- Charles Laffere   

Hi everyone... Well, hello to you, oh wise Mr. Fahey… (triple ellipsis © VinceKM) 

Friday June 20th is the day... What day? My anniversary, the wife’s birthday, what did I forget this time? Oh, the UWF story for this month! Thanks for the reminder, sir… 

for those writing on the regions, if you'd like to participate, there is the theme of job guys... Ooh, ooh, I wish to participate!…  

thanks. Thank you. 

Courtesy Merriam-Webster...
Main Entry:     1job 
Pronunciation:     'jäb
Function:     noun

…TASK (2) : a specific duty, role, or function… 

Sounds right to me.    

“No use saying that it's alright, it's alright.
Where were you after midnight, midnight.
Heard a Bang, Bang, Bang; Down they go
It's just a job you do
Cuz the harder they run, the harder they fall.
I'm coming down hard on you. 

No-one saw what you looked like, what you looked like
Like a stranger coming out of the night, out of the night
Someone put the word on you, I hope my aim is true.
I got a name, I got a number, I gotta line on you
I got a name, I got a number, I'm coming after you”

“Just a Job to Do,” Genesis.

I guess it’s come to this, quotation of a Genesis lyric in a piece about the Universal Wrestling Federation. Where did I go wrong?

Well, no time for self pity or introspective doodling, I really have a job to do. My name is Charles Laffere, and welcome back to my spot here at Kayfabe Memories. Last time we met, I detailed some of Chavo Guerrero’s history in Mid South and the UWF in preparation for an analysis of his match up with Sting at the promotion’s 1986 Superdome Extravaganza. Instead, I believe that Mr. Loadedglove came up with the idea of having June as a tribute to the wrestlers who worked as job guys. I think it’s great, as a current thread on the KM UWF Message Board has created much discussion among posters. I will be using their entries as part of this installment… 

“Don't keep saying that it's alright, it's alright,
It seems you went just a little too far this time
Heard a Bang Bang Bang, and down you go,
It's just a job I do,
Cuz the harder you run the harder you fall,
I'm coming down hard on you, hard on you”

I guess some definition of what a “job guy” is/was must be put into some type of historical context. In today’s WWE, everyone is a nominal “superstar” on the Raw and Smackdown programs. The lower level guys are shuttled off to either Heat or Velocity. There are no bouts between, say, the Andersons and the Mulkey Brothers or. Brutus Beefcake squashing Mario Mancini, in which the outcome is extremely obvious. Televised matches in the territory days were primarily used as an enhancement to attract viewers to the arena, the place where promoters made their money. Some form of television title was used in most companies to allow for at least one “even” televised match per week. Today, the WWE is driven by such factors as pay-per-view buy rates, advertising revenue (which can be directly tied to television ratings), and merchandise sales, all of which are strongly correlated to TV. Only merchandising is a key ingredient for the profitability of house shows. In other words, the matches you see on television will often feature the same wrestlers on the tour circuit. You get the same matches live that you do on TV… 

“Downed, downed out of my head
'Round, 'round out of my head”

“Downed,” Cheap Trick. 

One of the many good things about the UWF was that it had some of the best job guys or enhancement talent around.  More...