imagine high school football, except twicw as hard. The trainer doesn’t care if you quit or not, he’s juts doing his job. On the first day they’re going to let you know you’re going to get hurt, that’s unavoidable. Most people walk away from the school after the first week with bruises galore. If you’re one of the lucky (and I use this word loosely) people make it through. Then it’s time for the independent circuit. What is a independent circuit? It’s like the WHL of the NHL.

You’ll be working once or twice a week, in front of 100-300 people making $25 a night or sometimes nothing at all. This is to work on your ring skills and personality. Some guys find themselves in these small leagues for years, other never make it past them. Now if you’re lucky enough to get yourself booked in a show and a scout happens to be there, you’ll have a slight chance that he might like you. If he does, you’ll be receiving a phone call or letter asking you to wrestle in a dark match, A dark match is a match done on the night of a TV taping, but its not aired. The purpose of a dark match is to pumped up the crowd and get them ready for the real show. So you go to the big company, meet the wrestlers, wrestle your match, and go home. 9 out of 10 times you’ll just have to wait for that to happen again. If you’re a lucky one, you’ll get a phone call asking you to come back and wrestle in more dark matches. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll get signed by the major company know as WWE. World Wrestling Entertainment.

So you can see, being a wrestler is a tough job. Even if you do make it past the school and get hired by a top federation. But before you pursue the dream of becoming a wrestler, ask yourself: will you be able to handle the schedule? Are you willing to be on the road traveling 300 plus days a year? Are you tough enough to handle the surgeries? And do you have the guts to be put down by the fans and everyone around you? Cause I garenteed you, people will critize you especially if you play a villain. In order to survive in this busiesuess, you have to have a thick layer of skin.

But hey, being a wrestler isn't that bad. I mean wrestlers are famous athletes that perform worldwide. They‘re in video games, trading cards, have their own merchandise, millions and million of fans, traveling the world, being on TV and movies, commercials, magazine covers, and they even have their own action figure! Personally,I think the best part of this job is that it requires traveling, and plenty of it too! I'm sure everyone had dreamed of visiting somewhere like Paris, Hawaii, China, Rome, England, and whatever places in the world you could think of. You name it, they'll be there.   And the paycheck is a whole other story.  So basically a wrestler is a combination of a athlete and a movie star. Now who doesn't love that?


For every wrestlers, making it into the WWE is the dream. WWE is the grandest stage of them all, the big dance, the the biggest event in sports entertainment. Some movie stars are born in the WWE. Ever heard of Hulk Hogan or Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson? WWE created these guys and turned them into stars they are today. The WWE is BIG. How big? It's worth up to 1 billion dollars. Thats more than the New York Knicks, Rangers, and Mets combine. This empire has been ruled by the same family for 4 generations: the McMahon family. It's current leader: Vince McMahon aka who I like to call "Santa Clause" ever since he gave us the most priceless present we could ever imagine: the WWE. When Vince bought the WWE from his father, overnight he changed it from a region business to a global phenomenal. Vince even has own Hollywood walk of fame star! But back to BIG, WWE has Hollywood writers, composers, even wardrobe designers, and they even have their own movie production (WWE Studios). Does NFL, NBA, or NHL have a movie production? Didn't think so. Thats how big the WWE is.

As far as me, I still feel the same way of wrestling that I did when I was 13 years old. Only one thing has changed after Ive turned into a hardcore wrestling fan: I want to be a professional wrestler when I grow up. Why you think I even wrote this in the first place?? Go ahead, say whatever you want, the negativities coming out of  your mouth will just turn into fuel to feed my hunger. And until my next blog, I leave you with a video that defines the PROS of pro wrestling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5quZdqiUTk&feature=related