Is a Little Respect Too Much to Ask?

It seems more and more to me that pro wrestling is the Rodney Dangerfield of both the athletic and entertainment worlds. By that I mean that the wrestling business “don’t get no respect.” The recent controversy—if you care enough to call it that—over the double booking of the Denver Nuggets vs. Los Angeles Lakers NBA playoff game and WWE Raw has created a very childish shouting match between the NBA and WWE. While I usually tend not to make a big deal out of these things, it does bring up a persistent point; the professional wrestling business gets no damn respect from the pro sports world or the entertainment world.


Let’s start by looking at the facts. Professional wrestlers work much more than any other professional athletes, especially those in the WWE or TNA. These men work year round, while no other professional athlete can claim that. Not even mixed martial artists hold as grueling a work and travel schedule as professional wrestlers. Professional baseball players (take note that I am a baseball fan) work six months a year, seven if their team gets into the playoffs and makes it to the World Series. Pro basketball players also work six to seven months a year. Pro football players have a schedule of five to six months. Hockey players, soccer players, nobody has as grueling a work and travel schedule as pro wrestlers.


Professional wrestling takes a huge toll on a person’s body. These men are constantly being dropped on theirs backs, heads, arm, legs, and pretty much any other body part you can name, and yet they are not recognized as being “true athletes.” It’s all “just a show.” I think maybe if you asked Terry Taylor about his multiple knee surgeries, he would have a few choice words about those detractions. Then maybe you could go ask Tommy Dreamer about his broken back, multiple dislocated shoulders, multiple broken noses, and—best of all—his ruptured testicle, he would probably have a few things to say as well.


These are incredibly skilled and practiced individuals—men and women. They work for years to hone their craft. They work while they are injured. A few years ago, the marginally talented retards on SportsCenter made a big deal out of the fact that Curt Schilling pitched in the World Series with an injured toe. “You should have seen all the blood on his sock!” Professional wrestlers work through much more than an injured toe. It’s not uncommon for wrestlers to work through cracked ribs, pulled muscles, enflamed tendons, concussions, bone spurs, and any number of injuries that would send the average baseball, football, or basketball player whining to their coach.


Professional wrestler, despite their heavier schedule and the extremely physical nature of their work, don’t get paid even half as much as most other athletes. Alex Rodriguez is making twenty plus millions dollars a year, while the best of the best in the wrestling business are making maybe three million dollars tops. Go out and ask any indy wrestler how much they make. It’s chicken feed.


Not only do professional wrestlers have to go out and put their bodies on the line, they are expected to be competent actors as well. Ask anybody who’s anybody in the wrestling business these days, if you can’t cut a good promo, you’ll never make it big. Professional wrestlers have to put on a good performance not only on TV, but at house shows as well, and they sure as hell aren’t making a million dollars an episode like the cast of Friends (which was a crappy show anyway).


And here’s the big one. There is no union for pro wrestlers. Their employer can screw them at any time. When it happens, they end up paying their own legal bills, their own medical expenses, and a lot more. Chris Candido died from a simple blood clot because he didn’t have the money to stay in the hospital. Raven and several other superstars financed and lost their lawsuit against Vince McMahon and WWE. They tried to change the status of wrestlers form independent contractors to full time employees, which would have given the wrestlers on the WWE roster more rights and privileges, not to mention setting a huge precedent for the business in the future. Why did they lose? Maybe it was because they had to pay their own legal bills. They couldn’t afford the kind of lawyers that the WWE can.


Taking all these things into consideration, I don’t ask much. All I want is for the business to be taken seriously, and maybe for people to take me seriously as a fan and student of the wrestling business. I’m tired of getting the looks and remarks from people that classify me as some kind of perpetual child. I’m tired of seeing incredible athletes get made fun of. I’m tired of seeing wrestlers die because nobody will take the business seriously enough to implement stronger drug policies. I’m tired of people demonizing the business because of the way that Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit—in their own right, probably the two best wrestlers to ever live—ended up.


I may be getting into risky territory here, but the whole thing is part of a larger social issue. People make fun of what they don’t understand. They don’t care about things that don’t affect them. When a wrestler dies, nobody but fans and people in the business give a damn. It’s just another joke to the media. This is just a suggestion, but maybe people should try a little more acceptance and a little less ignorance.