Upcoming Eastern Pro Wrestling event regarded as pure entertainment by some
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Spaulding's Steven Rich controls Rutland's Adam Scott during a match last season. Many high school wrestlers do not have much respect for professional wrestling. Jeb Wallace-Brodeur/Times Argus File |
Toolbox
By Anna Grearson Times Argus Staff - Published: March 16, 2007
BARRE – Is it wrestling, or is it simply entertainment?
The style of wrestling the Eastern Pro Wrestling organization will bring to the Barre Auditorium Saturday night might not attract those involved with the Spaulding High School wrestling program. Recently, one of the Crimson Tide's veteran varsity grapplers refused to align the sport he dominated with the physical activity on display Saturday at the Aud.
"They call it wrestling, but it's not wrestling," said Spaulding wrestler Shawn Burrington, who saw tremendous success in the 112-pound class. "You go to a real wrestling match and you go to (a professional wrestling match), it's not the same at all. If you're looking to get a better understanding of wrestling, I'd rather show you a real wrestling match, what it really is. That's just a show that's more for entertainment purposes."
"Depending on what the show is like, I'm sure it takes athleticism and I'm sure it's a physical activity, but it's not two guys putting it on the line and really going after each other," said Darren O'Meara, one of the three Spaulding coaches. "So I wouldn't call it wrestling."
Professional wrestling falls under the umbrella of 'sports entertainment' while amateur wrestling covers the competitive youth, high school, collegiate and Olympic levels and can be divided into Greco-Roman and Freestyle.
"Amateur wrestling is actual competitive wrestling that's not theatrical," O'Meara explained. "The height of our sport is the Olympic level, and the best in our sport, the Michael Jordan's of the wrestling world are looking for Olympic gold medals."
"There are a few moves that are similar," Spaulding coach David Fournier said of the discrepancy between professional and amateur wrestling. "But it is far different."
The line between the two blurs as wrestlers cross over from amateur to pro and from discussing the merits and the shortcomings of either program.
"Our wrestlers, 30-40 percent, have amateur backgrounds," EPW founder Bob Evans said. "Some have gone on to compete in junior and high school tournaments. We are much more of an entertainment aspect and not there to win or lose, necessarily, but more so to entertain. There's more showmanship where amateur is more decided on a point system and how well you execute, and this is more free-wheeling. Punching, kicking and eye-gouging is frowned upon, but it's allowed (in EPW)."
Evans spoke of the controversy that ensued after Olympian Curt Angle turned to professional wrestling and how Angle removed the stigma from professional wrestling.
Personalities like Angle have turned professional wrestling into a major money market with a large fan base, including impressionable youths who take to the mats for the first time with heads full of moves pulled from prime time wrestling programming.
"Our youth kids, grades 3-6, some of them watch a little too much and they get out of hand and they use it a little too much," Fournier said. "We have to break them of that."
Regardless, Fournier and O'Meara feel Saturday night's show won't impact the interest in local amateur wrestling.
"This year, it's probably not going to hurt coming on the heels of how we finished," Fournier said. "People will see wrestling and it will keep it in front of them. It will keep the word out there."
Spaulding finished second at the Vermont State tournament at St. Johnsbury and sent six wrestlers to the New England championships in New Haven, Conn.
"I don't think it hurts us locally," O'Meara explained. "I'm not sure how much it trickles down. Mixed martial arts, ultimate fighting, that stuff helps our recruiting a lot because a lot of high-caliber amateur wrestlers are finding success a little bit."
Both sides of the wrestling coin acknowledge the other, while professional wrestling appears to gain more from amateur wrestling.
"We have no problem with amateur wrestling," Evans said. "We think it's great. We don't have any problem with them not liking us. A lot more amateur wrestling moves and takedowns are used, and there's almost a mutual relationship for each other. People see it on TV and they think it's easy, and that's not always how it is…The amateur wrestlers are a little more attuned to discipline and taking care of your body because they've already done it for amateur wrestling, but you also have to develop a persona and learn how to talk and do interviews."
Though Burrington recognized that the professional wrestlers worked their way into the organization, he emphatically denied pro wrestling's influence on his early career.
"I don't call it real wrestling," Burrington said. "It's more staged and I've never followed it at all and it's not what got me into it at all. I like the real intensity and now knowing who is going to win."
Burrington said the fact that professional wrestling gets more headlines and air time than amateur wrestling doesn't bother him, but one of his coaches shed light on the injustice of entertainment trumping competition.
"I know there are some wrestlers that were pretty good and are now in professional wrestling for the money," O'Meara said. "I know some of them have gotten a lot of grief for it. There are probably some that were never wrestlers and wouldn't compete well at their weight, but people like Shawn have worked so hard and won't get the limelight at real wrestling."
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