The phrase "Sports Entertainment" provokes a lot of emotion in our community. Most wrestling fans became fans when they were kids and looked at the business through child's eyes. So they consider today's wrestling far less inferior and associate that inferiority with the phrase "Sports Entertainment". Now to be fair that phrase has been used by WWE since the 80s and its not really fair to compare then to now at a glance. But we do have alot of problems, problems that need solutions not a million people just pointing at the problems.
When a house goes up in flames and its almost burnt to the ground a team of investigators examine the house for a point of origin. Basically that if whatever started the fire there, if that problem was solved, then the house could have and would have been saved. Same goes here, what is the one problem we could solve that might make alot of the problems go away? In my opinion, its the sports entertainment version of scouting and hiring.
This business for years was based mostly on a athletics type recruiting system. If you had a talent that could be considered a valuable asset to someone they offered you a position in their company. In the territory days, if one promoter didn't see much worth in you, then there was another promotion, another booker that could very well see you as the next big star for their company. Promoters would work together to keep talent fresh and exciting but at the same time, they wanted to have the very best of the best they could have. Even Vince McMahon himself recruited talent from every other promotion for his global expansion of WWE.
Now its seems we are on more of a entertainment scouting system. As to say no scouting system. In the entertainment industry its more of a "you come to us" kind of recruitment. This has been the status quo for years, that combined with the fact that we are down to the last of the boys to work territories is making for a very shallow talent pool, as a whole. There are plenty of talented guys out there I just think they need to be found or discovered rather than wait for them to knock on the door.
Imagine for a moment that there are no school athletics. Not in middle school, high school or college. The NBA still exists but they get talent from smaller organizations and leagues that give players opportunities to hone their skills. Do you think that The Los Angeles Lakers would wait for Kobe Bryant to contact them or The Chicago Bulls would have waited for Derrick Rose? No they would have actively pursued the most talented players.
Lets say for a moment that you are the WWE. And for every 100 wrestlers working independently, 50 of them send you all their information. You only hire from those 50. Would you assume that the other 50 are untalented or unworthy? The truth is, you couldn't really say because you haven't seen the other half. A true teacher or scout sees more in someone than they ever see in themselves. All Chris Jericho wanted to be was Intercontinental Champ but instead became one the biggest stars in our industry over the last decade. We all deserve the chance to overachieve.
