Thanks to Chris Cash and the staff and management of WrestleZone.com for allowing me to be a part of the team and I look forward to hearing from all of you about each thing I write.
Whether I am posting on the message boards or giving thoughts and opinion here in column form, I expect you to debate me if you disagree and chime in even if don’t.
When I was 10, I moved to Florida and I met a kid named Jimmy who lived down the street. He had a pool but I never swam in it. He had a big house but I never was inside of it. Jimmy said that the pool filter was broken and the TV was broken and the sofa was broken. We were friends for years but everything was always broken.
The truth was his parents were terrible alcoholics who beat Jimmy and his two brothers with belts on their legs. Jimmy wore jeans every day, even in the Florida summer. The truth was the house was broken but the soul of the family was broken because of abuse.
I thought about Jimmy the other day when Chris told me to get writing for the site. The wrestling business is broken right now but it’s the abuse within the house that has allowed it to get that way. The dysfunction at the head of the table is to blame, the reason for the shy kid who I wanted to be friends with to miss so much school that he got held back twice before dropping out in ninth grade.
The dysfunction at the head of the table screwed up someone I cared about 25 years ago and that same dysfunction is screwing up the wrestling business that I love and spent the last 16 years working in.
Jimmy rode a rusty bike to my house when we were 13. He was crying but trying not to show it. Mom let him eat dinner with us and we watched TV until 9. He peered out the window, realized that his father’s car was gone to the bar and it was ok to finally go back to his broken home. Jimmy never said a word but we all knew what was going on.
The wrestling business is looking for help now too. Sooner or later, either the business will change or everyone will go away, leaving only a broken, empty house with so much potential.
I never got to swim in Jimmy’s pool but I always wondered what the water felt like from the street. I’ve been a part of the wrestling business for a decade and a half and I never want to leave… it’s a part of me.
We can affect change. It’s time for an intervention for the wrestling business. Let’s do this together and save what we care about. Email me at [email protected] and let’s fix it. When the time is right, we’ll send our thoughts to the WWE, right to the head of the table.
I was told that Jimmy served his country in Desert Storm and is married with kids. I don’t know if Jimmy ever fixed what was broken with his family but he turned out alright.
What will they say about the wrestling business in a few years? Let’s change the future together.
