Why WWE Calling Its Wrestlers Entertainers Is Ridiculous

[JohnCenaFan28]

By Keelan Balderson on October 28th, 2008

Although they haven’t hit us over the head with it yet, WWE’s new policy is that all wrestlers on the show (whether it be Raw, Smackdown or ECW) must be referred to as entertainers and not wrestlers. That means all of the commentators, interviewers and stars are barred from saying wrestlers and must replace it with entertainers or nothing at all. Not athletes, not superstars not even performers, but “enter-flaming-tainers.”

If anyone plans on writing a “death of WWE” book this deserves its own page because if they go through with it, that’s one more nail in the coffin of the wrestling business!

The popular reported reason why Vince McMahon is taking this route is that he wants to relabel his company as Entertainment rather than a touring sporting event so he can get out of paying certain taxes and in theory get better advertisers as the “wrasslin” stigma will be gone. (In theory).

Although that may be part of the reason, it goes a lot deeper than that. You see Vinnie Mac has never liked “wrestling.” The very word makes him cringe. This is a man that took his father’s traditional wrestling promotion, crippled the territory system by braking the rules, running shows where he wanted, bringing in the over the top stars, he created wrestlemania and and made wrestling on TV a soap opera. Whether all of this was good or bad (I’d say it was good) he changed it all once and he wants to change it all again. Or at least finish off his grand plan of turning wrestling in to a new genre altogether. That’s bad.

You see Vince was a radical young son of a gun, bursting with ideas, ready to take the wrestling industry to new heights. He wanted to make money and become famous, not stay in one dingy region running “wrasslin” shows like his hard nosed elders who were too stuck in their ways to see the big picture. He created freaking Wrestlemania! Not many people can draw live crowds like Vince and Wrestlemania. He dominated TV ratings. I know today’s ratings are more modest but during the attitude era WWF was a household name. He’s innovated PPV (without wrestling, PPV may have never even taken off), pushed the boundaries of production (nobody in any field did Pyro before Vince) and he’s a legitimately rich bastard!

You don’t get more successful than Vince, but he’s still not allowed to join the county club with Robert De Niro and play golf with Bill Gates. He’s still not one of the boys. When Vince walks past in the Hall Donald Trump smugly says “hi Vince” but then goes back to talking to Warren Buffett and the guys. They might even snicker when they think Vince is too far away to hear. Why? Because Vince is in the wrestling business and only rednecks watch wrestling. This drives Vince’s grapefruits wild. In fact all of this testosterone filled rage is what turned McMahon’s grapes in to fully fledged fruits!

I’m no psychologist but something’s going on there. Vince just wants to be accepted…but the sooner he accepts that he’s in the wrestling business the better, because then maybe he can put on such good wrestling shows that he won’t need to worry about becoming all “hollywood.” What’s better if he really wants to go in to the entertainment business then hand over the promotion to the Undertaker or Triple H who still have a passion for wrestling and move over to the films division full time.

World Bodybuilding Federation, WWF Superstars, XFL football league, WWE Films, Freddy Prinze JR…just a few of the examples that Vince wants wrestling to be something it isn’t. The fact that he hates Jim Ross and berates him for knowing wrestling’s history is enough to prove that he hates the business.

So lets look at this Entertainers thing more closely in a few simple scenarios:

“Chris Jericho just hit Shawn Michaels wife, that’s absolutely vile…what a nasty entertainer” - huh?

“Regal’s got Noble down, no he slips out, side headlock, nope he reverses in to an armbar, these two guys are just trying to out-entertain each other” - WTF?

“The Royal Rumble, the biggest night in these men’s lives. Every man for themselves. Who can out entertain 29 other entertainers?” Who?

Ok they might not be that dumb but you get the idea. You may as well slap a big sign on the mat reading “wrestling’s fake, now suspend your disbelief.” If two guys are really supposed to hate each other and are about to fight then they are not entertainers they are wrestlers or fighters.

Yes in truth wrestlers are entertainers, great ones at that but when you are watching the Sopranos they don’t stop half way through and say “great acting buddy when I shot you in the head, you’re a great actor.” The point of wrestling is to portray the “entertainers” as tough guy wrestlers. The term is fine in stock meetings or when making press releases but don’t drag it actually in to the production.

RIDICULOUS!

Source: WT

[DUKE NUKEM]

i think vince is trying to hard

[Kage]

Imo Vince is inadvertantly giving Jeff Jarret and Dixie Carter the chance of a lifetime with this whole "entertainer" bit. Too bad they won't jump on this chance like they should.

[Slash]

Man I really can't wait 'til Entertainia 25 in Texas!

It's just plain stupid! Call them what they are, if they played Football, they'd be called Footballers, if they sang, they'd be called Singers! They wrestle, so call them f*cking wrestlers!

[scorpionf]

Vince is losing it.... What next, when "Entertainers" doesn't work out.???

It seems like Vince is trying to fix what isn't broken....

[tommy]

Man I really can't wait 'til Entertainia 25 in Texas!

It's just plain stupid! Call them what they are, if they played Football, they'd be called Footballers, if they sang, they'd be called Singers! They wrestle, so call them f*cking wrestlers!

I don't know about you, but I have never heard anyone called a "Footballer". That sounds just...awful. They are just called athletes generally, or football players.

[Will]

I don't know about you, but I have never heard anyone called a "Footballer". That sounds just...awful. They are just called athletes generally, or football players.

I thought the same thing when I read it. I don't believe I have ever heard the term footballers used, in any context, in my entire life up until this point.

[Slash]

I don't know about you, but I have never heard anyone called a "Footballer". That sounds just...awful. They are just called athletes generally, or football players.

Was talking about proper Football, not that American game with all the pads! Lol!

[Kenpachi Zaraki]

Absolutely correct Slash........... its footballer the American 1s r steroid freaks............. as fr wwe its gonna die soon for me atleast

[Flair Country]

I thought the same thing when I read it. I don't believe I have ever heard the term footballers used, in any context, in my entire life up until this point.

I don't know about you, but I have never heard anyone called a "Footballer". That sounds just...awful. They are just called athletes generally, or football players.

That's because you clowns aren't properly educated.

On a more serious note, I think this would be a perfect opportunity for a challeneger to take a big step in bringing wrestling back to wrestling. I was hoping that challenge would come from TNA but they might as well call their wrestlers, "backstage interviewers."

I would certainly welcome a 3rd company that actually cared about wrestling to step forth and change the scene a bit. Whether it be ROH, NWA or anyone else for that matter that will show me a different product than what I'm currently seeing from the top two.