Professional Wrestling
Professional wrestling utilizes a farm system that allows wrestlers to learn the craft and gain experience in smaller, often regional, promotions before they are "called up" to perform on a national/global stage. Generally called farm leagues or developmental territories, some of the more notable ones for WWE include Heartland Wrestling Association (late 1990s) - which was also a developmental territory for World Championship Wrestling, International Wrestling Association (1999–2001), Memphis Championship Wrestling (2000–2001), Deep South Wrestling (2005–2007), Florida Championship Wrestling (2007–2012), Ohio Valley Wrestling (2000–2008, 2011–present for TNA Wrestling). In addition, smaller companies such as Ring of Honor, Combat Zone Wrestling, Chikara or the now-defunct Extreme Championship Wrestling can act as unofficial feeder leagues, seasoning wrestlers until a larger company offers them a contract.
Read more about this topic: Farm Team
Famous quotes containing the words professional and/or wrestling:
“The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)
“There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignoble to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)