Recently I attended both W.W.E. SummerSlam and Monday Night Raw at The Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the former with just my wife and the latter with my wife and my children.  So many things that occurred over these two events amazed me that I thought it was worth writing about and how it correlates to harness racing. First and foremost, 99-percent of what transpires within W.W.E. is scripted.  All match results are pre-determined and barring the occasional mistake, or breaking of character, it is very much like any other television program.  It amazed me that on Sunday there were thousands of fans literally breaking the doors down to get into the arena prior to the start of the event.  While waiting outside, a throng of fans were all chanting for their favorite wrestlers or just shouting out W.W.E. clichés. For both events the building was absolutely electric.  Whether it be different chants or continuous cheers and applause, the audience was always engaged with what was transpiring.  This caught my attention because, as I said earlier, the results are all pre-determined.  Much like the sport of harness racing, the “sport” of professional wrestling shares similar roots.  The original golden age of professional wresting in the United States was in the middle of the 20th century, where crowds would fill small arenas every time a show came to town.  Much like horse racing, as other sports became more prominent on national television, the popularity of professional wrestling waned.  In the late 1970’s and into the early 1980’s, professional wrestling was divided up into territories, with wrestlers moving from territory to territory depending on their popularity, much like a horse would move from racetrack to racetrack.  But in 1979 the first of a series of events took place that would change the landscape of professional wrestling, a nationally televised broadcast on T.B.S. By 1981, “Georgia Championship Wrestling” became the most watched program on cable television.  From there, came the idea of the “super-card,” where all the major wrestlers would come together for one blockbuster event.  The most notable and successful of these events was of course, Wrestlemania.  This led to the era of continuous wrestling programming on national television and pay-per-view. Horse racing, harness racing especially, followed a similar path as wrestling.  In the 1980’s events like the Breeders Crown were aired on national television.  The Hambletonian would find a home with CBS as well and so on.  However, harness racing from a standpoint of what it does to appeal to a national audience did not change over the next 30 years.  In fact, the sport has less national exposure on television.  I can tell you I have sat in meetings where people have essentially said if the events can’t be put on a premier network like CBS or NBC, it just is not worth it to televise the races nationally on a network. So why is wrestling’s popularity stronger than ever while the interest in harness racing has declined?  Simple, wrestling adapted, in many different ways.  For the 1980’s and a part of the 1990’s, the premise of professional wrestling was “good-guy versus bad-guy.”  Like everything in the world, that ran its course.  Vince McMahon, the C.E.O., noticed that it was time for a change and he did so.  He gave a famous interview where he admitted that the results of the matches were pre-determined and that professional wrestling was “sports-entertainment.”  From there, wrestling became part sport, part sitcom, part drama and part soap opera.  Regardless of gender, age group, or any other demographic, there became something for everyone within professional wrestling. The icing on the cake was the creation of the W.W.E Network.  The network costs just $10.00 per month and it provides access for its users for every pay-per view in the history of professional wrestling in its archives.  It also has thousands of documentaries, other cable shows, wrestler profiles and provides live streaming of all the live pay-per-view events throughout the year.  For the year, it costs the wrestling fan $120 to access unlimited content and watch every live wrestling broadcast. It will cost someone almost as much to order the Conor McGregor/Floyd Mayweather fight this weekend.  It can cost someone in harness racing $5.00 to view one racing program on one day. Naturally harness racing is centered on gambling and wrestling is not.  Although, you can wager on European markets on many wrestling events, from match results to prop-bets like how many times a wrestler will hit a certain move within a match.  But the point is that professional wrestling has morphed from a small-town, mom and pop outfit 40 years ago, to a world-wide phenomenon today.  Thanks to the internet, wrestling fans know who the up and coming wrestlers are before they get to the W.W.E.  Furthermore, W.W.E. created a brand called “N.X.T.” which is their version of a minor-league system and of course, all their content is available on the W.W.E. Network.  In harness racing, there is no central database of unlimited information and video at affordable rates.  The exposure on television is minimal at best and the sport conducts itself in a near identical fashion as it did in 1985. As a point of reference, last week's episode of Monday Night Raw attracted 3.42 million viewers, the fourth most watched program on cable.  By comparison, the NFL pre-season game checked in at 3.57 million.  I honestly don’t know if there are 3.42 million people that watch a harness race over the course of the year and I can’t accept that professional wrestling, a completely scripted pre-determined “sport,” has figured out how to thrive in 2017 and harness racing cannot.