Keith Watanabe * NET 2.0

JR had an interesting post on his blog regarding the media's portrayal of pro-wrestling.  The main point he focused on was how the media tends to portray wrestling in a negative light, mostly when it comes down to the wrestlers.  I think the problem is that the only time the media focuses on the wrestlers is when death occurs, since for the most part big media has practically distanced itself from pro-wrestling, except as a staged form of sports/entertainment.

Of course, there are incidents where wrestlers are in the positive light such as helping kids, charity work, visiting the troops in the Gulf.  these aspects get left out of the media, which is probably a point that rings sore for JR.  then again, i work in an office where i play superman (or rather Spiderman since Peter Parker is more like me) and I get zero recognition for my efforts.  So I don't see why wrestlers, despite being famous, really need to amplify their side PR charity duties in that manner.

But I think one thing that JR doesn't want to admit is that the WWE is, for all intents and purposes everywhere, except for Japan and Mexico, synonymous with pro-wrestling.  WWE has a clear distinction of defining the direction of pro-wrestling and therefore must take care in their social responsibilities with how wrestlers and wrestling is portrayed.  That leads to my point that the WWE has, for the most part, distanced itself outwardly from a pure sports entity and has labelled itself as "entertainment."  As a result of this distinction, the media has traditionally never taken wrestling seriously since common sense dictates what they do is a joke (where I emphasize that the "common" in common sense implies  people's general assumptions about what pro-wrestling is).

In this sense, it's hard to completely take sides with JR, especially as he is a person within the industry for a cited 30 years, he has his own preferences that creates a sense of partiality and passion for what he does.  That's fine, but again the reality is the media will continue to portray pro-wrestling in a negative light as long as 1) pro-wrestling continues to be synonymous with the WWE; 2) pro-wrestling continues to portray itself as a staged form of entertainment.

I'm never going to contend that there is nothing athletic about pro-wrestling.  I've had friends involved in pro-wrestling and have a great deal of respect for it.  However, my argument stems from the general portrayal of pro-wrestling as an industry and the key representatives that continue for the most part to focus on idiotic representations that mock itself (e.g. Vince's death, etc.) which will continue to haunt and stigmify wrestling.

Part of the good thing about recent pro-wrestling is that athleticism is more emphasized, especially with guys like the X-Division or Cruiserweights.  That part has gained a huge amount of respect from the average bloke, who now can consider pro-wrestling very stunt oriented.  Still the notion of competition and non-randomness is lacking, which makes pro-wrestling not-so sports like to the average person (of course, competition does exist in the industry in that the people on top are defined to be those who can draw based on charisma and other factors, BUT NOT TO THEIR ABSOLUTE IN-RING ABILITY THAT MAKES A BOUT RANDOM).  Again, until the later aspect is changed, people will still say bad things about wrestlers and the industry as a whole.