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WRESTLING COLUMNS

Support Independent Wrestling
February 14, 2005 by Jake Gomez


In this article, I want to analyze the state of wrestling for the past 10 or so years, because above all else, nothing has ever come close to this era in the sport, the era of the McMahon Monopoly.

Before everyone says I'm about 5 years late on this, just keep reading. When Vince first had his ideas of taking over the wrestling world, we were still in the days of territories. After Vince killed off the bigger promotions (AWA, etc.) we had the war between WCW and WWF. There was talent swapping all around, but what mattered most was that while Vince could go to Florida, or Atlanta and sell out arenas, Bischoff could still only sell out the south. WCW tried coming to NY, and it was terrible.

Fast forward to Vince buying up all the contracts and taking over the world, yada yada. This still left many high profile wrestlers (Bagwell, Steiners, still unsigned cruiserweights) to fester in the indi scene. Independent promoters saw this as a time to bring their product to the top. Imagine you're an indi promoter, you charge 10 bucks for a main event of El Asso Wipo vs. Senior Bag of Crap, with the slight chance Greg Valentine or Koko B Ware showing to wrestle a 5 minute match with some 100 pound kid. NOBODY is going to come to your show. Suddenly, Rick Steiner or Konnan need work, and you can drag more people to your shows to see Konnan cut a promo and beat on some scrub. This was the HEIGHT of old school independent wrestling. You see, when we all were glued to our WWF Superstars on Saturday morning, there were all the guys Vince fired working at bingo halls or fairgrounds for 50 bucks if they were that lucky. And if anyone remembers, old school indi promotions (that you can still find now if you look really hard) would feature 8 matches of pure crap, with a main event featuring some washed up "legend" that needs the money for a drug addiction that the business had polluted him with.

Eventually, those guys get too old to be over, and we come to 2004-2005. Vince is high and mighty and has nothing to challenge his WWE. TNA offers an exciting product, but they never seem to hold things together in their main event division. Seriously, we'd all pay money to see their X-Division, but no wrestling fan wants to see Hall, Nash, or Jarrett wrestling the main event. Vince has taken the risks of pushing JBL or crap like the Diva search or Kane/Lita/Snitsky because nobody can challenge him. If he looses fans or ratings, so what" He still has the highest rated show on any of the stations WWE is on. If there were another promotion to challenge WWE, Vince would give us the best he could. I'm not saying that TNA, ROH or anything else will never be good enough to challenge Vince, but right now, no one in California knows who half the ROH locker room is.

What can we as fans do about this" Support independent wrestling. Don't boycott WWE or anything like that, but if a good indi promotion makes a stop in your area, go see it. Buy a t-shirt. Indi wrestling is at its peak. No longer will you find washed up wrestlers, but now its all fresh faces that will kill for a shot at some kind of stardom. Believe me, any indi show is 100% better than the "5 Star Classic" Heidenreich matches.

My next article will be about all the indi wrestler (guys who haven't made it to T.V.) that are the future of pro wrestling.

by Jake Gomez..


Brian Bertrand wrote:
I get what you mean....but what about praising independant pro wrestling" All I've read in here is pretty much bitching and complaining that WWE is the monopolizing company. I love indy wrestling too but that's because I've seen it up close. I work with the cameraman and I'm even in the boot camp for All Pro Wrestling. After I saw their show on September 25th for the first time I instantly became hooked. These guys do stuff that WWE hasn't thought of yet. And a lot of guys do better in the indy circuit. My boy Mark Rose's favorite wrestler "Sick" Nick Mondo was a great indy wrestler and he ended up retiring in the way he wanted to. Sabu perfected himself in the indys. Raven has had numerous titles all over the country especially in Ring Of Honor and the NWA independant leagues. A lot of the greatest wrestlers of all time are found right in the indys. WWE is all about image, not talent. But don't just talk about them, give some examples of what you are talking about and don't give me any TNA bullshit because technically they're still an indy fed too.
Shawn wrote:
I agree but it's hard to support Indy wrestling because it's too much money. You will be broke if you spend your money on ROH or CZW keep buying dvd's.I always been a fan of TNA because they had Xplosion that highlight the ppvs if I did'nt order the $10 ppvs. Now that TNA have both Impact and Xplosion with monthly ppvs, it's easy to get into them. I wish I can support ROH and other companies more but they will hurt my pockets. As much as I love wrestling, I love money twice as much.
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