[The Familia]

So I attended the CWE event this past Thursday at The Legion for the “Juice is on the Loose” tour of Juventud Guerra....I felt like I was in the movie “The Wrestler”. There were roughly 42 people in attendance including my group. Juventud was terrible and looked very disinterested. The rest of the matches were actually not bad and I was entertained for the whole show. While small, the crowd was quite hot and vocal.

The awkward spot of the night was when all the wrestlers had to march over to the merchandise area during intermission to meet and greet fans and take pictures. I actually felt really bad for them as no one was buying any of their merchandise or taking pictures. People would awkwardly rummage around the tables not making eye contact with the wrestlers in the hopes of not being sucked into buying something.

They were selling old posters and pictures of former WWF legends, old DVD’s, used action figures repackaged in zip-loc bags, and T-shirts (almost bought an LWO shirt). We walked around the area a bit and congratulated everyone on their matches, but the whole time I felt like I had to buy the entire table cause I felt bad. I can’t imagine these wrestlers touring the country and wrestling to 40 people a night and possibly selling one glossy photo of themselves for $20. One of the wrestlers said the tour consisted of 40 stops....What a way to make a living...

In the case of Juventud, here is a guy that wrestled in front of 30,000 people in his prime and was a title holder for the largest promotion in the world. Now here he is sitting at a wooden table in a dusty old Legion, selling old WCW autographed photos of himself for $25, and putting on a terrible match for 42 people. Is it desperation? Is it love for the sport and performing? It sure as hell can’t be about the money. Whatever the case, it was definitely a little sad to see.