wrestling / Columns

WWE’s Injuries: An Off-Season Isn’t the Answer

April 15, 2016 | Posted by Brian St. Denis

knee-jerk
adjective
1. (of a response) automatic and unthinking.
“a knee-jerk reaction”
synonyms: impulsive, automatic, spontaneous, instinctive, mechanical,
unthinking, hasty, rash, reckless, impetuous, precipitate
“is it a well-thought-out plan or a knee-jerk reaction?”

The word “knee-jerk” is the adjective that would be used to describe Blake Oestriecher’s (from Forbes) reaction to Bray Wyatt (possibly) getting injured in Milan. Blake is calling for the WWE to develop some sort of “off-season” for the talent. Stop. Why is this always the first reaction to an unfortunate event? The knee-jerk reaction to FIX it. How can we FIX it? How can we prevent this from every happening again? We need to FIX it! Accidents happen.

The WWE needs a lot of things but an off-season is not one of them. Now, while I think Blake’s idea comes from a good place-he has the boys’ well being in mind, I respect that, it’s just not feasible. It’s not feasible from a business standpoint for the WWE, nor is it feasible from a money standpoint for the talent. The money lost by the boys would be too much. Lost show appearance money, lost merchandise money, it’ll add up. Blake’s specific idea calls for talent to get one to two months off staggered across a calendar year. So not everyone gets the same time off, of course. He actually gets specific when certain talent is off. Which again, is a fine attempt to try and save the talent from suffering injuries but doesn’t address suffering paychecks. The talent has already taken a hit in the bank account department by the WWE not selling pay-per-views like they used to. This would just be another hit to their individual bottom lines.

I’d be willing to bet that if the WWE roster was anonymously polled, they would not be in favor of an off season. The talent knows that a month or two off of TV means less house show dates, no push on TV, less merchandise sales and a missed mortgage payment or two.

I don’t want to seem like I’m targeting Mr. Oestriecher specifically. He went to LSU after all, I’m just a guy who has followed the wrestling business for twenty plus years. If you Google “WWE off season” there have been plenty of pieces written by Complex, Grantland, WrestleZone, WhatCulture, etc., that have called for the WWE to create an off-season.

The off-season debate will get a lot of press in the coming days/weeks or the next fifteen minutes, because of the injury list (which is long) and latest (scare) AJ Styles and (possible) injury to Bray Wyatt. It’s the equivalent when someone kills people with a gun, we ramp up anti-gun talk for fifteen minutes. As a pro wrestler, you know what comes with it. Just like a football player knows what comes with playing football. The old cliche went “it ain’t ballet”, right? It isn’t. The wrestlers know that injuries come with the genre. This just happens to be one of those times where the injury bug bit hard. Just like your favorite football, hockey, or other sports team has in the past or is currently going through. Ask the Cowboys fans how last season felt. It happens.

Next year, everyone might be healthy and there will be talent that gets left off Wrestlemania and then the Internet Wrestling Community will be upset.

The knee-jerk reaction is to try and fix something but it isn’t broken-it’s just injured.

article topics :

Bray Wyatt, WWE, Brian St. Denis