After a few columns of mine were posted here on wrestlingfigs.com, I figured it was time to introduce myself and explain my column’s focus.

And I thank Georgiann Makropoulos for having me. 

For those wondering, and for those who may not care as well, I’ve been writing for Dave Meltzer and the WON website for about three years (and before that, various other minor sites, a foray into the world of collectible card games, and fun stuff with comic books -- call me a Renaissance man!) 

I’m not moving entirely away from that site, but with the merger, I found myself a bit … well, confused. I also found myself wondering if my place was well founded. 

See, I love pro wrestling, but like many of my true heroes of the sport, I’ve found that the professional wrestling of today’s era has long passed me by. I gave up on the “Attitude” long ago, and while I admit to a certain perverse enjoyment of the one, true and original Extreme Championship Wrestling (the one that Gordon and Heyman ran) I just don’t enjoy anything about the current brand name of the WWE. 

Actually, there’s not much about the WWE I enjoy these days. 

So, when I started doing a regular column for one of the world’s most respected sites, I turned my attention to a few things. One: the burgeoning world of professional wrestling books. And Two: the under-reported worlds of professional wrestling that we call “independents” -- for lack of a better word. At that time, my interest in a certain group named TNA was still on fire, but that cooled off pretty quickly when a certain man named Vince was named head of booking (or creative, or whatever they call that position today.) 

It’s funny, there, because I’ve interviewed Dixie Carter, I’ve talked several times with Shane Douglas (who was an agent at the time) and I’ve once supported TNA through columns and reviews. 

The funny thing there is after a few pieces criticizing and panning TNA’s actions, the DVDs dried up, and the emails stopped being returned and I lost contact with the publicity people. Much like the UFC has done with internet reporters and web sites, TNA has done with its own industry. The strange thing there is that the UFC doesn’t need wannabe reporters, internet critics and journalists of varying stripes to make them profitable. 

I think TNA desperately does, and yet they still don’t care.

But the underlying issue is one that I can see with the WWE as well. It can be seen in a variety of ways, and that’s a very strong resistance to criticism. What’s amazing is that professional wrestling is extremely sensitive to the reactions of the fans, and yet the modern mega-companies (and wannabe types) only seem to want to drive fans away, and not give them what they want.

Now, the reality is that finding out what fans want is not easy. And criticisms are a lot easier to accomplish. But when you’ve got major entertainment companies hell bent on ignoring people who only want to push them to better and more entertaining things, then what’s the problem with criticism?

Well, to answer my own question, one of the problems is that we live in an era where communication is easy and opinions are cheap.

I know I ply my talents and insight in a universe where sometimes you don’t know if the person writing is a teenager or an adult; an idiot or a savant; let alone how many years they’ve followed the sport, and then on top of that, how much they really care or appreciate about the artform.

The sad thing today is that so many fans have grown up with professional wrestling that is synonymous with the World Wrestling Entertainment.

That is a bad thing.

Now, the knee-jerkers who say I thus hate the WWE and hate Vince and hate HHH and all that, well, that’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that professional wrestling has a century plus of existence, it has a multitude of styles and it has a depth that can be appreciated.

For the past five or six years, the dominance of the WWE has grown, and the alternatives – while they still exist – have become very small components of the business.

And the WWE house style has dominated most of the United States promotions. TNA has steered its ship to be the second rate WWE, and by doing so, and by featuring former WWE players (even though Kurt Angle is a world class talent) it has diminished its own ability to be an alternative and a supporter of great wrestling.

Ok, great can be a subjective term.

The main point here is that in the late 1990’s, the WWF at the time featured some top notch talent of a variety of styles. WCW featured top notch talent underneath mega names on the top. That talent was the best of Japan, of Lucha Libre and of the American independent scenes.

Nowadays, not only are we seeing the same names dominate the championship levels of the WWE, but we are seeing the same style up and down the card.

Is that entertaining?

But once again, we’ve got a sizable portion of the audience who don’t know anything different, so when old school types like myself spout superlatives about lucha libre, about Japanese strong style or Super Junior level matches, about how Dragon’s Gate is awesomely fast, and about how Bryan Danielson is the best wrestler in the world, all we get is “they don’t wrestle in the WWE”

Ten years ago, the best wrestlers were found in the countries of Japan, Mexico, Canada AND the US. Ten years ago, the best wrestlers were in a half dozen or more promotions. Ten years ago, if you wanted to follow a particular style, a great wrestler or a different product, they were all there, and could be had, and more so, there was a fan base that appreciated all the differences, debated the merits and created a atmosphere where promoters had to push themselves, push the creativity and appeal to the fans for a profit.

Today, there’s far too much of a mentality of “give them what we want” and of course, how do you argue with a billionaire?

Well, if you love pro wrestling and want to see it get better, you take the chance of being labeled a curmudgeon or a hater or a nonconformist.

And, if you enjoy reading about other promotions, other efforts and expanding your knowledge of this vast wrestling world we all should live in, stay tuned, as that’s the focus of my efforts.

Later,  Joe

Joe Babinsack can be reached at [email protected]. I’ve got big batches of stuff to review from Big Vision, from ECW Press, from ROH, SHIMMER and FIP, and from various publishers and promotions that you may never heard about…but probably should get to know.