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/wrestling /guests /Turner |
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/wrestling /guests /Turner |
| Guest Columns | Brian Turner |
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I'll start out this week with a little gloating. Up to the day of the
event, ECW's Heatwave '99 had Golden Circle seats available. On Thursday,
tickets for ECW's next PPV event, Anarchy Rulz!, went on sale here in
Chicago. All floor seats were gone within 3 hours, and all reserved seating
was sold out by the end of the day. Anyone else think that ECW is chomping
at the bit to expand out of their eastern region? I was holding back on today's topic because I thought it might be a little bit too specific for the vast majority of the audience. Two events occurred, however, that make me feel much more comfortable with it. For those unfamiliar, ECW employs their own security detail for the "up close" work at their shows. This security force goes by the name "Atlas Security". These guys are very big, and they are very bad. Complaints are constantly voiced by audience members about how rough these bouncers can get, based upon their own or others' experiences at ECW shows. The two events that prompted me to bring this topic to today's forefront are the rioting at Woodstock yesterday, and Bob Ryder's 7/26 "Notes from Bob", where he details his own perspective on an Atlas Security incident. BTW, Bob takes the side of Atlas, and in the same column actually pays the WWF a compliment! Methinks an alien may be subbing for Bob today... I'm going to address security as it applies to an ECW crowd, but it can just as easily be applied to any wrestling crowd, or, as we learned in NY yesterday, to any crowd. There is a psychological and sociological phenomenon called "mob mentality". When mob mentality takes hold, the members of a crowd cease to identify themselves as individuals, but rather as parts of a larger collective. The larger collective, the crowd, is a massive, powerful organism. So large that damage to parts of the organism has little or no effect on the remainder of that organism. People cease to feel the danger of or the responsibility for their actions. It is mob mentality that allows people to loot and burn their own neighborhoods, trample their own friends, and commit heinous acts of violence like the Reginald Denny incident in Los Angeles. ECW events are special for the crowd because the producers and performers are experts in the art of creating and maintaining excitement in a crowd. They understand that there is a simple line, which separates an excited crowd from a mob. ECW performers, most notably Buh Buh Ray Dudley, are adept at bringing crowds to the very brink of this phenomenon, and extending this state for as long as possible. They watch for the signs that this line is being approached, and then they ride it in careful balance like a surfer on his wave. Unfortunately, people are unpredictable. Each person is different, and alcohol only serves to narrow the borderline to a hair's thickness. Individuals within the crowd can reach their breaking points before others, and cross the line. The line has a physical definition at wrestling events. That line is defined in two places. The first place is the rail, and the second is an imaginary line around a wrestler's body once they have come within arms' reach of the crowd. Once this line is crossed, either by rushing the ring, throwing objects, or touching the wrestlers out in the crowd, it incites even more people to cross the same line. The crowd sees that the security force is unable to control them, and the mob mentality takes over, leaving injuries, damage, and legal repercussions in it's wake. The only way to control a large crowd which has approached this line and begun to cross it is by inflicting massive damage on the members of the crowd who are willing to behave in mob fashion before the mob has a chance to form. The other members of the crowd must be shown that there is indeed danger, and that the crowd will not, in fact, shield them from the consequences of their actions. This is why we so often hear about Atlas Security manhandling a single individual, but backing off of confrontations with multiple offenders. Once the crowd has gotten to a point where it attacks en masse, physical deterrence is no longer effective. Atlas simply backs up, tightens their line, and waits for the excitement to die. Atlas Security cannot be held solely responsible for violence they perpetrate in the enforcement of crowd security. Both ECW and the fans knowingly enter into an agreement that the crowd will be worked. ECW has taken steps to make sure that the crowd will not, as a mass, become injured or dangerous by employing trained, capable security personnel, who are specialists in handling the young, male, inebriated, testosterone junkies in an ECW crowd. We owe them the same diligence in protecting ourselves within that crowd. We can exercise this caution by recognizing the lines we must not cross, and by understanding that the damage Atlas Security inflicts on the one or two poor drunk bastards who cross the lines has been done with "love", to prevent the much larger injury that a mob scene would cause. Next time you're going to complain about Atlas, watch some video from Woodstock '99. Or Altamont. Or South Central LA. The consequences of hesitation in responding to an out-of-control mob are enormous. Take responsibility for your own actions, and help Atlas to prevent situations by not starting them, or not continuing them once begun. An argument with building security is one you WILL lose. The question becomes how badly. Brian Turner freelance Mail the Author |
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