2020 was a year like none other that I have ever experienced. The deep divide among the American people fueled by the media grew to unprecedented levels as the pushing of political agenda was at the forefront of EVERYTHING from news, to film, to music, to sports to entertainment. The division grew to violence as attacks, riots and gunplay became common place and even encouraged by many of our politicians and those in the media who supported them. The advent of coronavirus disease 2019 and the worldwide pandemic that ensued threw both our economy and our daily lives into a loop as government took advantage of this outbreak to close down any and all businesses to which they chose leaving many unemployed and many more losing everything they've ever worked for. Profession wrestling was not shielded from this assault on business as the govornment refused to allow public gatherings (save for riots which were permitted and even encouraged) leaving promotions unable to run and wrestlers without a place to work. Add to it the usual political heat that comes from an election year and you have a surefire recipe for a year that nobody wants to ever remember. In addition to all of that, many loved ones were lost in 2020. I was included in the list who lost a loved one this past year although to be fair, death is a natural and unavoidable part of life that we must deal with every year. Still, in a year with so much tragedy, witnessing death this year felt a little more painful than usual. Even with all that, there were still some bright spots in 2020 which is what I want to focus on now. I won't get into Politics, the presidential election or whom I supported but, instead I'm going to focus on the reason most of you came to this website in the first place... professional wrestling. With the covid-19 shutdowns professional wrestling took a tremendous hit in 2020. This is especially true on the Indie scene when many companies were forced to shut down and in some cases close down all together because they we're not permitted to run shows for several months. As a result, they couldn't generate the income needed to pay the rent on their buildings and were forced to shut down. Even in areas where wrestling was still permitted, many States restricted the number of fans who could attend making it virtually impossible to pay the wrestlers and crew let alone make a profit to say nothing about venue rental. Even the once mighty National Wrestling Alliance - in the midst of a long awaited and highly praised comeback - had to call it a day because of the CoVid19 shutdown. The wrestlers themselves found themselves struggling to find work often taking bookings where ever they could and no one was beyond the chopping block. WWE - while permitted to keep recording events in empty arenas for the purpose of fulfilling television contracts - released dozens of wrestlers and staff including legends that had dedicated decades to the company as a way to makeup for lost revenue now that they could no longer have crowds to which to sell tickets. Even the great Hulk Hogan was not beyond the reach of CoVid19 as both his planned match for Wrestlemania as well as his second induction into the WWE Hall of Fame as part of the nWo were both postponed. Other major companies such as AEW and Impact Wrestling we're left in the same situation. My good friend "Wildcat" Chris Harris was set to make his return to national Television in April but, that too was cancelled as Impact Wrestling was forced to cancel the event due to covid-19. On the Indie scene, the list of out of work wrestlers were growing like the homeless on the streets of San Francisco as bookings were few and often far between. Openings were scarce with so many workers competing for the few spots available. Now onto the positives that I promised. In spite of the cuts and lack of crowd, WWE, AEW and Impact Wrestling continued to produce programming on a regular schedule for fans to enjoy. Even the NWA has made a slight comeback although now coattailing on another company. On the Indie scene, every so often a state would ease up on the restrictions and an independent company would get a chance to run a handful of shows (albeit with strict regulations and a limited allotted crowd) before the state would inevitably shut down once again. Despite these restrictions, wrestlers we're more than ready to go after those spots and get back into the ring. Most importantly, fans showed that their love of professional wrestling had not waned during the shutdown and many of these events sold out quickly. If nothing else, this shows that the fan base for professional wrestling is still strong and when such time comes that our government takes a chill pill and finally lifts these restrictions wrestling will come back stronger than ever. As far as I personally am concerned, it is true that I lost some important bookings in 2020 during the shutdown but, I was fortunate enough to gain some new bookings in the process, meet new people and make some new connections in this business. Concerning my personal career in professional wrestling, I believe that the positives outweigh the negatives. The connections I made in 2020 will hopefully enable me to get to that next level in 2021 and help me in attaining goals for which I am still reaching. What will 2021 look like? At this point we can only guess. I, like many of you have my own opinions and predictions on what we're going to see on all fronts. However, if we focus solely on professional wrestling I see bright things in 2021.
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Sean Bossman: Author Throughout my 22 years experience I have had the privilege of contributing on several different levels. From hosting my own wrestling hotline, to column writer, to interviewer, to commentator, to ring announcer, to referee, to wrestler. I've always striven to put forth the best effort that I can in order to help augment the show in any way that I can. Archives
December 2020
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