Tatt2 sent this along to me and asked that it be posted here. It's about a conflict that came about at last night's N.E.W. show in West Memphis....I have to say I was supportive of N.E.W. in the beginning but this sort of thing along with some of the other stories I've heard from there are just hard to fathom.....Anyway, here's an account of what went down straight from Tatt2, if Ken Wayne or anyone else would like a rebuttal....pass it along and I will post here.
GENE
OK! First off this is a show that NOBODY in the area wants to work not even the workers that work there and to be quite honest with you NOBODY agrees with anything he does.... nobody but himself. Secondly, this show draws every bit of 17 people weekly and its been running for like 3 years now i think. Third, THERE ARE TOO MANY RULES THAT DONT PERTAIN TO WRESTLING...TRADITIONAL WRESTLING.
Ok! so I have been watching wrestling since I was like 12yrs old and never in the history of the wrestling kind have I heard "you can NOT wear wrist tape up to your hand". Ok not wearing it up to your hands is one thing but watching me get dressed seeing me tape my hands then telling me I cant wear it on my hands. But once I try to defend what I feel is right for the wrestling business by sticking up for wrestling by saying well whats the problem with wearing it on my hand its only for looks anyway. (cause at this particular show u cant punch anyways)
::So, I guess Lawler would never be able to work this show cause his match is practically all punches and they are over with the fans. So why try to dummy down the fans and give them bits of a wrestling show instead of a full dressed mid-south wrestling show.
Or...or maybe hypothetically speaking (which would never happen in this company) you booked a guy that's already established and well known all over the world for wearing X's on each fist, what would u tell him? He cant wear wrist tape either?
However, you cant punch you cant be a heel you cant be a face! (Surprising for what the people are use to in this area I know) This is freaking wrestling how are you going to draw without a Heel or a Face. In this case everyone on the show is one in the same... everyone dresses the same, everyone looks the same, everyone has to work the same. So therefore there aren't really any "Wrestling" characters on this show that's traditional besides the ring the ref and the announcers.(NOT Taking anything from the workers cause they are all good) OK, now I'm dressed and going over my match and Ken walks up to me and says "Ya gotta take that off" (my necklace) I say OK I take it off then come back to going over my match he leaves the dressing room.(My hands are already taped at this point) So, when he comes back and then he tells me how i need to do my interview then he says "Ya cant wear that out there dude" I said, what? he says; "that F'n tape up to your hands man". At this point I'm in shock, so I'm like why not? and he says, "cause I have F'n rules man and its my show so I say you can wear the sh*t out there,... but you can take it off your hands and wear it on your wrist n that's it"...(OK, so you watch me get dress, you watch me put tape on, you watch me do all this then tell me at the last min that I need to take it off, but curse at me while doing so. Wat some promoters don't get no matter how long u been in this wrestling business you are still dealing with GROWN MEN, and grown men don't like being cursed at by another man...UNLESS UR VINCE OF-COURSE lol only in this business) Then he goes on to give me an ultimatum by saying, "Either you can take the sh*t off or you can not F'n wrestle on my show". So I polity got undressed packed my bags shook everyone's hand (including Ken's) and left.
::Keep in mind OK, tape is like 4$ for athletic or medical tape, then driving to this show knowing that I was gonna get stiffed on the P.O. Then on top of all that I was dressed like I was going to a WWE show I was the first worker there and I was trying to be what everyone said I wasn't and that's reliable. Then I get stiffed in the end! JUST BECAUSE I WANT TO BE DIFFERENT THAN EVERYONE ELSE! You say you want to run a show that's in between WWE and UFC but WWE's wrestlers wear wrist tape on their hands and they also punch and they also have heels and faces and UFC guys punch and also wear gloves on their hands and they too have heels and faces just in a different state of mind. So where would you fit in the middle of this with no punching, no tape on hands, no gloves, no heels, no faces, and NO FANS? MISSION IMPOSSIBLE!
Simply put, INKcredible!
