Perception is reality...

I'm relieved to finally get a chance to hash out something I've been thinking about for the past few weeks, but haven't been able to because of school oriented projects. You see, I'm getting my second bachelor's degree in Political Science, to go with my History degree. This doesn't seem to be a big deal, or have anything to do with wrestling, but I'm gonna tell you something that you might not understand at first, and that a lot of "smarter" people will have issue with: I like politics, and I like wrestling.

Now, you're sitting at your desktop computer, or at Starbucks with your laptop, and you're saying "JJ, so what?" Here's the deal: I like politics for the same reasons I like wrestling. Now, the first thing you're thinking is that politics and wrestling are absolutely nothing alike. Wrestling is a bunch of oiled up, oversized men in spandex beating each other up (no matter how fake you think it is, I know people who can show you the cuts and bruises), and politics is a bunch of stuffed shirts spouting off about issues and taking bribes.

Well, you're right, and you're wrong. See, wrestling is a lot more than just the athletic competition, and politics is a lot more than hot air. They're performances that require you to be participants. Can you imagine a political rally without the crowd seated behind the politician? How about a wrestling show with no crowd? It's done. Watch C-Span at 4 in the morning to see someone making a speech to the janitor so it can be said that they took a stand on an issue, or some of the "infamous" empty arena matches, the most recent being The Rock vs. Mankind during the Super Bowl halftime show. It's a possibility, but I promise you it's not as entertaining.

That's because both wrestling and politics rely on crowd participation. But they don't stop there, they also actively manipulate the crowd as well. You don't believe me? We all know the easy example in wrestling, it's the bad guys. Back in the day, every show had a villain who wouldn't let the fans touch him, followed by the hero who high fived as many fans as possible. Who's going to cheer for the guy who just blew past him, when the other guy took the time to high five you?

Politics is just the same. Except politicians do it politely. How many times have we heard something like this: My opponent is right, we do have a problem. But my opponent hasn't done anything to fix it while he was in office, and that's why you should vote for me.

Sound familiar? You're thought process is probably something like: "There is a problem. And they're right, the opponent hasn't done anything to fix it! I bet they will. Let's get that other one out of office!" Every single political stump speech is nothing but an interview/ promo, every debate a wrestling match, and every election a Wrestlemania.

So why is it that politicians are respected and revered, while wrestlers are looked down on and despised? Oh, that's right, wrestlers condone violence to solve issues. Not like our Presidents, right? I mean, except for Hamilton, who took part in duels. Or any of those Presidents who owned slaves and allowed for their slaves to be beaten. Or those Presidents who sent our soldiers off to war. Or those Presidents who... well, they've all condoned some sort of violence themselves, haven't they? What's worse is that their violence leads to life and death situations, whereas the violence a wrestler condones has only lead to death on a few random occasions.

Oh, but wrestling has too much sexuality! Well, too much for Ms. Lewinsky? Or Thomas Jefferson? Or Strom Thurmond? How about Newt Gingrich? All guilty of adultery. While in office.

So the next time someone starts laughing at you for being a fan of professional wrestling, ask them if they vote. And when you step into that voting booth this November, if you're old enough, don't forget that you're taking part in a high brow act of the low brow art of professional wrestling.

You can tell JJ what you think about politics and wrestling here

Discuss wrestling, but dare not discuss politics here

Congratulations, I think...

It's the talk of the internet wrestling world, mostly because nothing else is going on. That's right ladies and gentlemen, I'm talking about the "Exodus" of workers leaving TNA and heading to New York. There is a "flood" of talent leaving TNA. I use quotations to emphasize my sarcasm, if you didn't know. In reality, there are three talents leaving TNA at the moment: "Wildcat" Chris Harris, Ron "The Truth" Killings, and "Senshi" (Low-Ki). Not exactly an exodus of Biblical proportions, I know, but it's something worth talking about. Especially since these three were pivotal talents for TNA several years ago.
"Wildcat" Chris Harris is signed to a deal to go straight to the main roster(s), according to several sites. I congratulate him on this. Since I first tuned in to TNA long ago, back in the $10 Wednesday PPV days, I always felt that he and James Storm were better suited for the WWE. Their punch and kick focus, with wrestling moves on the side, didn't really fit in with what TNA was becoming known for at the time (X Division action, before it became Nash & 3D burial fodder). I felt that WWE would handle both Harris and Storm a bit better in the booking, and allow their style to grow properly, whereas TNA was bound to book them clumsily and stunt their growth as wrestlers. I feel that the assessment was accurate, even if TNA would ALWAYS give AMW the tag titles when they changed networks. I know if I were in TNA tag division, I would have REALLY resented AMW every time the TV situation changed. Jarrett and Styles, too. After AMW split for the final time, it soon became obvious that TNA had more planned for Storm than for Harris. Sad really, even though I prefer Storm myself, I still say Harris has LOADS of potential. I hope Vince uses it properly.
During his initial time in TNA, Ron "The Truth" Killings quickly established himself as a rising star, partially due to his attitude about being released by WWE. Killings, first as K-Krush, then as "The Truth" and finally as Ron "The Truth" Killings, would capture the NWA title twice, and the NWA Tag Titles as part of the 3 Live Krew. The Krew became one of TNA's most popular acts, despite Killings dancing in the ring before every match. Despite their popularity, the Krew would eventually split, partially due to the arrival of Kip James. Since then, Killings has been on the backburner in TNA, and fairly honest about his unhappiness. He's been one of the few to make allegations of racism, along with his 3LK partner Konnan, and actually left the company before. In fact, the only reason he's been in TNA recently is because they needed a partner for Adam "Pacman" Jones. Which doesn't really help the racism allegations, if you ask me.
The departure of Senshi isn't surprising. Senshi, like Killings, was one of the first stars of TNA. He helped establish the X Division with Jerry Lynn and AJ Styles, and even helped establish the tag team division as one third of XXX (Christopher Daniels and (uggh) Elix Skipper being the other two thirds). Though Ki was already making a name for himself, having won the ECWA Super 8 tournament in 2001, TNA was his first real national exposure outside of a few episodes of Jakked in which he played jobber to Crash Holly, Essa Rios, and the Radicalz (Malenko & Saturn, specifically). (Side note: After seeing one of these episodes, I was sure that WWE would sign Ki. My logic was "He's like a young Rob Van Dam." Shows you what I knew then, huh?) Ki did a great job of establishing the "X Division Style" with Jerry Lynn, and AJ Styles. Ki would make his mark known in early TNA, winning the X Division title and Tag Titles. He hasn't always been TNA oriented, though, as he was gone for nearly two years to work ROH and Japan. Upon resigning, TNA dubbed him "Senshi" and won the X Division Title from Samoa Joe in a 3 way with Sonjay Dutt. After that, Senshi became just another one of the X Division wrestlers. He was supposedly the only one that was willing to take Dixie Carter's offer the day she made it, and has actually gotten more TV time SINCE asking for his release than he did before that. Interesting scenario.
That's 3 talents, all pivotal to the early days of TNA, who are stepping out. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the buyrates were going up, or the ratings were going up, or if the company was successful. But this comes at a time in which TNA is loaded full of talent who had nothing to do with it getting where it is, with most of those talents getting TV time. It's a telling sign that guys who were there at the beginning are wanting out. Especially Harris. But will the WWE, in Killings and Harris' case, or the rest of the wrestling world, in Low Ki's case, make for greener pastures? Either way, good luck guys. You may need it.

You can tell JJ what you think about the departures here

Discuss TNA and their wrestlers leaving here

Making Cents...

Now that I'm done with writing papers and taking finals, I'm going to start an occasional theme in my blog, and that's focusing on wrestling as a business. If you're the owner of a small time company, this is aimed at you. It's a way I can give back to the business. Sometimes it will seem like common sense, but I hope to offer up some nuggets here and there.
I'm going to start by talking about advertising. This is the place where I've seen lots of mistakes by promoters of smaller companies. The basic form of advertising in the wrestling business is the flyer/poster. Every time you go to see any of the "bigger" companies, you'll walk out to your car and find it covered in handouts for smaller companies. The last few times I've been to ROH, I've collected flyers for companies like "Fireworks Championship Wrestling." In my opinion, posters and flyers are the best bang for your buck, advertising wise. They're cheap, and they can go just about anywhere. You can put them on drink machines, convenience store windows, grocery store bulletin boards, local sandwich shop windows, etc. You can canvas a large area of people with just a little effort and a little cash.
The other area in which you can expose your product to a large audience with little effort is TV. But I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say that advertising your small company on television isn't exactly the best idea. If your ad runs during a wrestling show and features footage from your smaller company shot on a camera bought at Best Buy, how do you think it's going to look compared to the footage of WWE's programming, or even TNA's programming, both shot on professional quality cameras? It makes your company look bad, as it's not on par with the wrestling program it's up against. Fans are going to immediately connect your company with a lower level of quality than what they are used to. Of course, they're going to recognize that if they come to your show, but you can win them over with atmosphere and heart. Not to mention that they've already paid.
To give it a little perspective, lets say you are a fan of Alien with Sigourney Weaver. While watching Alien on cable one day you see a commercial for Hybrid (check here for a review). At first sight, they're both alien movies, they both take place in outer space, and they both have female protagonists. Even though by that definition, they're equal movies, if you were to see an ad for Hybrid while watching Alien, you'd hardly want to check out the movie because Alien is obviously higher quality. This is what happens when you advertise your smaller company during RAW. As with everything, there are exceptions. ECW could advertise during RAW specifically because it had the perfect devil may care attitude about production quality. Beware, though, that attitude like that is rare, and your company is probably not able to reproduce it. Not knocking your product, it's just that ECW is a once in a lifetime kind of deal.
Finally, a great form of advertising that comes dirt cheap is available, and that's the internet. If your company doesn't have a MySpace account, or a FaceBook account, it should. MySpace and FaceBook are great ways to connect with your fans for free, as long as you have internet access. Sending bulletins on MySpace only costs the time in which you take to post it, and can alert anyone interested enough to become a "friend" of what is going on with your company. Having a website is a bit like TV advertising. If you can have one made that looks phenomenal, then do it, but if it looks like your cousin Eddie did it for you ten years ago on Geocities, then don't. It will hurt you much more than it helps.
Remember that advertising is supposed to help your company look better. Make sure to get the best bang for your buck without making your company look cheap and low-profit. When people make the investment to come see your company, they want to believe it's going to be around for the next show.