I'm not here to make five million dollars and then walk away. I'm here for life.
In a way, it's rather sad. This is what any promoter would love to hear, any employer for that matter. But there have been wrestlers that spoke of the basic promoter / wrestler relationship. I believe Road Warrior Animal once said that wrestlers are commodities. He's not the only one to have mentioned that Vince made this clear. He makes it known that he's going to get every bit he can out of each wrestler, then squeeze out some more. You can potentially make a lot of money that way, get a lot of fame. But the downside to that is once you, as a commodity, is used up, you are tossed aside.
So really, I think it's better to be smart to the nature of how business works. Walk away on your terms, especially if you come to a point in life where that's an option.
If you have five million bucks in the bank, you find yourself wanting to spend time at home, have a family, see your kids grow up, want to save your body so that you're nearly a cripple before age 50, why not walk the hell away?
This whole pile of shit about deserving and loving the business... it harkens back to something Lance Storm has said repeatedly. Sometimes the biggest marks are the boys themselves.
Nothing wrong with respecting what you do enough to do your best, to learn, push yourself, not be a piece of shit to those who work to make you look good, etc.
But if a guy works his ass off, comes off as entertaining and doesn't look like he's miserable out there, who the fuck cares? Everyone that works at that level in the ring pays a physical price for what they do in the ring. They live a pretty shitty life having to be on the road all the time. You work with torn tendons, broken bones, you finish a match when your nose just got busted or you just did something that's going to require surgery. If someone decides his job is shit and they're done, fuck these marks like Ted Dibiase, the fat fuck that used to be the Million Dollar Man, that goes on about those who don't love the business.
Tony Shiavone doesn't achieve a new level of shitty in my eyes just because he fucking hated wrestling. He was a pro about it, but never going to be as good as Mim Ross. But at least he respected what he did well enough that he wasn't habitually pulling a "Jeff Harvey".
