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| Cabana knows what's up Photo Credit: Scott Finkelstein |
I've written this plenty of times before, but the biggest myth in American economics right now is that the business owner is the most important cog in the fiduciary machine. Without brave, corporate pioneers blazing trails to create business opportunities, nothing would get done, say the economic right. If you want to disprove that theory, try building a bridge with just entrepreneurial spirit. Work doesn't get done without workers, yet no one seems to realize that, especially the working man. To borrow a phrase from many people, most recently Bray Wyatt (keepin' it topical over here), the sheep don't know they outnumber the wolves of Wall Street, which is how so many rank and file working class citizens who break their backs for marginal pay can consciously make the decision to be a part of the Republican Party when the brass of said party are doing everything they can to break their figurative backs as well.
I don't want to make the claim that businesses today want to take shortcuts not like in the good old days, because ever since the invention of money, human beings have plotted to glom as much of it up as possible while doing the least amount of work. That reason alone is why saps like me play the Powerball and Mega Millions each week. Ostensibly, that greed fueled millennia of monarchies their spiritual successors, the corporation. The United States nominally is the land of the free where anyone can get rich if they want to if they lack the necessary scruples to pay workers a fair wage and accrue wealth slowly, over time, rather than trying to get super fucking rich all at once while paying their employees as little as they can by law, and sometimes even less (hi, companies that scour parking lots for illegal immigrant workers!).
Workers' lives are worth more than the money they're paid for the most part, even in industries where the labor is unionized. The wolves in wrestling though are even more fearsome given that any call for unionization is met with crickets from its proletariat. Corporate profiteering might be in its worst form within pro wrestling because of how much wear and tear most workers put on their bodies relative to the pay that they bring in. Indie wrestling companies obviously are in a different boat because while non-corporate promoters are just as much into getting profits and doing the same payout depressing practices as the big guys do, the profit returns they get are marginal if not invisible at all.
But when multimillion dollar corporations take over wrestling companies and squeeze the life out of performers for pennies, I get an uneasy feeling. The truth of the matter is even in WWE, where a wrestler can actually make a livable wage in the low card, the average worker is underpaid given how much profit the McMahon family brings in. Imagine how dire the situations are in TNA and Ring of Honor?
One might expect that kind of deviant, one-percenter behavior from Dixie Carter, mainly because they've set a disturbing track record of treatment of its employees that would make Vince McMahon look like a humanitarian. But ever since Sinclair Broadcasting Group took over ROH, well, they've set down that path of corporate penny-pinching as well. The most recent example has been their systematic prohibition of contracted talent from utilizing the Pro Wrestling Tees site to sell shirts. From a business standpoint, I guess that makes sense, since ROH, or more pointedly, Sinclair, wouldn't want their contracted talent using personae that appear on their branded property using their images to make money for an entity other than the corporation. Writing that sentence in a "to be fair" situation made me feel dirty since for one, those wrestlers all had their characters and names developed BEFORE they signed their contract. They should also have the right to make money off their likenesses, since they, more than any other wrestler who works for a corporate environment, are independent contractors.
The issue would not nearly be as severe if wrestlers actually were getting paid top dollar in ROH for their services, at least relative to what Sinclair was able to bring in. I wouldn't know, because I'm not privy to their books or know who would get paid what. You know who would know, though? THIS GUY:
The knee-jerk reaction that I anticipate from some out there who might see this is that we maybe should boycott ROH, an action that does no good because it would hurt wrestlers who need the money, a veritable Catch-22. Boycotting all corporate wrestling? Okay, don't watch WWE. One, the wave of people who will keep watching because they don't care about the labor politics would keep the company in business, regardless of how they treat their workers. The only way to change parts of society is to change it on the whole. Sinclair Broadcasting Group, Panda Energy, or WWE, Inc. are allowed to mimic the rest of the corporate world because the example has been set for them by other corporations. The rules need to be changed, and to do that, the sheep need to be convinced they outnumber the wolves, and that outnumbering the wolves is the best thing for their survival and prosperity.
I don't want to make the claim that businesses today want to take shortcuts not like in the good old days, because ever since the invention of money, human beings have plotted to glom as much of it up as possible while doing the least amount of work. That reason alone is why saps like me play the Powerball and Mega Millions each week. Ostensibly, that greed fueled millennia of monarchies their spiritual successors, the corporation. The United States nominally is the land of the free where anyone can get rich if they want to if they lack the necessary scruples to pay workers a fair wage and accrue wealth slowly, over time, rather than trying to get super fucking rich all at once while paying their employees as little as they can by law, and sometimes even less (hi, companies that scour parking lots for illegal immigrant workers!).
Workers' lives are worth more than the money they're paid for the most part, even in industries where the labor is unionized. The wolves in wrestling though are even more fearsome given that any call for unionization is met with crickets from its proletariat. Corporate profiteering might be in its worst form within pro wrestling because of how much wear and tear most workers put on their bodies relative to the pay that they bring in. Indie wrestling companies obviously are in a different boat because while non-corporate promoters are just as much into getting profits and doing the same payout depressing practices as the big guys do, the profit returns they get are marginal if not invisible at all.
But when multimillion dollar corporations take over wrestling companies and squeeze the life out of performers for pennies, I get an uneasy feeling. The truth of the matter is even in WWE, where a wrestler can actually make a livable wage in the low card, the average worker is underpaid given how much profit the McMahon family brings in. Imagine how dire the situations are in TNA and Ring of Honor?
One might expect that kind of deviant, one-percenter behavior from Dixie Carter, mainly because they've set a disturbing track record of treatment of its employees that would make Vince McMahon look like a humanitarian. But ever since Sinclair Broadcasting Group took over ROH, well, they've set down that path of corporate penny-pinching as well. The most recent example has been their systematic prohibition of contracted talent from utilizing the Pro Wrestling Tees site to sell shirts. From a business standpoint, I guess that makes sense, since ROH, or more pointedly, Sinclair, wouldn't want their contracted talent using personae that appear on their branded property using their images to make money for an entity other than the corporation. Writing that sentence in a "to be fair" situation made me feel dirty since for one, those wrestlers all had their characters and names developed BEFORE they signed their contract. They should also have the right to make money off their likenesses, since they, more than any other wrestler who works for a corporate environment, are independent contractors.
The issue would not nearly be as severe if wrestlers actually were getting paid top dollar in ROH for their services, at least relative to what Sinclair was able to bring in. I wouldn't know, because I'm not privy to their books or know who would get paid what. You know who would know, though? THIS GUY:
MillionDollar corp buys promotion. Pays wrestlers less than custodians. Tells'm they can't sell shirts to subsidize. http://t.co/UTm7rC5MF1My only complaint with that comparison is that I bet custodians make quite a bit of money because of how grimey their jobs are, but then again, I haven't asked any of my alma maters how much they pay the janitors.
— Colt Cabana (@ColtCabana) September 3, 2013
The knee-jerk reaction that I anticipate from some out there who might see this is that we maybe should boycott ROH, an action that does no good because it would hurt wrestlers who need the money, a veritable Catch-22. Boycotting all corporate wrestling? Okay, don't watch WWE. One, the wave of people who will keep watching because they don't care about the labor politics would keep the company in business, regardless of how they treat their workers. The only way to change parts of society is to change it on the whole. Sinclair Broadcasting Group, Panda Energy, or WWE, Inc. are allowed to mimic the rest of the corporate world because the example has been set for them by other corporations. The rules need to be changed, and to do that, the sheep need to be convinced they outnumber the wolves, and that outnumbering the wolves is the best thing for their survival and prosperity.