Welcome to another edition of Kay's Korner.
I don't know about the other wrestling columnists out there and how they write their columns, but I usually have two or three columns going at once. It really doesn't get confusing (which is really odd) but it works for me. I also find myself with column ideas at the oddest times. For instance, the idea for this particular column came about when I was cleaning my house. How odd is that?
I was listening to music while cleaning and therefore, I must admit, that there was one song that brought this particular idea to mind. It was 'My Sacrifice' by Creed. Now, sometimes the muses take a creative turn on their own and that is exactly what happened on this particular day. I had been working on three other columns when this thought just popped in my head and would not go away until I sat down to write it. (I had actually thought about fighting it because I was really intent on cleaning my house but it refused to lay dormant long enough for me to finish.)
Do we (as wrestling fans) really fully comprehend the sacrifices of professional wrestlers?
To a certain extent, we really can't. We are not out there actually performing and traveling the world. We are not out there phoning our loved ones long distance night after night because of the sacrifices of being a professional wrestler. We don't have to deal with wrestling fans, who really don't care, that the wrestlers are sitting down and eating the only sit down meal that they will eat that day. While professional wrestling may sound like the dream job of a lifetime, I'm sure that any professional wrestler will sit down and tell you that it's an incredibly hard life to have. I never really thought deep about it until today and I would like to share a few of my thoughts with you.
The first sacrifice that comes to mind is the sacrifice of their bodies. We all know that wrestling is a dangerous sport but I really don't think we can comprehend just how dangerous it is until something goes wrong. There are so many injuries that happen in the world of professional wrestling that I think we take it for granted that our favorite wrestlers are always going to be wrestling. The wear and tear of constantly taking 'bumps' takes its toll after a while, not to mention that anything can go wrong at any time. The 'stingers' cause a loss of feeling for a little while (not to mention, scare the hell out of the wrestler) but there are times when the injuries are serious enough to put even the safest of wrestlers on the shelf for a while. Here are just a few examples:
Triple H injured his quad again, not the same one that he injured the first time, though I'm sure that he didn't intend to. He has been down this road before, and while I'm sure he is enjoying the 'downtime' by spending some quality time time with his newborn daughter, we all know where he would rather be. Droz took a bad bump and is now paralyzed from the waist down. (I'm sure that D'Lo Brown is still carrying guilt to this day over that one.) Mark Henry, who by the way, is not a great wrestler, (or even a good one for that matter) has been plagued with injuries throughout his entire career.
There are several wrestlers who have been forced onto the sidelines and while you can do your best to prevent injuries, the truth is that you really can't. You have to trust your opponent with your life, to a certain extent, and sometimes even the best of wrestlers, have bad days. We all have bad days at work; why would wrestlers be any different? Neck surgery has been done on several wrestlers over the last few years. Chris Benoit, Edge, Lita, Kurt Angle, and Stone Cold Steve Austin would be the first to tell you that trying to work thru injuries is sometimes the worst thing that you can do. Eventually it catches up with you and if you don't do something, you could very well find yourself in a wheelchair.
The second sacrifice that comes to mind is the time spent away from family and friends. I don't live in the same town with my best friend Tammy anymore but that doesn't make me want to see her anymore. On the contrary, it makes me realize just how precious time is with the ones that we love and I think wrestlers do realize just how precious time is because they are gone so much. They also realize just how quickly time flies by with the constant daily grind of traveling.
Can you really imagine traveling five days a week (and sometimes more when they go overseas) and only having two days at home with your family? (Some of you may have jobs like that but the biggest majority of us, we've got a 40 hour a week job and we get to go home each and every night.) Wrestlers don't have that luxury. After a quick shower, it's back on the road to the next town. Finally the wrestlers work week is over and everytime they come home, it must be like Christmas because I can imagine their children running towards them screaming, "Daddy's home! Daddy's home!" While I am sure they enjoy each and every minute of their children, they can't help but notice just how much they have grown and changed in their absence.
Hopefully, the kids will always come running when daddy comes home but we all know that children grow quickly into the dreaded teenagers (no offense to any teenage reader out there) who spend their days sitting in their rooms, listening to music, and talking on the phone to their friends. Teenagers are very moody and while sometimes they are happy to see their dad, most of the time, it's an irritation to be interrupted in whatever they have going on at that particular time. While I am sure they miss their dads, their lives are going in another direction and in a few more years, they will be heading off to college, leaving the wrestlers with only the memories of their children running to the door to greet them.
Then the wrestlers have to deal with the headaches of traveling. One must decide if flying is the best way to go or grab a rental car. There are so many things that can go wrong with both scenarios. A flight can be delayed or cancelled in a heartbeat, due to things such as bad weather or technical difficulties. These are things that are totally out of the wrestler's control but something that I'm sure they all have to deal with from time to time. There is also the off chance that the rental car that was reserved for them has been rented by somebody else or even worse, it's not been maintained properly and it breaks down on the way to the next town. My stars, the things that they deal with on a daily basis makes my head swim just thinking about it.
It's in the moment of my head swimming that I realize that I could never really comprehend it all. I'm not a wrestler. I'm a wrestling fan. All I have to do is sit at home and wait for the appointed time for my wrestling shows to come on. I can sit there and enjoy every minute of it and not really think about how hard it is on the wrestlers. However, times have changed and so have I.
I've grown older and in a lot of ways, I've learned to have a tremendous amount of respect for the wrestlers who give so much of their lives for so little. Sure, we all know that the pay can be good in professional wrestling but the one thing that everybody doesn't really think about is the fact that wrestlers are considered 'independant contractors.' For those of you not familiar with the term, let me tell just a bit about it.
Independant contractors are not employees. They are supposed to be considered being their own boss (though I doubt very seriously that Vince McMahon lets them believe that.) They are responsible for their own traveling expenses, paying their own taxes, and providing their own tools, which in their case, would be their wrestling gear amongst other things. Imagine just for a moment that you are an independant contractor. You work hard and the money is good until Uncle Sam rears his ugly head. Bear with me as I try to explain this as best as I can so that you can fully comprehend what I'm trying to say. (This is where being a payroll manager for many years taught me a thing or two.)
As an employee of any company, the company that you work for is responsible for paying in the federal taxes that are took out of your check each pay period. The company is also responsible for matching the Social Security and Medicare that is took out of your check as well. To put it in a simple math equation, Social Security is 6.2% of your gross while Medicare is 1.45% of your gross. Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? Now let's look at this from a wrestler's viewpoint.
The wrestlers, because they are considered 'independant contractors', are responsible for paying their own taxes in. They also have to pay double the Social Security and double the Medicare because they don't have an 'employer' who matches them. In simple math, they must pay 12.4% Social Security and 2.9% Medicare for a total of 15.3% that they must pay in, on their own, right off the top. Put the federal tax and possible state tax on top of that, it's a wonder that we still have wrestlers out there. (Author's Note: There isn't any state income tax in Florida, which is why there are quite a few wrestlers that live there.)
Personally, I don't feel like they are 'independant contractors' because the promoter (Vince) is in total and complete control of the show. He controls who wrestles that night along with what is being said. (Back in the good old days of 'rassling', I would say that they were considered correctly as 'independant contractors' because promos were not scripted and neither were the matches.) It is my understand that the matches are now planned out, move by move, with the road agents and we have (gasp) actual writers backstage, telling the wrestlers what to say. (How in the world Vince gets away with this, I will never know.)
In all honesty, I could rant and rave all day but it wouldn't change how things are done in professional wrestling. I can only hope and pray that one day, things will change and we, as wrestling fans, will learn to respect them more and more each and every time we see them performing, whether it is in person or live. Besides, it's their sacrifice to us. How can we not respect that?
That's it for this edition of Kay's Korner. Thanks for coming by! While I don't post as regularly as other columnists, I do enjoy feedback anytime so feel free to drop me a line at lilwrestlegrl@yahoo.com. Until next time, take care everybody!
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