I became a professional wrestling fan back in the 70's when I would sit on the floor of my grandparent's house with my brother and sister on Saturdays waiting for Mid-Atlantic Championship wrestling to come on. It was an exciting hour watching wrestlers like Blackjack Mulligan, Ric Flair, Rufus R "Freight train" Jones, Greg Valentine, Paul Jones, Chief Wahoo McDaniels and Johnny Weaver. I remember Monday nights going to the Greenville Memorial Auditorium which was a regular Monday night tradition or when we would make a special trip to Columbia to go to the Township Auditorium or slide next door to the Spartanburg Memorial Auditorium. Between my grandparents, Uncles and cousins I think we spent just about as much time on the road going to wrestling matches as the wrestlers did. We loved it. In those days wrestling was not in your home 24/7. Going to your local arena, auditorium, civic center, or high school to see professional wrestling was not just another outing, it was an event. It was an event that brought generations of families together. It was an event that brought neighbors and communities together. While you sat there waiting for the action to begin; you would talk to a fellow fan, who could be a stranger, and instantly bond; you knew their life story. During that time everyone in the place was one big, happy wrestling family. Those were the days.
After watching the mess that WWE and TNA have been putting out; where do you go for that feeling again? When you go to a WWE or TNA event you are surrounding by a crowd of people but unlike the days when I would go there was something missing, not to say that there isn't a closeness but I felt I was in a mob of people that at times did not feel friendly to me. The whole feel of the event with pyro, loud music, the flash and the flair did not have me feeling like I did when I was a kid back in Greenville, SC watching it live. Today going to WWE or TNA live events or even their TV tapings I feel overwhelmed and honestly not comfortable at all. Like any minute there could be a riot and I would be one of many victims. When I was a kid I use to linger to the last to leave just to get a last look at that ring in hopes of glimpsing one of my favorite wrestlers one more time. At the TNA and WWE events I can't wait to get out of there. Ironically, it was last year, when I was at an event for Old School Championship Wrestling in Goose Creek doing an article. This lady next to me tapped me on the shoulder, she was probably in her sixties. She gave me a smile and told me how much she enjoyed OSCW. How she never missed a show and how for four years she had been coming and bringing her grandkids. "I want them to experience what I did when I was a little girl." In minutes, which felt like longer, she told me her life story and as I listened I felt it again. That feeling that I had when I was a kid. Watching total strangers share their lives all around their love for professional wrestling. She told me she did not allow her grandkids to watch WWE. She said it didn't feel like the professional wrestling she remembered. I had to agree with her and right then and there I watched the OSCW show, not like a reporter covering wrestling but a fan. The fan in me enjoyed the show. The fan in me for that time was transported back as I listened to the nice lady, Emily, sitting next to me with her grandsons; Cody and Ryan, scream like her grandsons when their favorite wrestler came out and boo like crazy when the one they hated entered the ring. I looked around and their were smiles and friendship. People chatted like old friends who had come together for a neighborhood cook out. I could hear my grandfather, good rest his soul, describing the action to my younger brother. I could feel my grandmother, may she too rest in peace, hold my hand as she watched a young Ricky Steamboat when his match. I could see my sister, brother and I running around during intermission. I found the feeling, I found the place and it was not at a WWE event or TNA but right in Goose Creek SC and places like it around the country where independent wrestling promotions are bringing back not just professional wrestling but the true professional wrestling community.
Independent wrestling promotions do not, at least not many of them, have the mega million dollar productions, that TNA and WWE have. Independent wrestling promotions for the most part is run top to bottom by one person; who does everything for the promotion. Independent promotions are the "mom and pop" general store to the huge "Wal-Mart" style super-center that is WWE and TNA. Where the WWE has "superstars" with million dollar contracts. The independent promotions have professional wrestlers, who are hungry and who love this sport, this business and it's fans. The independent promotions brings families together, gathers the community and creates something that WWE and TNA can not recreate; a real community. How? I will explain.
All most all independent promotions are in the same building every week, bi-monthly or monthly. The building become apart of the promotion and the feeling of familiar surroundings for the fans. The promotions talent roster is not as large as WWE and TNA so the fans will see their favorites on a regular basis. They become attached to them, know them and love them. If one of their favorites is not wrestling that night there is a sense of loss. The independent promotions provide fans more opportunities for fans to mix and mingle with their favorite professional wrestler, which little kids and many wrestlers love. Without all the overwhelming million dollar production that TNA offers, the independent promotions allow for the wrestling fans to actually see the wrestlers and the wrestling. And in the two, three and I have seen four hours the fans are in the building, watching their favorites or hated in the ring, those fans begin to bond and become a community. A community so strong that if a certain fan is not presence the others want to know what happened. They become friends, their families bond and connect, there have even been romances that have bloomed into marriages.
Now, I am not trying to take anything away from the "WWE Universe" and TNA or any other major promotion. It just seems to me and to paraphrase Emily. "I want my kids to experience professional wrestling the way I did."
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