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| Not a "professional wrestling" event. |
Over the weekend, Chuck Ross - a managing director of TVWeek.com - published a piece relating how Kellie Baldyga, a publicist from WWE, had contacted him with demands to remove an article TV Week had put out about Carey's induction into the Hall of Fame (read Ross' full commentary here). The article was titled "Drew Carey Inducted Into Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame. Huh? Drew Carey??!!" In his recounting of the matter, Ross details a conversation he had with WWE's publicist; what follows are direct quotes from his write-up.
Ross: Your release says that Carey is being recognized as being an entrant in the 2001 Royal Rumble. I believe that was a wrestling event.Its been common knowledge to people who have followed the wrestling business in the United States for at least the past decade that the powers that be within World Wrestling Entertainment (read, Vince McMahon) have mobilized an effort for the company to broaden its horizons beyond just wrestling. Movies, music, books, magazines, even a professional football league to rival the NFL - WWE has definitely tried to break the mold of their business model as it related exclusively to wrestling in order to create a much more diverse entity. Most of these efforts have been met with mild success at best (the most glaring failure being the XFL, which I honestly thought was a decent idea in concept), meanwhile the wrestling-end of the company has thrived all along. Why then would they want to make an apparent move away from what has been their bread & butter product, a product that they now govern over in a totalitarian methodology thanks to having consumed their primary competition years ago?
Baldyga: No, we don't do wrestling events. They're entertainments. And we don’t call them wrestlers. They’re superstars and divas.
Ross: Kellie, I really don't have time for this. WWE presents wrestling events. I'm not going to change the headline or anything in the item. If you'd like, I'll just remove it.
Baldyga: Huh? What?
Ross: Kellie, I don't have time for this. What do you want me to do?
Baldyga: Remove it.
Money, of course.
Most states have licensing requirements imposed by an official government body such as the state athletic commission or division of labor, licensing, and regulation when it comes to sports like boxing and mixed martial arts. These licenses are effective in that they insure athletes involved are healthy enough to compete. (Be that as it may, the licenses guarantee nothing in the way of a competitor's training or aptitude when it comes to their given combat art.) Stiff fines and other penalties can be dolled out if a person is found to be involved with a promotion but is not licensed. Professional wrestling is generally recognized with similar requirements, however, some states don't mandate such things when it comes to wrestling. Given that wrestling promoters are already required to go through the processes of obtaining a range of permits for their events, it stands to reason that they might want to avoid further expenses incurred by inadvertently (or purposefully) employing talent who do not have their licenses in order.
Another aspect to this argument is the fact that WWE classifies their talent as independent contractors and not employees of the company. In doing so, WWE gets out of having to provide benefits to their wrestlers. This is something that affects aging talent who have amassed years worth of injuries and who may not be able to afford the cost of treatment. WWE does cover the cost of surgeries or procedures required as a result of injuries suffered by talent while they are under contract; likewise, they offer a wellness program for talent with substance abuse issues. Be that as it may, many feel that WWE does just enough to get by when they could be doing much more to improve the lives of the men and women who have made the company into a billion dollar, publicly traded company.
Consider the quotes I referenced and how the publicist from WWE made a thorough effort to correct the reporter's every usage of the word "wrestling" in relation to the company. "We're not a wrestling company, we're a global media company...They're not wrestlers, they're superstars and divas...We don't promote wrestling matches, we promote entertainments." I'm trying to give this policy an ounce of credibility but that last bit is pushing it. "Entertainments"? I would've loved to have been a fly on the wall during the meeting in which that decision was made.
Truth be told, there's so little actual wrestling involved with WWE programming these days that I'm almost in agreement with the idea that WWE talent shouldn't be referred to as "wrestlers". (This is why if I'm going to attend a WWE event I prefer the non-televised events as they don't waste time with interviews, promos, replays, or what have you.) Sure there are televised matches but they typically run less than 10 minutes a pop - for example, on the March 14, 2011 edition of WWE's Monday Night Raw program (which has a running time of 2 hours) the average match length was just slightly greater than 3 minutes (the numbers don't lie). Lou Thesz was a wrestler. Arn Anderson was a wrestler. Ric Flair was a wrestler. Steve Austin was a wrestler. What they did throughout their careers was vastly different than what the "superstars" of today are responsible for.
I'm curious as to whether or not McMahon & Co. believe that their legal team might be savy enough to actually convince a judge that their talent aren't wrestlers but rather entertainers, and that they aren't promoting athletic events at all but instead something more akin to a play, thereby skirting all matters relating to permitting and licenses. It's semantics but it's a decent argument, and what's the harm in them trying? I'd actually like to see it played out in court if only to learn about how sternly it gets shot down because the judge assigned to the litigation was a huge Blackjack Mulligan fan and refuses to let these tools ruin the professional wrestling business any more than they already have.
Quite a few people in and around the wrestling industry have said over the years that if Vince McMahon, Sr. knew what his son was going to do with the company he started way back when he'd have probably sold it to someone else. As much as I am a fan of wrestling in general (WWE included), I have to admit that my frustration with the WWE product is at an all-time high. I miss tag team wrestling. I miss the days when a world title had meaning and didn't look like a hubcap. I miss hard-nosed competitors who didn't have to have any reasoning for wanting to best their opponent beyond the fact that they just plain wanted to beat the snot out of them and anyone else who got in their way. I guess it's a good thing, then, that a big part of WWE's business model is the sale of retrospective DVDs with content from bygone eras. It seems like the only way I'll get to see the types of wrestling that I have grown to love is to look at items from the past, as if staring upon them from a display in a museum.
I like museums.
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