Grappling for attention
BUTLER TWP — Manager, accountant, banker or personal trainer by day.
Professional wrestler by night.
Not every pro wrestler makes a living on television, working pay-per-views or by traveling overseas.
The majority, in fact, are not recognizable faces to the casual fan nor perform in front of thousands inside a big-city arena. They do their work in front of 100-plus people at a time, up close and personal.
They are independent wrestlers and work fulltime in other professions out of necessity.
“You can't make a living doing this ... You'd starve,” Cranberry Township resident Calvin Guelich, 26, said.
“Wrestlers come from all walks of life,” Far North Wrestling (FNW) promoter Dan Polinsky said. “I've had accountants, industry workers and bankers work for me.
“As wrestlers, they're independent contractors who usually have to cover their own expenses. Nobody gets rich doing this. They do it because they love it.”
Polinsky estimated 20 percent of independent wrestlers do it on a fulltime basis.
Guelich, known in wrestling circles as “The Future Calvin McGrath,” recently moved to the area from New York City, where he worked as a personal trainer.
He is good friends with 2002 Knoch graduate Aaron Albert, a fellow independent wrestler who manages Anytime Fitness in Butler Township and also serves as a personal trainer.Albert, known in the ring as “Ashton Amherst,” was a standout baseball player at Indiana (Pa.) University and had tryouts with the Florida Marlins, Colorado Rockies and Cincinnati Reds.He led the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference in hitting one season with a .447 batting average.“I was good at baseball, but I didn't love baseball,” Albert admitted. “I've wanted to be a professional wrestler since I was 3.“They're like real-life superheroes. What kid doesn't aspire to be something like that?”But superheroes have to look the part. Albert and Guelich do their part to keep their bodies in peak physical condition.“If you look good, you look believable. Superheroes have muscles,” Guelich said.Besides doing their daytime jobs, they work out religiously. And they stay in character. Ashton Amherst is usually a heel (bad guy) while Calvin McGrath is a face (good guy).They've wrestled each other a number of times.“A dog collar match is our best,” Albert said, smiling. “We can do a lot with that.”Guelich helps Albert at Anytime Fitness, but calls him Ashton Amherst at all times. And he refers to himself as Calvin McGrath.“To become the character, I need to be the character,” he said.Albert said he chose the ring name Ashton Amherst because “I was looking for another first and last name that began with the letter A and sounds like a real jerk.”“Dirty just fits him. He's got that kind of look,” Renegade Wrestling Alliance promoter Derek Widziszewski said of Albert.World Wrestling Entertainment owner Vince McMahon “outed” pro wrestling as sports entertainment and not competition during his 1989 testimony before the New Jersey State Athletic Commission.The business has continued to flourish since.“People still believe in and get caught up in the fantasy,” Albert said. “You go to the movies, you still want to see the good guy prevail in the end.”
Few independent wrestling shows are held in the performers' backyard.Most independent promotions can't afford to put on more than one show per month, so wrestlers have to go where the action is.Only 15 to 20 wrestlers are needed per show. Supply and demand don't often favor the performer.“A weekend for me used to be something like wrestling in Philadelphia on a Friday night, North Carolina on Saturday and somewhere in West Virginia on Sunday,” Albert said.“I try to limit my travels to eight hours away, 10 at the most.”Albert has primarily wrestled in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, New York, New Jersey and Maryland.Guelich has wrestled all over the country and is auditioning for the upcoming WWE Tough Enough series on TV.“These guys put in all of their work during the week,” said Danielle Elliott, Albert's fiance. “The weekends in the ring are fun time for them.“It's acting and athletics rolled into one. And they take pride in putting on a good show. Go to a boxing match or UFC fight, you might see a first-round knockout. Go watch a pro wrestling show and you're guaranteed to be entertained.”Widziszewski said wrestlers will car-pool and share rooms in cheap hotels to curtail expenses.“The dedication, the training, the travel ... It can be a lonely life.” he said. “The wrestling match itself is the payout for them.“A whole week of blood, sweat and tears is all for 10 minutes of time in a ring, precious moments when they're the show.”“The feeling you get ... It can be addicting,” Guelich admitted.
For a pro wrestler to “strike it rich,” opportunities are limited.“Get signed by the WWE, TNA or Japan,” Widziszewski said. “My last show had 102 paid attendance. My biggest show drew 250.“Only so much money can be doled out.”Mike McBeth, promoter of NWA East, based in McKeesport, equates independent wrestling to Class A minor league baseball.“A lot of indy guys dream big in this business,” McBeth said. “Some indy guys wrestle for $20 or $10 a night. If they have some kind of name recognition, they might get $175.”By comparison, the WWE might pay $500 to a wrestler merely filling a spot for a night.“Quality promoters can be harder to come by than quality wrestlers,” McBeth said. “The state of Pennsylvania makes it easy to get a license (to promote a show). A scorned wrestler can get a license and run his own show, but what kind of show is that gonna be?”Years ago, if an unknown wrestler couldn't get on TV, he had little chance of gaining ground in the business.The Internet has changed all of that.“Facebook, YouTube, wrestlers love that stuff,” Widziszewski said. “Social networking on the Internet is a way to get seen.“They're a phone call away from the big time. That's how a lot of them look at it.”Polinsky has been a wrestling promoter for 20 years and says putting together a quality indy show is harder than ever.If you're not a big-time wrestler, you need to look like one.“Quality is the key word,” Polinsky said. “If you don't look like a wrestler, you won't wrestle for our company.“If you're a smaller body, you need to be interesting, maybe a high-flyer, be able to do something to sell the fans.”The chances of a wrestler hitting it big?“It's rare,” Widziszewski said. “Consider the number of wrestlers out there ... It's a pipe dream, really.”
Make a few dollars, endure time-consuming travel and high injury risk.“Wrestlers push the envelope more at an indy show because the fans are closer and you want to make everything look as real as possible,” McBeth said. “The percentage of in-ring injuries is greater than in the big-time.”So why do it?“Anytime in life, when you have the opportunity to evoke crowd reaction, it's a rush,” Albert said. “And it's a privilege.“There is pride to what we do.”Elliott agreed.“Anyone can see the difference when two prepared, dedicated wrestlers are in the ring, compared to two guys who just showed up for the weekend,” she said.Untrained wrestlers are known in the business as “backyarders.”Trained wrestlers find each other and bond.“For those of us who appreciate and respect the business, who take it seriously and yearn to entertain the right way, wrestling is a brotherhood,” Guelich said.“Friendships I have with other wrestlers are the tightest, strongest friendships I've had in my life.“Whether it's in a high school gym, a social hall, wherever, when I'm in that ring, I'm not being crazy,” he added.“I'm just being me.”
