Redd is back with part two of his cautionary tale…

“Redd” Reddick — The Other Side of the Ropes

When ‘Keeping it Real’ Goes Wrong: Pt. II

Before I get started on the second part of this installment, I want thank some of you who checked out the write-up and gave your input, and a good point was brought up by one of my ring brothers from Holland who not only competes in the wrestling ring but also does his thing in the MMA forum. If you’ve been under a rock for the last decade or so, Mixed Martial Arts have been picking up much momentum throughout the world. My friend’s point was that if anyone in wrestling really wanted to prove their authenticity, they could give MMA a shot and see how well they fare. Admittedly a lot of guys on the Indy circuit probably wouldn’t be able make the transition for a number of reasons, and I may touch on a few here as well as the rest of my point. By the way, thanks Uncle Vito!!!

Now if I’m not mistaken, I was going on about what promoters during the Territories Era experienced versus the Indy promoters. The former group apparently knew something about finances if they were able to expand their empires enough to run consistent venues, obtain televised exposure and manage to buy off government officials to keep the law out of their business. The latter is lucky to draw a decent crowd in the one building they can barely afford. This is ‘Old School’?

Even half of what’s on television is more show than wrestling, and people wondered why Bruno Sammartino got disgusted. Interesting sidenote here: if anyone remembers when Mike Tyson was interviewed by Vince McMahon about 9 years ago, then they recall the look on Vince’s face when Tyson’s reply to his question of who Tyson’s favorite WWF superstar was indeed ‘The Living Legend’ himself. It was pretty much the same blank look that Dubya had when he was informed that a plane just hit WTC… Tyson may not have been keeping current on who was in the ring at the time, but he remembered who he used to watch. Ever wonder where our sense of history went lately?

Speaking of politics, it’s no mystery that the business is more political than ever. I can easily start attacking McMahon out of convenience since he’s seen to it that there’s no bar to raise because he has no competition to compare his product to anymore. You can put that in the Tell-us-something-we-don’t-know pile. Meanwhile, the Indy circuit is one massive Chinese Fire Drill because people within it from promoters to smarky newsboards (no, not all of them, because I write for one of the boards that is actually more arbitrary than most) who try to set their own standards with no real credibility. When exactly did all of this happen and how!? For all the egotistical workers who are out there, I hear more complaints about money than I do anything else, while the last I checked, no one person on average in the circuit can genuinely say that they singlehandedly put an obscene amount of bodies in the seats. You may hear about the good match that they had, but it still isn’t enough to establish yourself as the top draw of the company, even if you drew a fly or two. And believe me, I’ve seen shows where well established Indy workers from the Midstream get booked and they worked in front of a capacity crowd of 30. Safe to say that the fanbase was fairly casual at best. The question here is this - Seeing how getting just enough facetime in front of a tv camera ala Vince or TNA is hard enough to come by, then how do you gauge the credibility of the Indy worker that wasn’t fortunate enough get that type of exposure? Where does the playing field get leveled if it gets leveled at all?

On the subject of MMA, for those that didn’t catch on by now, MMA was pretty much spawned by pro wrestling, especially with the brainchild of Boxer v Wrestler classic Ali v Inoki. By now everyone should know that Inoki went on to begin New Japan Pro Wrestling, which later gained a partnership with K-1, which is one of Japan’s biggest MMA promotions. Here’s one to bake a noodle or two; before it was even thought of as MMA, it existed under the sport known ‘Shootfighting.’ Anyone remember the Shamrock Bros., Ken and Frank? If you don’t then you definitely need to get a clue…

Up next, MMA…
– “Redd” Reddick