5-27-04
I love professional wrestling. I’ve been a fan since
I was a little boy. My grandparents, who didn’t speak
any English, used to watch it with me and understood it perfectly.
It’s easy to tell, who’s the heel, the face, the
loser, the jobber, the jerk. My friends and I used to wrestle
and do matches. We’d make championship belts out of cardboard
and decorate them with glitter and paint. We had steel cage
matches by the fence in the yard, scaffold matches in trees,
it was a really ridiculous, but fun.
When I got a chance to get into pro wrestling, I jumped at
it. I went into it full head of steam, nothing was going to
stop me. I thought how wonderful and incredible it was going
to be. But one of first things I was taught, and this is a
word for word quote, “it’s a sh*tty business”. “Huh?” I
thought. I was told to be aware of jerks, ego’s, liars,
shooters, self-fishness and cons. Sure enough, with in no time
I encountered all of these things. After much thought, I’ve
come to the conclusion that the 2 things that cause most of
these problems is money and ego. This week I’m going
to talk a little bit about the issue of money.
Here on the indy scene there is not a lot of money to be
made. Some of the problems are the workers(wrestler, refs,
etc) not
getting paid and promoters doing unscrupulous things to make
more money(or not lose as much). First, I’m going to
talk about workers and pay. I believe every worker deserves
to get paid. The time, gas, work, risk of injury deserves compensation.
However, if a show loses money, is pay still mandatory? My
view is this, I am doing something I love and enjoy doing.
It’s not my full time job, it’s not how I make
a living. If I get booked on a show not too far away and the
show doesn’t draw a crowd, I’m not going to demand
pay. Why? Cause as I just mentioned, I don’t do it for
money and nobody that’s in this business is doing it
for the money, cause there is no money in it (except in the
WWE). Another reason I’m not adamant on pay is the amount
of work put in. The average workers gets $20-$40. A match might
last 10 minutes. Refs, if there are 2, will work about 30 minutes.
Announcers total time on the mic might be 10 minutes. That’s
$20-$40 for less than 30 minutes of work. That’s pretty
good for just doing something for fun. Lastly,
and most importantly,
is the survival of the organization. To put on a show there
are costs. The building, equipment, advertising, workers can
all easily add up to and over $1000. The average indy show
here in NC, might draw on average between 75-150 people. Sometimes
there’s a lot more, sometimes a lot less. The point is
most shows do good just to break even. If
promoters had to pay everyone, regardless of turnout, than
they would either
stop throwing shows or have them much less frequently. I like
to perform and if given the choice of getting a guaranteed
pay on 2 shows a year or no guarantee on a dozen a year, I’ll
take the no guarantee cause once again I’m (like most
workers) not in it for the money at this level of the game.
If money is an issue to you, there’s a simple solution,
make yourself unexpendable. Become a must have at the shows.
There are certain guys that do get paid at every show. Usually
they are the main eventers, the top draws. Promoters need these
guys to make their shows legitimate and entertaining, so people
will come and return to future shows. So these guys are always
takin care of. No matter who you are
(wrestler, ref, announcer), you can make your self a must have
to the promoter. You can
help sell tickets, make your own pay by getting a commission
on what you sell. That way YOU are ensuring your own pay and
you help the show have a good turnout. If a ticket is $8 bucks,
a promoter usually won’t mind giving a dollar or two
off each you sell. So you’d only have to sell 10 or so
tickets to your friends to get your pay and the promoter will
book you every show cause you bring in that extra people. In
short, it’s not about money, it’s about the sport,
it’s about the fun, it’s about signing autographs,
living a dream, being a star for a short time. There’s
really no reason for it to be about money unless you’re
in the WWE, but if for some reason money is an issue, then
make sure you can’t easily be replaced or else you’ll
find yourself with less bookings. Next time, I’ll get
into sorry promoters and after that ego’s and crappy
workers, FUN..
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