Well hello hello hello, welcome back to the long-delayed, much-missed My Pinterest Is Piledrivers. I am theoretically your regular host, James A… Sawyer. Huh? Whuh? Snuh? Bort?
Allow me to elaborate. I have had quite the summer, full of getting hit by cars while on foot, and booking trips to San Diego with the full intention of moving… only to decide to sublet a loft in Brooklyn and move there, meeting new people, saying goodbye to old ones, selling or shipping everything I own that can’t fit into two suitcases, job hunting. It’s been an experience. So needless to say, wrestling columns got a little lost in the mix.
I also decided to add a little “pen name magic.” Why? Well when “Has To Get A Job At Big Corporation” James intersects with “Writer of Edgy Plays, Wrestling Columnist and Loudmouth Twitterer” James, things could happen. That involve my bank account. Plus, my real name is incredibly common. This is actually more distinguishable and Google-friendly.
Have I missed anything awesome?
Really? But why would they- huh. How would they expect to…
Let’s just wrap up this series, shall we?
There has long been tales of backstage rumblings regarding the wrestlers forming a union. A union that, at this point, would take a miracle to bring into existence being that McMahon would probably just fire everyone and dress up every trainee in Florida in jean shorts and tattoos and call them the new Cena and Punk. There is one thing, however, that I think Vinnie Mac could and should provide.
A health plan.
It’s ridiculous that in an industry where the main job description is “being beat up for a living 300+ days of the year” that a health plan isn’t covered. Hell, if there’s ever a serious injury (such as what happened to Darren Drozdov) the publicity would kill the WWE if they didn’t cover it. Just make it official and cover everybody. We seem to be teetering on the edge of having universal health care anyway, so maybe if the US goes full-blue in November Vince won’t even have to worry about it. But for now? Might be nice.
Another thing would be to think long-term. The WWE cannot be happy every time some news report or ESPN special pops up featuring Scott Hall as you’ve never wanted to see him before, or someone finds out about just how Ric Flair lives so high and colorful… by not paying for anything. I think one of the smartest, and cheapest, things that the WWE could do would be to make every new hire go through a three-day “life coaching” session. Sit these kids down, and before they start applying for credit cards, buying BMWs and mansions and solid-gold X-Boxes, have them talk to a financial expert. Try to instill in them the knowledge that even Hulk Hogan can end up near broke and working jobs that nobody should at his age. By which I mean working for TNA. Have a legal counsel and some vets talk to them about destructive behavior and the perils of being a dick and/or listening to your dick. From what I’ve ascertained, most of the young guys would rather play video games than do coke and whores, but it still couldn’t hurt to emphasize how much longer they’ll live sans coke and whores. And the financial advice is just something everyone in the world could use, judging from the state of things. That just goes without saying.
The wrestling business is a family business. You gotta live that as well as claim that.
Well I think that’ll wrap it up as far as this series goes. As far as this column goes? I definitely hope to stick to a schedule better than “once every season,” but there runs a risk of just… apathy kicking in. I’d get more into it, but I’ll save that for another column. With the industry in a lull like it’s in right now, a columnist has to stretch things out like turkey meat. Until then…
