PERSISTENCE
Well, here's one more year gone, and I'm still writing for Slash Wrestling.
One year later, and I'm still scribbling away like some newly-saved monk in his freezing cloister. Possibly deluded, but always hopeful that what I'm writing might just be considered by some to be my way of paying homage to the sport I enjoy.
I'm a diehard professional wrestling fan, and likely to remain so. Early on, most of my "inside" wrestling formation came from the feds' own magazines.
Then I found Wrestlemaniacs on the Internet, and in particular one individual, Christopher Robin Zimmerman.
CRZ was the "enfant terrible" of the 'Net's wrestling gurus, who had, (and still has) the incredible ability to do an extremely detailed and minutiae-packed recap of both sides of the Monday Night Wars, and then have it posted within 12 hours of the shows' going off the air.
I still don't know how he does it.
Black magic, maybe.
Or some pharmacy-quality methedrine.
After two months of reading and cackling over CRZ's insightful reports, I decided that, if he could do it, so could I.
As luck would have it, this coincided with CRZ getting his own Slash wrestling site up and running.
Now, my previous scribbles were confined to some articles I had tag-teamed with Bill Kunzel, aka "Potshot", over at Scoops Wrestling, building upon and adding to his well-known Angle Ratings System. The response from the readers to my efforts was generally favorable. At least nobody wrote me and said I sucked big time.
That would come later.
So, I laid siege to CRZ with a barrage of emails and article submissions, and at the end of two weeks, he surrendered.
I was to do the recap of the "WCW Saturday Night" program, and consider myself damned lucky to have even that bone tossed to me.
Boy, was I in for a surprise!
Writing an opinionated, blather-filled article was one thing.
Writing an accurate, timely recap of a wrestling show, whether live or taped, is HARD WORK!
Still, I stuck with it, honed my talents and abilities, and never, EVER, refused a request from CRZ.
I wound up recapping not only "WCW SN", but also "WCW Worldwide", and then "ECW on TNN." None of them could be considered glamour shows like WWF Raw or WCW Monday Nitro, but a recap was nevertheless necessary because they were an integral part of the industry that I was covering.
This in turn led to my being recommended to the folks at Wrestlemaniacs, where I eventually wound up doing the "WCW Thunder" recap in addition to everything else. Back at Slash Wrestling, I had a brief love affair with Comedy Central's "Battlebots" show, which ended when my cable company briefly went mad and dumped the channel.
Wrestling is a fluid business. Within months of my recapping WCW SN, the show changed its format, then folded.
"ECW on TNN" was next, vanishing in a cloud of greed and recrimination.
I became known as "The Reaper," since every show I'd recapped or written about either had, or was about to go belly-up. (Several of the fans asked if I could recap shows like Martha Stewart or Ricki Lake in order to chase them off the airwaves as well. My price is still a thousand bucks a shot.)
With the demise of the old WCW, "Thunder" and "Worldwide" disappeared as well, leaving me where I am today, recapping the weekly "WWF Byte This!" show.
What have I learned?
First, always check your sources and get independent confirmation of what you are writing about.
Second, make sure of who or what you are writing about. Striving for accuracy is a GOOD thing, especially when it involves getting folks' names right.
Third, I've learned the value of persistence. If you want something bad enough, and do everything you can to make it happen, you'll get what you are after.
Maybe not right away, which is hard to accept in today's "Gotta Have It NOW!" world, but it WILL come to you. Just be patient.
One of my favorite quotations is attributed to Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald's.
I think it describes CRZ and Slash Wrestling quite well.
Press On.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not:
Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.
Genius will not:
Unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education alone will not:
The world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent!
Works for me and CRZ.
How about you?
E.C. Ostermeyer
[slash] wrestling
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