Keep Your Cards Close - by Terry Mathis
Hear me out on this one...
Everyone has opinions. I sure as hell have a lot of them. But the opinion I want to rant about is why wrestling attendance is so far down from as recently as five years ago. Too many "companies"? Yes. Not enough larger then life characters? Absolutely. But my gripe has to do with the fact that the wrestling "world" and the fans of that world have gotten way too close.
Mere moments ago I finished reading a post on a message board (those are a whole other therapy session) in which a fan wrote, and I quote "so I decided to be a little "nosey" and was able to chat online to someone high up in (fed name deleted)." And "If any of my fellow wrestling fans are curious to hear about some of (fed's name deleted) counterclaims, I may be willing to share some of them, but not in a public posting. If you happen to be one of my facebook friends, send me a facebook message."
My chest literally hurt when I read this. Not only because this fan has the nerve to play Information Marketer or Look What I Have or Yep I Am A Super Fan or Yep, I Know The Guys type of game with his arrogant "send me a FACEBOOK message." In order to get the real scoop. But the fact that someone "high up" (if one, the guy/girl is "high up" and two, if the guy/girl actually exists) would simply take their cards and lay them out on the table for everyone to read.
The day was not that long ago when people who were LUCKY enough to be accepted in, did so with an understanding of shutting your mouth or having someone shut it for you. And the effect of this agreement was that no one knew what the hell was going on behind the god damn curtain. Instead of every Tom, Dick and Harry getting on a message board or sitting in the crowd or telling their friends at work "This is what REALLY happened. This is what is GOING to happen. This is what IS happening."
If you have ever said the words "I watch wrestling.", or even "I watched wrestling." You have heard the words "You know it's fake, right?" Which people can please stop saying because we get it, we know, the secret is out, it's choreographed. Unfortunately enough people started looking into it and the mystique of it being real is far gone. All the more reason for members of the fraternity to shut up about what happens behind the curtain. If everyone knows what's happening or what is going to happen, they have absolutely no reason to show up or tune in and find out what happens.
These fans are even the prime example of my point. Whether they are "chatting" with someone "high up" or tuning into a live edition of RAW, they prove the fact that wrestling fans NEED to know what is going on.
Please, everyone, keep the cards a hell of a lot closer to your chest then you have been. I truly believe that the wrestling business will benefit from it.
Terry Mathis
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