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Be forewarned.. If you are in the business, and you know any of the Crew in any way, shape, or form, you may be asked to do a future guest commentary. If you are one of the brave, feel free to email me and volunteer. If you do not want to be asked, you will be... blame Noel as she came up with this idea! Special thanks to Foxxy for suggesting the name for this column. You rock, Foxxy!
The [Lost] Art of the Shoot, or "Hey,
Shut Your Mouth Until You Read This."
By Showtime Shawn Sheridan
So, you want to be involved in the wrestling business. Yes, you. I know you, in some capacity, want to be involved in the wrestling business, or you at least fancy yourself to be highly knowledgeable if you're even reading this column. If you consider yourself to be knowledgeable, chances are you are wrong, and should have your face stepped on, but I digress.
Let this column be a guiding light in your journey through some of the
harsher truths of the wrestling world, and let me, Shawn Sheridan, the
possessor of three college degrees, be the angelic voice that whisks you
through the dos and don'ts of being a wannabe verbal "shooter."
First, we'll need a little background on our subject. Now, as we all
should know by now, the wrestling business isn't made up of a group of
people that all get along. After the shows are done, we don't all go back
to some uberwrestling Ponderosa and sit around a campfire singing "Don't
Fence Me In" and drinking moonshine while we tell yarns of simpler
times. No, most of us hate each other. Sure, hate is such a vile word,
but we just do. We're jealous, manipulative creatures by nature, and being
in an environment where only a certain few can grasp the brass ring, whether
you are a worker or a promoter, only enhances that sense of desperation
and general misanthropy we all feel deep inside that part of our mind
that makes us crave things like crack and bestiality....well, makes you
crave those things. I'm normal.
So, given the general defaulting to the id and the dog-eat-dog scenario
we as the people of the wrestling world are thrust into, it is a natural
progression of events that things will get said, and peoples' feelings
will get hurt. It is when these things are done intentionally with the
sole intention to gain from it that we progress into the realm of verbal
shooting....and it is just so damn popular nowadays. Why, just about anyone
can do it, right?
Wrong. You couldn't be more wrong. The current wrestling landscape is littered with the festering corpses of failed shoots and the people whose sullen countenances were forever scarred by the fiery backfiring of their general lack of preparedness and/or absolute idiocy. If you are a little teed off, and you say the wrong thing at the wrong time and try to come off like somee sort of badass shooting champion of all that is holy and good, and someone comes right up on your little world and blackballs you to the cell of wrestling obscurity right next to Divine Brown's appearance in ECW, what have you accomplished besides squat?
Yes, I know what you are thinking. How can I not be this person? How can I speak my mind and rise up against the injustices of the wrestling world without being forever labelled as a persona non grata?
That's a great question. However, the most direct answer is that you probaby shouldn't. Maybe you should just shut up. Maybe like sucks and then you die, or maybe no one cares what one person has to say about the institutions of wrestling that have been place for decades, no matter how valid your point is. It's sad, but it's true. Their are unwritten rules that just cannot and should not be broken, and people will go to great lengths to protect them. Let's start with SH3's rule number one on how to properly conduct a verbal shoot.
1) Like a boy scout, be prepared.
Do you even know what your problem is? Who's your problem with? What are you going to say about it, and what is anybody going to do about it? If you don't know the answers to any of these questions, shut up. Please. Don't embarrass yourself or the rest of us. If you can't form a logical thought, you shouldn't be the spokesperson of anything in the first place. No one cares if you don't care enough to take the time to learn what your own point is. Period. End of discussion. This is where 99% of angry workers/promoters/fans/people trip and fall flat on their faces. There's also an important corollary to this rule.
2) If you personally can't do anything about the problem, or if you lack support to change the problem, shut up until you can change it or have support.
Nothing upsets me more than people who wave a flag and carry a banner and shoot off their mouths pointing out some sort of problem, and then when it's all said and done, all they did was basically waste your time. How many pieces on the internet have you all read that may have had a good point or two in them, but changed absolutely nothing?
[Attention, smart alecks: Of course this piece is going to change something. What other pieces have you seen out there teaching you how to do this right? Exactly. Shut up.]
3) A verbal shoot should be designed to be a decisive blow against whatever it is you are against.
When the dust settles and you are done writing/talking, you should have presented an airtight (or near airtight) case against whatever it is you are rallying against. If you are shooting on something larger than you, it is pointless. If you are shooting on something of roughly the same influence/size as you, that's called instigating or proliferating. Nay, children, a shoot should do what a shot in real life would do: kill whatever it is you are aiming for. This brings me to my final point, which is the most important.
4) True verbal shooting is an art of preying on those weaker than you.
Again, it is sad, but it is true, and it is why so many people fail. You need the power before you can get the respect. Political positioning is so key in going to war in this business, and no one realizes it. This is not a playground, and it is not high school. There are real people making real decisions based on the real things you may or may not say, so if you are going to try and shoot, make sure you're in the right, both in a logical/ethical sense...and in a utilitarian sense. If you're not, everyone will show you why you are wrong...but me first.
I hope I've cleared up some of the confusion most of you seem to have.
Let's review.
-If you don't understand what I wrote, just shut up.
-If you do understand what I wrote, and what you want to say/write doesn't
gel with what I wrote, just shut up.
-If you understand what I wrote and your stuff makes sense in comparison
to it, best of luck...you might make a difference.
Until then,
SH3
