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diversions
Roundup gets tough
on new program
Has the thought
of a career in professional wrestling ever been an unfulfilled
childhood dream or a drunken barroom dare? Either way, the
World Wrestling Federation wants to make that dream come true,
or at least prevent a biker beating.
The WWF and MTV
are co-promoting "Tough Enough," a new reality series
that will chronicle the lives of wrestlers in training. The
cast members will be wrestling fans that send in a tape and
pass a selection process. Those chosen by producers will be
taped 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 10 weeks, going
through the process of becoming a wrestler. Ultimately, one
male and one female will be awarded a contract with the WWF.
Essentially, the
WWF is looking for its next biggest superstars through a contest.
What a shame.
There are hundreds
of independent wrestling federations all over the United States
that Vince McMahon and company can scout. There is also a
crop of talented and semi-talented Extreme Championship Wrestling
stars looking for work, since the Philadelphia-based organization
is close to folding operations. Instead, the WWF and MTV are
treating a career opportunity in an elite sports entertainment
company as a mere sweepstakes.
The concept of
"Tough Enough" is wrong on so many levels.
For one thing,
the fix is on even before the selection process begins. A
close examination of toughenough.com, the official World Wide
Web site of this calamity in the making, shows what entrants
must go through just to be considered.
After sending in
a three-minute videotape, headshots, an application and a
release form signing away your rights and soul, a coven will
gather and peruse the materials. Between now and auditions,
some entrant tapes will be aired on all WWF television programming.
Sometime in late
February, 400 candidates will be invited for tryouts, to be
held somewhere in the New York City area -- and they must
pay their own way. One would think that with the money World
Wrestling Federation Entertainment and Viacom, the parent
companies of the WWF and MTV, are putting behind "Tough
Enough," they could at least spring for room and board.
Or, at the very least, hold auditions where the cost of living
is not brutally high, say Canton, Ohio.
Out of the selected
400, producers will then cut the pool down to 25 semi-finalists
for further tryouts. Then a handful of males and females will
go on to the "Tough Enough" program, which will
start airing this summer.
For 10 weeks, the
finalists will live in a home together -- hopefully they don't
have to pay rent this time -- and spend their days learning
the ropes, turnbuckles and every other part of the ring in
the WWF's training facility. Camera crews will be on them
like flies on fecal matter, hoping to catch any moments that
make 30 minutes of tantalizing television.
"Saturday
Night Live" alum David Spade might say, "Gee,
I liked this better when it was called 'The Real World.' "
At the end of the
program, one male and one female participant will get a job
in wrestling. Keep in mind that the only thing offered is
a development contract, the WWF's equivalent of a temp agency
gig. The contract does not guarantee super-stardom or success.
The "Tough Enough" winner could job (read: lose
a match) to Essa Rios, a jobber to the stars, at non-televised
house shows or be a curtain jerker at independent cards held
in high school gyms.
Worst of all, "Tough
Enough" is attempting to romanticize a career in an industry
that was, is, and forever shall be sleazier than prostitution,
organized crime and politics combined. Any book by any wrestler
on their career will illustrate this to be true.
Mick Foley talked about the path he traveled in his book,
"Have a Nice Day." He wrote about spending over
a decade working the independent circuit in the northeast
United States for as little as $25 per show -- if the promoters
even bothered to pay him. He often had to drive 500 miles
each way between shows, and for most of that time, home was
his beat-up automobile. Eating a meal every day was a luxury.
If he was ever injured, he had to work hurt. He couldn't afford
a health plan, and virtually no insurance company would take
wrestlers because of the high risk involved.
Mick Foley actually
had it easy compared to some other wrestlers. People can tell
stories of much worse, like promoters demanding sexual favors
for work. Or perhaps wrestlers with a good on-screen reputation,
who start a wrestling school and force students to pay thousands
of dollars up front, only to close down the school and skip
town with the money offering zero training.
This is the world
of professional wrestling that casual fans are not supposed
to know about. Chances are, "Tough Enough" contestants
will not know about this sordid realm until they experience
the business themselves the hard way.
Chris Ledermuller
is a print journalism at Cal State Long Beach.
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