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The best news I've heard in years for the longterm health of the professional wrestling business and for the talent that drives its success is the new program World Wrestling Entertainment recently set up for its independent contractors. After a quarter of a century or more of wrestlers being driven, and driving themselves, to the worst depths to which human beings can fall, WWE reached out to tap the resources only a multinational major corporation could to educate the talent pool that they, in the end, depend on for their profits.

WWE has instituted a three-pronged program to address the unique needs of entertainers who endure perhaps the toughest schedule and physical demands of any sports genre. Modeled after similar programs for rookies in higher-dollar major league sports, it's aimed at the young acts recruited into WWE's developmental Florida Championship Wrestling, a place that hasn't had the best reputation. (Who knew that young athletes with few bucks in contract money and no dates to work would spend their time drinking in adult emporiums and then drive home?)

It starts with Personal Life Development classes. When you consider the unique demands of non-stop travel, outlaw fame (WWE just resembles the mainstream in comparison to what it used to be, and that's just on television), the mental pressure, and the physical pain that only WWE talent face, you have to wonder who exactly is equipped to teach these classes, and of what they really should consist. Imagine being college age and suddenly finding yourself on a never-ending road tour, getting paid less than you thought after you pay all your expenses, and there's an expensive party that you're expected to hold your own in every night. Those classes have a lot to cover.

Clearly, taking the long view on an athletic/entertainment career, something that is not easy for young or even youngish wrestlers, should be a real priority for these classes. The second part of these classes, the Personal Finance Education, is a needed shift in the type of financial education wrestling promoters used to provide, like the kind former wrestler/manager J.J. Dillon described in his book "Wrestlers Are Like Seagulls."

Dillon wrote that even at the stage of his career where he was entrenched in (real) WWF management, he was encouraged to take a large mortgage on a house that was more expensive than what he thought he could afford. He came to realize ruefully that it was just a way for his employers to better control him now that he needed the job, one with a unique set of talents and qualifications, even more than he had before. Boys were always encouraged to have their toys, while the men who owned the companies benefited from talent costs much less (by percentage of total revenues) than any other entertainment genre.

WWE taking the steps that major corporations do with their employers in educating them to the financial opportunities that can help solidify their future might go a long way toward seeing that today's wrestlers find themselves at the end more like Tito Santana than Ric Flair, at least financially.

Or maybe these classes are a public relations move by a company that wants to seem mainstream, even if it really isn't, a bit of advance defense for the next time there's a pro wrestling disaster, you know, "well, now we educate our independent contractors…" Either way, WWE wants its talent to be ready for the challenges of keeping the Chairman happy in today's modern media.

The third facet of WWE's education for new wrestlers is its Dealing With The Media symposium. Here's a look at some key points of the curriculum:

-Buy one of those Cricket phones from Wal-Mart.

-Don't text the media during meetings.

-If someone takes a cell-phone picture of you and your mistress in a club ten-thousand miles from home, your wife will see it within twenty four hours.

-No matter how many interviews you've done in your native language that never got back to the States, that one you really don't want the office to know about will go right through.

• Your audience for any interview is Vince Mcmahon.

Listen to Bruce Mitchell and Wade Keller discuss current events, historical events, wrestling's biggest names, and answer listener questions every weekend for around two hours on the Bruce Mitchell Audio Show at PWTorch.com/members in the Audio Show section. Email: bmitchell51@triad.rr.com.

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