What makes your day?

[Dawnatello Turtle Chick]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Holy sh*t, nobody should wrestle for free. This nonsense hurts. Once a show got cancelled after we all got there, and we just did some practice matches for the website, and nobody got paid (obviously), but that's like, the biggest thing you DON'T ever want to happen. Some nights I don't get much, but I always get something. Sometimes when guys are very new, they get "paid in experience", but a lot of times that's code from the promoter, "Your match sucked so I'm not paying you, but help yourself to the leftover hot dogs." And some promoters are just shady, or like, if they have a local TV show, being on TV is your "pay", because you're getting exposure. But that's kind of frowned upon.

You just shouldn't let guys kick you in the face for no money. Ever. We all said we would, at one time. Every one of us was once a dumb kid who wanted to play-fight in front of a crowd SO badly, we said "I'd wrestle for free, just to say I did it!" And then you actually have a match, get pretty much embarrassed and physically beat to hell, maybe crack a tooth or get a minor concussion, and suddenly, not only are you thanking God you're getting paid, you're pissed they aren't paying you enough. Seriously, there's nothing like spitting small puddles of blood on a concrete floor while some yuppie in the front row laughs and tells her kid how fake it is. I love wrestling, but as fun as it is, it's way too much bullsh*t to do it for free. Nobody pays your medical bills if you get hurt. I always try and sell a ton of merchandise or "gimmicks" at intermission so I at least go home with a decent payday. Kids buy lots of pictures and bandannas and sunglasses and things like that. I easily make more money standing there hawking stuff than what I earn physically being dropped on my neck.

At one point I was working at shows about three weekends per month, but there's been a huge drop the last year and a half. The economy is still kind of rough and New Jersey has way too many wrestlers and wrestling companies, and they all think they're the only ones allowed to be in business. It's very cutthroat, and it kills a lot of the fun. Most of "Us" don't care who's paying us, we just want to work and see our fans happy. But then there's all this, "If you work for this guy, you're banned from working for that guy," and it's all very stupid and juvenile and I hate it. So I've been wrestling a lot less, about 2-3 times a month on average, but that's fine. I work seven days a week at the gym whenever I want to, and I'm too old and too short to ever get signed to a TV company, and that's fine with me. I've done sh*t in VFW halls that would get me fined a thousand bucks if I worked for WWE. I'm an "Indy Guy". That's fine. I get to spit water on people, knock out security guards and throw chairs, with little to no consequences. You only get away with that stuff on the small shows.

I talk more about it in the wrestling thread, generally, but not all that often. Some people genuinely don't care about it, and that's fine.

I can relate on how the crappy economy has hurt many industries where people flood in to create more competition but fans/customers aren't paying as much/often to go the events. It sucks it almost makes it not worth it, but then inevitably something always turns is around for me and I get over my gripe fest. That's cool that you are still able to find the work. I always try to make it a point to let people I meet who are of like mind that everyone should work hard and treat others with respect know that I appreciate them. Then we end up discussing how there are too few of us like that left.... Same thing when I see parents who have instilled manners in their children- it's hard work to do, but pays off down the road.

I cheesily gave some little boy a high five for manners yesterday at my flea market booth and his mom just beamed. We got to talking about how so many people just don't take the time to teach children these things from a young age. Then her husband finally wandered up and offered me a cake ball- I was like and you married a polite one too! We all laughed. It's genuinely lovely people like that that make my day- and give me hope for humanity.

And cake balls, cake balls make my day!