The plight of sports entertainment professionals
by Steve Paulo
Time to point out the obvious: pro wrestling is not a sport.
Why? Because pro wrestling involves no sport[ing]. Wrestlers do
not show up to work every day trying to do all they can to win;
they show up to work trying to do all they can to do their job,
which is entertain the fans. However, this line of thinking often
leads to another conclusion: If pro wrestling is not a sport,
then wrestlers are not athletes. This could not be further from
the truth. What pro wrestlers do in the ring day in and day out
may not be sport, but it is athletic activity on the most demanding
level. It is high time that the men and women who work harder
than any other professional athletes got a little respect.
Think about the four major sports in America: football, baseball,
basketball, and hockey. Football players perform once a week.
Hockey and basketball players work from 2-4 times a week. Baseball
players may play up to five games a week, but the physicality
of that sport is much lower than the other three (especially football
and hockey). Now, how often do professional wrestlers perform?
Well, for example, the World Wrestling Federation performs three
weekly shows: Raw on Mondays, Smackdown! on Thursdays, and Heat
on Sundays. In addition, each month there is a Pay-Per-View event
on a single Sunday. Now, that means 3-4 times per week, already
even with hockey and basketball players.
However, wrestlers also work what are called House Shows: non-televised
"events-between-events." They can do up to 3 a week
in addition to their already[-] busy schedules. Not wrestling
today? Get on the bus and travel to the next town. Not travelling
today? Get in the gym and train. The work never ends. Take into
account also that the football season is around 5 months, basketball
around 6, baseball is close to 7, and hockey is 9 months. Pro
wrestling is year-round. There IS NO OFF-SEASON. For this reason,
wrestlers take "Work Injuries," faked injuries that
give them time off while their in-ring personas "get well."
As for the in-ring work itself, there is very little anyone can
say to truly refute that wrestlers are incredibly talented athletes.
I will give two examples of the hundreds of moves that can be
in a wrestler's repertoire. One is an example of "taking
a bump," or being on the receiving end. The other is an example
of a tough-to-execute high-flying move of the "lucha libre"
style (a Mexican-developed high-risk style of wrestling).
The first is called a "sidewalk slam." Imagine for a
moment that you lie stomach-down over the shoulder of a man who
stands 6'7" tall, facing behind him. He grabs you by the
legs around your thighs, and swings you in an arc that takes you
straight backwards, and slams you down flat-backed on the mat
(which, by the way, is a thin sheet of canvas covering a wooden
platform). Now, granted, as a trained wrestler, you know how to
take that bump, and land correctly, and your trained wrestler
opponent knows how to deliver the move without snapping your back.
But I challenge you to claim that such a maneuver doesn't hurt
at all under the given circumstances.
The second example I will use is called the "Shooting Star
Press." Now imagine that you are standing above the "turnbuckle,"
one of four corner poles where the ropes around the ring meet.
One foot is on each of the perpendicular ropes below you, about
a foot and a half apart. Four feet below and two or three feet
in front of you, lying on his back on the mat, is your opponent
whom you have presumably put in his position with a devastating
move of some sort. Now you leap forward into the air, do a single
back-flip, and land stomach-to-stomach on your opponent. Try to
tell me that doesn't take athletic ability.
On the topic of injuries, it is true that many of today's best
professional football players suffer massive concussions, paralyzing
injuries and other "minor," but still dangerous knee,
back, and ankle injuries. The same applies to pro wrestling. For
every Steve Young and Darryl Stingley (the former a constant concussion
victim, the latter having been paralyzed during a game), there
is a Darren Drozdov or Owen Hart.
Drozdov was paralyzed from the waist down just this past Tuesday,
after receiving a dangerous, but common, move called a "powerbomb"
that landed him on his head, fracturing his neck and paralyzing
him from the waist down. Drozdov will never walk again. Hart is
an even more tragic case, as earlier this year, Hart died in the
ring during a Pay-Per-View event in front of thousands in attendance
and millions watching around the world. Hart fell from rafters
40 feet above the ring, hitting his head on a turnbuckle on the
way down and snapping his neck. He died on impact, during what
was a common way for him to enter the ring as his "Blue Blazer"
persona. Knee and back injuries plague wrestlers from Hulk Hogan
to Steve Austin and all the way down, and always have. Pro wrestling
is just as dangerous as pro football. And wrestlers get paid a
whole lot less, on average.
Pro wrestling is not for everyone, and I would be naive to think
I could change a lot of minds with this piece. However, I hope
I have given sufficient examples as to why pro wrestlers should
be given more respect as athletes. A final thought: many pro athletes
cannot speak straight when interviewed after a game, but pro wrestlers
have to be passable actors, in addition to their athletic prowess.
Return to English 122 syllabus
Return to English 122 main page
Questions? Brian McKinney (bmckinne@home.com)