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| WWE wants to ensure Mania in Tampa next year has no indies around it, and that's wrong |
In the 11 years since I've been back into wrestling, WWE has gone from staunchly opposing sopping up wrestlers from the indie scene to reversing polarity and sucking them up like a vacuum cleaner off a filthy rug. The talent drain that has come from independent wrestling or otherwise corporate affiliated wrestling like NJPW has been massive. Just a small sampling of names includes Drew Gulak, Shinsuke Nakamura, ACH, Athena (Ember Moon), three out of the Four Horsewomen (Charlotte Flair being the only one "homegrown"), Claudio Castagnoli (Cesaro), and the guy who ostensibly started the trend, Bryan Danielson. Culling a select few wrestlers who had nothing left to prove outside the WWE's sphere would be one thing, but at this rate, the company is hoarding wrestlers without any real plans to use them on a regular basis outside of house show loops that frankly probably shouldn't exist anymore. As an unhappy worker, you really don't have much recourse other than requesting your release, which as Neville and Rey Mysterio proved over the years can be quite the hassle from request date to release date.
WWE, in essence, is choking the ecosystem, which, if you want to be completely honest, makes them not unlike any other company in Trump's America with respect to the REAL ecosystem. I guess it's a "fine" tactic to use if you want to increase the percentage of people spending money on your product within the given field, but the lack of biodiversity will ruin the entire industry in the long run. The only thing left will be the factory on the hill spewing out a homogenous product while the only things people who want more out of wrestling have are memories and tape footage. Of course, that goal is not only acceptable but desired under capitalism, and Vince McMahon has always seemed to me to be a capitalist before a wrestling promoter. The latter are capitalists too to an extent but they realize, maybe sometimes only out of pure necessity, that the only way to get any real returns out of the business is to diversify and collaborate.
One could argue that WWE is under no obligation to help people in the industry of lower financial standing, which sounded right to me when I was a Libertarian in college. Even if they had not a single duty to give indie promotions money or bookings of wrestlers they didn't schedule that weekend, they certainly have a moral requirement NOT to declare war on companies smaller in scope. Whether they like it or not, WWE is the rainforest that nourishes the wrestling ecosystem. Under its canopy exists hundreds if not thousands of other promotions that rely on the popularity of the biggest wrestling company in the world to carve out niches for themselves. It only works if the rainforest protects it, even passively.
WWE usurping all the talent, not giving any of it back without a fight, and attempting to block indie promotions from participating in Mania weekend is like that rainforest being razed to the goddamn ground. I know this is where the analogy becomes twisted because in this case, the rainforest itself would be tearing itself down, but regardless, the deforestation only profits the ones doing it. Even then, WWE wouldn't be able to survive forever. It might not happen now, but far enough in the future, perhaps before the world itself chokes on the hot exhaust of climate change, WWE will collapse under its own greed. Keeping affiliated satellite promotions around like EVOLVE, PROGRESS, or Insane Championship Wrestling isn't the same as maintaining wrestling biodiversity. If anything, it's keeping select, palatable animals in a zoo.
Even if WWE was unsuccessful at shutting out indies during Mania weekend, and judging from Joey Janela's Twitter, their reported efforts are for naught, their reckless usurping of wrestling talent from here to eternity still puts the company and the industry on the whole in danger. The fact that they even try to act as a monopoly shows the only thing they care about is shareholder dividends. It's par for the course for what to expect from any capitalist giant, but it doesn't make them ignoring their responsibility to be stewards for the industry any less disappointing.
