Column – Enforce the Rules! – Nikita Allanov

It should not be hard to enforce the rules. If it is, maybe the rules should be examined, to see if they are the best fit for the situation.

The Ohio Athletic Commission, which only oversees combat sports in the State of Ohio, lumps professional wrestling in with other sports, such as boxing and mixed martial arts. If you access the OAC’s website and review their regulations involving licensing and so forth for wrestling, most regulations involving wrestling regard only collecting fees for licensing.

Unofficially, the OAC has taken the stance in recent years that the best approach to overseeing wrestling is to let the promoters regulate themselves. That is not working.

Essentially, the OAC lumps professional wrestling in with these combat sports, when in essence professional wrestling is a performance sport. Knowing it is a performance sport, they make exceptions to rules regulating the other sports where they do not necessarily apply, and leave many things open to interpretation. The bottom line however, is that the OAC receives a fee for each wrestling show held in the state by a licensed promoter.

That last sentence has a key phrase: licensed promoter. WrestleOhio.com, a website that employees of the OAC have admitted that they use as a reference tool, lists over 50 promotions running in Ohio. The OAC only has approximately 25 promoters licensed in the state. To be fair, there are good and bad promoters who are licensed, and unlicensed.

In the last few years the number of promotions running in Ohio has boomed. The boom has not, in general, led to more work for wrestlers or bigger and better attendance figures for promoters. What has happened is that small-time outlaw promotions have popped up in areas where other successful promotions hold cards, and attempt to compete. This is often done by loading up cards full of “blood and guts” type of wrestling, performed by semi-trained wrestlers. As I have said in prior columns, this hurts the wrestling business in many ways.

However, the problems generally stem from the fact that these small-time promotions are “outlaw” – meaning the people promoting the cards do not go through the state to get proper licensing. These small time promoters, however, will be the first ones to call the OAC on a legitimate promotion, hoping to cause problems. Why? Usually, because they encounter issues by being outlaw promoters. It is nearly impossible for unlicensed outlaw promoters to run shows in places like schools or publicly owned buildings. They have more trouble advertising and promoting, because they are scared the state will find out about their show and shut it down. Doubling problems for outlaws is the fact that many of them have no clue how to promote to begin with. So, essentially you are left with small time promotions that have trouble drawing paying crowds of a respectable size running in small venues.

Unable to partner with other businesses or organizations because of their outlaw status, these promotions rely on two streams for their revenue: sponsors and attendance. With most unable to draw respectable crowds, sponsorship is usually the sole stream of revenue – which means to pay for a venue, ring, production equipment, and wrestlers, there has to be significant sponsorship. Since this is not usually the case, these events often feature wrestlers who are bottom of the barrel in terms of skill and quality, rather than skilled professionals. The cards are filled with wrestlers who are willing to work for nothing in order to be on a show. This, in turn, alienates fans, who do not want to see this type of garbage.

So, often these outlaw promoters turn to the legitimate competitors in their area, and blame them for their inability to have a successful promotion. In turn, they often “report” incidents, false or not, to the OAC, with the hopes of having the competition shut down. In turn, the licensed promoters, generally, do not care about the outlaws, as their shows tend not to affect them. However, once the OAC becomes involved, legitimate promoters are then under the microscope.

If you are an outlaw promoter, what is the drawback from reporting to the state anonymously? If you are a legitimate promoter, reporting outlaws to the OAC does nothing except draw scrutiny from the OAC to your area. It appears that the OAC views a licensed promoter turning in an outlaw promoter as not in the spirit of promoters regulating themselves, which is what the OAC wants.

Currently, the scuttlebutt in the locker room is that the OAC is considering cracking down on outlaw wrestling promotions by increasing licensing fees and the number of regulations promoters must follow. Yes, the solution the State of Ohio seems to be pursuing is making things more difficult for legitimate promoters to run legally.

In general, I am against de-regulation – only because a fear of big brother watching can do wonders to keep things in line – even if no one is there. However, I am more in favor of keeping an industry alive than I am letting it die, simply because a commission would rather deal with boxing and combat sports. While I do not think that this is a “cash grab” by the commission when taken at face value, I do think that what is happening is that the OAC doesn’t want to deal with wrestling, so by increasing the fees, they are hoping to have less wrestling shows. Ask someone in Virginia or Maryland how often they have wrestling shows in those states, compared to Ohio.

If the OAC begins to implement regulations regarding what can be contained on a wrestling card or in a match, then they need to get into the business of licensing wrestlers. If the use of a chair is going to be prohibited by the OAC, then if a chair is used in a match, who are you going to sanction? If a promoter hires a referee that calls for a DQ when a chair is used, who would the state sanction? They cannot sanction the wrestler, because the wrestler does not have to be licensed by the state. How would the state know a chair was used? Are they going to start sending commission representatives to each show? If all fifty of the promotions running in Ohio were to all run the same night, that would require fifty representatives of the OAC. I do not understand how this eases the burden on the OAC.

What the OAC currently does to investigate outlaw shows, is dispatch the Ohio State Highway Patrol to a show, which in theory should shut the show down if the proper licensing is not followed. In actuality, this rarely happens.

I think that if the OAC wants to actually reduce the problems they have with professional wrestling, then they need to crack down on the outlaw shows. Big time. If a promoter is holding an outlaw card, a commissioner should show up at the venue with a State Trooper, and start handing out fines and summons to appear in front of the commission. If an outlaw promoter who cannot afford to pay his talent suddenly has to travel to Youngstown to appear for a hearing, and have the added expenses of fines, you will see outlaw shows quickly dry up. Right now, running outlaw has no risk, as the commission doesn’t really stop the shows. They just crack the whip with legitimate promoters.

In my opinion, rather than changing the rules, why doesn’t the OAC try actually enforcing the ones that they have on the books?