Here's the Smackdown...lowdown...whatever you'd like to call it

Professional wrestling is fake, right? It's scripted. The winner and loser are predetermined (though, depending on what two teams play each other in certain sports, one could say the same thing). You need to be an actor while being an athlete. Even though people know that, I still feel as if it’s just as valid a sport compared to what else is out there. You still need to be in shape, be athletic, and have to train to become a wrestler.

There is the World Wrestling Entertainment, or better known as the WWE. It was once known as a northeast territory of the National Wrestling Alliance. However, after a dispute over a match in the 60s, the owner, Vince McMahon Sr., decided to break apart from the NWA and created the World Wide Wrestling Federation. The company that we know today has been around since 1980 when Vince McMahon Jr. (still current owner) purchased Capitol Wrestling Corporation from his father. A company that was once only known in the northeast was taken, put on syndicated programming, and exposed to people across the United States. At the time, it was an unheard of thing to do because most companies just stayed to their region. But Vince was a machine when it came to expanding his company. He generated money from advertising, TV deals, tape sales, etc., and used it to “steal” other talent from companies. This created competition with the WWF (name change for aesthetic reasons in the 70s). But competition only makes people work harder. He moved the company onto a nationally touring one, created ground-breaking wrestling shows, such as Wrestlemania, and eventually created television shows.

In the early 90s, while the company had some financial problems due to allegations of steroid abuse, some wrestlers deflected to the only rival company, World Championship Wrestling (WCW). That helped the WCW grow, creating competition for the WWF and more entertainment for the fans. As the WWF lost wrestlers, they also created new ones, some of which were the biggest names ever in wrestling. With WCW gaining speed, the “Monday Night Wars” arose, with WWF airing Raw is War and WCW airing Monday Nitro. Each week, the shows competed in a ratings war. They were often extremely close, until WWF pulled ahead in the late 90s, and for good. WCW just couldn’t stay afloat in the new century, so McMahon eventually bought the company, and the WWF was the only major wrestling company in the country.

After a legal issue with the World Wildlife Fund, they are now known as the WWE. Today, they air original programming 3, sometimes 4 times a week. And they are a merchandising machine! T-shirts, DVDs, CDs, a variety of toys, and video games are just some of the things that they plaster their name and wrestlers all over. They also put the wrestlers in movies and TV shows. It is integrated into our culture more than people realize.

Not only is there the WWE, but there is also Total Nonstop Action, or TNA. The company isn't too popular yet, but they are working their way to becoming bigger. They were developed when WCW closed down. Many of the people that worked there had nowhere to go, so they decided to start up TNA as a weekly pay-per-view wrestling company. They were able to keep costs down by not touring and holding their shows in the same venue every week. The fan base grew, and TNA was able to move onto longer pay-per-views and a weekly TV show, IMPACT!, first with Fox Sports Net, but in 2005, they secured a deal with Spike TV. Today, TNA has pre-taped original programming each week and a live pay-per-view every month. They too have DVDs, t-shirts, etc. to market themselves the same way the WWE does. The expansion has led to running live events across the country, exposing themselves to new people all the time.

Wrestling is all over all the time. Between these two companies, it’s on national television 4 days a week – sometimes more when there are pay-per-views. Many fans are starting to feel let down by the WWE because they focus so much on the entertainment aspect rather than the sport aspect. That’s when they start to deflect to TNA, and sometimes away from national wrestling altogether (some fans go to local independent promotions). Even so, both companies are taking steps forward. This past year, WWE went HD and TNA plans to open their own studio with brand new, state of the art equipment to have as a home base for editing and on location shooting. They are both trying to expose themselves in new ways and I plan to keep an eye on that in this blog.