Wrestler Court [Long Read]

northwest443 · August 2011

**Pretty good read, if you're not familiar with Wrestler Court**

While Lance Storm description describes "Wrestler Court" in a nut shell, I'll take some time to elaborate on the topic and share with you some modern day occurrences as well as imitations stemming from this practice.

To start at the start, wrestlers are viewed as being members of a fraternity. This train of thought dates back to the days of the Carnival shows. There is a tight circle of people that are let into the circle of knowledge and it doesn't leave that circle. This spawned Kayfabe, earlier known as "Carny Speak". Now, wrestling's inner circle of knowledge has been ? out and improperly practiced across the country all the while damning it's storied history.

Despite popular belief that Kayfabe ended when Vince McMahon in the early 90's came out in the open and said that wrestling had predetermined finishes, there is still closely guarded secrets and practices that still remain in tact.

When in the mid-90's when wrestling was starting to go on the up swing, several wrestlers started opening up wrestling schools all across the country. In the old days there was only a set number of people that would be permitted to train would be wrestlers and those were people who had either been affiliated with the NWA council or an established promotion that survived the end of the territory days.

Training back then was a privilege because you determined who would be inducted into the fraternity. You would break the spirits of any and all people who walked through your door and you humbled them until they proved that they really wanted to be a wrestler. Guys like Boris Melenko would train his guys with 6 months of extreme workouts and cardio fitness training before even allowing them to step foot in the ring. Being a wrestler back then was a big deal.

For those that survived that training long enough to get in the ring suffered a new set of challenges. This would range from anything from intentionally being hurt to being bullied in and out of the ring from the vets. Times are very different now though so anyone considering being a wrestler can rest a little easier. Although I will let you know that certain people try to practice some of the old school tactics but it's not authentic. This is where the ? out comes into play. I'll get into that in a minute.

You have to keep in mind that while these wrestlers where giving these up and comers a real hard time to get into the sport, they had gone through the same thing on their way up and once your in, you'll seldom find a bond like these wrestlers share/shared.

With regards to the ? out of this tradition, several wrestlers who weren't nearly qualified to train started to open schools across the country. While some would train with somewhat good intentions, they would utilize the traditional methods of training as a means of earning cash. What they would do is get payment upfront and then butcher the guys who got in the ring so much so that they quit. Wouldn't you know it that they didn't have a refund policy.

At some point later I will share some indie stories of the typical weekend warrior as well as some of the names of certain name recognizable wrestlers that practiced the wrestling school scam. In the same article I will address the Tom Brandi/Patriot problem as well as other people claiming to be famous masked wrestlers.

Seeing as that we have demonstrated how someone gets into the "Wrestling Family", I'll now fill you in on "Wrestler Court", how it came about and what role it plays today.

In recent months there has been talk about the Raven/WWE lawsuit to which Raven was claiming that WWE had their wrestlers under contract but their actions dictated that they were actual employees and not Independent Contractors per WWE's contract with the talent. With that, WWE enforces certain policies within it's locker room but it's the wrestlers themselves that formulated their own type of justice.

First and foremost, these wrestlers are of a single unit. It's a rule of thumb that if you have a problem or a complaint, you don't run to management, you deal with it internally. Back in the late 80's and early 90's certain wrestlers were over exercising their power and pull in the back which made things very one sided in the locker room. Out of this situation arose the formation of the "Wrestler Court".

In "Wrestler Court" any and all problems among the "Boys" would be handled internally and the punishment for these infractions would be ruled and carried out among their peers. Undertaker was appointed Judge of the court primarily because he was universally liked among the talent but also had a history of providing guidance to the younger talents while still keeping the respect of those before him.

"Wrestler Court" takes place before shows. In fractions that are tried can range from Seat Assignment as noted by Lance Storm to the execution of a rib by a younger talent on seasoned vet. When a wrestlers commits an infraction, they can either represent themselves or they can appoint someone to speak on their behalf. The person who speaks on their behalf must be a veteran and must be present at the time the infraction occurred. The prosecutor is usually the person to which was affected by the defendant's actions or they are represented by a vet as per the criteria stated before.

The trials last no more than 30 minutes and it operates independently but WWE does see merit in these actions and a lot of the times will help endorse the ruling. Some of the punishments that are handed down include having to carry the bags for the person you offended to doing an embarrassing act in front of the live crowd. It should be noted though that these acts are reserved for Live Events only and not at TV event.

As noted by Lance Storm, JBL has on many occasions served as a prosecutor
and Bubba Ray has served as the defense attorney on more than a fair share of "trials". Wrestler Court is still actively practiced in WWE and a lot of smaller indie shows have tried to incorporate it into their own locker room.

That being said, Lance had stated that he didn't know of any other places that held "Court" but I can tell you that the practice has indeed made it's way to TNA. It was initiated by some of the WWE cast offs that now found a home in TNA. One of the first cases to held in TNA was between Matt Bentley and Alex Shelly. The Judge at the time was Jerry Lynn and both wrestlers represented themselves. The case was based on the fact that Shelly didn't agree to any of the spots in the match that he would have to take and he tried to make several changes to the layout of said match. Bentley didn't take to kindly to that and had a very intense scuffle with Shelly right at the base of the then Heel Entrance Ramp. Jerry Lynn was the agent for the match so they decided that Jerry should serve as the judge. This case didn't go very well.

The end result was that that Shelly popped off at the mouth again as he is prone to do which caused Bentley to haul off and take a swing at Shelly. Bentley was stopped mid-swing and this ended the "trial". Jerry told the both of them that he was out of it and they had to settle this on their own. He added that if they wanted to exchange blows in the ring and work stiff with one another then have at it so long as it doesn't interfere with the quality of the Match. It was also stipulated that if one hits the other first they must agree to accept the others receipt but if they chose to take that route they both had to agree that after the match the issue would be considered closed. Should something happen going beyond the match it was stated that they would both be talking with Jarrett and it wouldn't end well for either of them.

Back to the WWE side of things, when the brand "Split" the wrestlers needed a new judge. Depending on the circumstances a judge was appointed on a case by case basis. One of the more widely reported issues that was tried in "Wrestler Court" was the altercation between Goldberg and Jericho. This was when Goldberg attempted to bully Jericho and ended up being choked out for his troubles. Triple H served as the judge in that trial and well, things didn't end well with that. Triple H said that Goldberg had no respect for the sport and those who worked hard for him to get the paycheck he was given. He was found guilty by his wrestling peers for attempted bullying of a veteran of their locker room but his punishment not that big of a deal. All he had to do was apologize to Jericho and state that Jericho was the superior wrestler among the two of them.

As a side note, Goldberg was a not a fan of wrestling court at all. He was used to being protected and treated as an untouchable talent but his peers didn't share those feelings.