Common Sense for the Biochemist

Apologies for the long delay between blogs. As good ole J.R. Ross from the WWE would say, "bidness is about to pick up!". I read a good book this past weekend, "To Be the Man, a biography of Ric Flair." It was a pretty simple read and I got through all 300+ pages in one sitting. To those of you that don't know, back in my undergraduate days, I was a rasslin' fan. I'll still sit down every now and then and watch whatever is on but I don't follow the storylines anymore. I was a fan during the "Monday Night Wars" and to me it was just as interesting (if not more interesting) to follow what was going on behind the scenes as the two rival promotions, WWF and WCW, fought for viewers on their Monday night programs. The book chronicles Ric from his start with the Gagne's promotions in Minnesota and follows him to Charlotte, where he met with Jim Cornette. There are some pretty good anecdotes about his life outside of the ring. Most of the book seems to be historically correct, but there is some WWE propaganda in it (hey, when they are publishing the book, they are going to promote themselves).I guess the part of the book that really sticks to me is Ric Flair's portrayal of Eric Bischoff. For those of you who don't know who he is, Eric managed the WCW during its heydays, when it was beating the WWF in the promotion wars. However, Eric also managed to handly drive the promotion into the ground. If you know Ric Flair, then you know that he tried to live like his in-ring personality. The man was confident, cocky (he had every right to be), and is one of the few wrestlers that can say that he made the industry of wrestling better. Mr. Flair tells of his days in the WCW under the management of Eric Bischoff. I won't go into detail here but it is worth researching more. Basically, Eric was able to take a very talented and able wrestler and demoralize him to the point of nervous breakdowns. He was told that he was nothing to the sport. Ric was not the only one that this occured to, either. Meanwhile, Eric and his "good ole boys" made sure they had plenty of facetime on TV and made the primo money. When Ric joined the WWF after the demise of the WCW, he was not confident of himself and was really questioning what type of athlete he was. Fortunately, through good leadership at the WWF, Ric was able to gain his confidence back and was able to become a productive wrestler again. When people look back at the careers of Eric Bischoff and Ric Flair, they will realize the contributions of Ric Flair to the industry including his work attitude and ethics. All they will remember about Eric Bishcoff is how he was able to take an industry-leading company (they beat WWF 83 weeks straight on Monday night) and drive it not only into the ground, but through it. So why does this interest me? It amazes how inept some corporate managements, such as those that presided over the WCW can be when it comes to recognizing employees amongst their ranks that are so incompetent. Basically, the Erics of the corporate world, and I have to believe there are more out there, are interested in only their own self-promotion even if it is at the cost of another employee or the entire corporation. I guess they are able , through their self-promotion smoke-screens, are able to keep upper-management blind. That also gives me hope when I get back to the real world. In the long run, these guys are people in the industry that I can beat. Vince McMahan was able to pick up the leftovers from the WCW explosion for only $5 million. I'll bet Vince has already made that in profits off of the WCW tape library. If you are out there working for an Eric, just quit, as Ric Flair will tell you, life is much better somewhere else. Take 'er easy Y'all Brian "The Nature Boy" Barnett