An Extended Apology: Professional Wrestling, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Powerbomb

Let me tell you the story of how I came to fall in love with the pageant, pomp and circumstance that is professional wrestling.

A preliminary note right here:  I call it professional wrestling because that’s what the art form has been known as for decades.  If you call it “Sports Entertainment”, kindly get right TF off my blog right away and go put the finishing touches on your dog’s hairstyle or whatever it is that weirdos like you do in your spare time.  “Sports Entertainment” is what happens when a basketball player accidentally punches a referee in the balls, or when Kieron Dyer and Lee Bowyer start beating each other up even though they play for the same team.  Professional wrestling is what I’m talking about here.

Now that the finer points are out of the way, let’s step back in time a bit, to when wrestling first wormed its way into my heart:

I want to take you back to 1987, the year when Captain Picard and his crew set out on their first adventure and when Michael Jackson first educated us on who, exactly, is bad.  I’m hazy on the detail because I was 8 years old, but here’s what I do remember:  It’s May, and my whole extended family has gathered at my grandfather’s house to celebrate his 79^th birthday.  During the proceedings myself and two of my first cousins – Whom I shall refer to here as Jebanesu and The Baz until such time as I know they are okay with being identified as blood relatives of mine – decide that everything is a bit boring, we’re going to creep out and go next door to The Baz’s house to watch some TV.  Now, I don’t remember if we knew it was going to be on or not, but when the three of us sat down to nuzzle on the electronic teat, we tuned in to Wrestlemania III.  (Subtitled:  “Bigger!  Better!  Badder!” because, in wrestling, hyperbole is as common as poorly maintained mullets or fat guys with little in the way of teeth or fashion sense) And just like that, we were transfixed.

Now, please bear in mind:  I was 7 months away from my 9^th birthday.  Jebanesu, poor impressionable soul that he was, had only turned 5 in January of that year.  The Baz, our Elder Statesman, as it were, had just passed his 14^th birthday.  We were not television sophisticates by any stretch of the imagination.  But, I’ll be Goddamned if the way everything was presented didn’t grab us by our pre-pubescent heartstrings anyway.  The cartoonish heroes and villains, the incredible feats of athleticism, Miss Elizabeth and her legs, it was all too much for our young minds to handle.  The one thought that did stick, though, was “Wrestling is awesome!”

(Massive Aside:  The other thing I remember clearly to this day is the three of us taking chairs from around the dining room table and positioning them where every boy of this age would:  About 2.2 centimetres from the TV screen.  As I went to sit down, The Baz pulled the “hilarious“ stunt of pulling my chair out from under me, prompting a fall not unlike what a pro wrestler would call a “schoolboy bump”.  I am man enough to admit that I was instantly in tears, which sent The Baz into a flat panic.  He asked me where it hurt, and my honest answer was a sobbing:  “Everywhere!”  The next thing I knew, The Baz was carrying me next door to where the grown-ups were, almost in tears himself, with a perplexed and slightly amused Jebanesu trailing in our wake.  So much for being macho wrestling fans.  End of Massive and Slightly Irrelevant Aside)

Since then, much has changed, but there is still an innocent little pocket of my shrivelled and blackened heart that reserves the right to get stupidly excited about grown men in Speedos pretending to hit each other.  (Yes, I do acknowledge that pro wrestling is fake.  Why wouldn’t I, when the companies themselves have as much as admitted it?  However, how much of it is fake is a something I will not get into here)  My sister and I used to wait in anticipation for the odds and ends that we would get served up by South African TV in the early 90’s.  I began my university career in the years leading up to the WWF/WWE “Attitude” Era, and some of my fondest memories of those first tentative steps away from home are of showing up at the student apartment of my two best friends on a Friday night, frozen food from my mom in tow, ready to watch whatever pageantry awaited us on a delayed broadcast of Raw or whatever it was they were showing.  More recently, my wife was a dedicated fan for a few years just prior to our engagement – The departure of Jeff Hardy from the WWE roster signalled the beginning of the end for her – and we would put aside time on pay-per-view Sundays to cook gigantic pasta casseroles and laugh at Matt Hardy’s hair and JBL’s horrendously incomplete fake tan. 

But why, you ask?  Why does a man with a certain degree of intelligence – Or, at the very least, the right number of chromosomes in the right places – enjoy something like this?  I have heard many reasons.  The Baz himself reported to me that his former company conducted a survey which basically revealed that pro wrestling is a soap opera that it’s okay for men to enjoy, and I do think there’s some credence to this.

However, to me, the answer is deceptively simple:  It’s the spectacle.  Professional wrestling has gone to great lengths over the years to simplify its background stories, to the point that it’s just “goodies vs. baddies with everything at stake”.  This gives you a compelling reason to follow storylines, but still allows you to switch off most of your brain and just enjoy the visual feast that most wrestling companies strive to put forth.  I have had many friends who mistook my enjoyment of pro wrestling for an enjoyment of combat sports.  While I do appreciate other, legitimate (In the sense that they really are trying to kill each other) fighting sports, I still have some issues with them, as follows:

-          Boxing is a lot like golf or F1 racing:  Not very exciting unless you are familiar with every nuance of the sport.

-          Mixed martial arts has its share of spectacular moments, but for the most part it is visually unspectacular.  That is, it mostly just looks like two guys trying to get to third base with each other.  (I must interject with an apology here, as UFC fans are some of the most rabidly devoted followers of any sport that I have ever encountered, and most would be able to kill me with both arms tied behind their backs and an engine block around their necks.  I do not disparage what a technically awesome sport MMA is, and I do not detract from its status as a premier combat sport, but I would rather watch Rey Mysterio defy the laws of physics than two guys trying to pass each other’s guard for 15 minutes, based purely on visual appeal.  Now please don’t hurt me, I have a wife and a small child)

Pro wrestling is focussed almost entirely around the theatre, the combat is merely a vehicle to get us there.  And that, to me, is why it is so awesome.  It is popcorn for the mind, light and fluffy and doesn’t hang around long.  Even if you aren’t familiar with the storylines at a given event, there is enough hand-holding from the commentators and enough info shared in various ways that you can pick it up and run with it with virtually no effort.  It’s designed to be easily accessible, because they want more viewers, it’s not about preserving the integrity of their fictional sport.

Long story short:  Just like a smart, sophisticated person can enjoy a cheesy Mills & Boon novel or a lo-fi Kung Fu flick, anyone can appreciate pro wrestling for what it is:  Pure entertainment, delivered in easy-to-digest nuggets of wonderful.  With that in mind, please enjoy the following:

Proof that Pro Wrestling has ties to highbrow literature can be found here.  I highly recommend a listen if you want something in the background for your next 51-minute workout.

There are legit UFC fighters who get tired of getting punched in the head for realz and decide to make money in easier ways.  Brock Lesnar is one of these guys, and he is awesome.

Outside of sumo, pro wrestling takes the most advantage of outsize human beings doing things that only outsize human being can do.

But let’s give credit to the little guys, as well.

Aside from in-ring physicality, the most important skill a wrestler needs to have is the ability to take a microphone and make things happen.  The Rock was the best example of the power of the promo.

Sometimes the batshit lunacy of pro wrestling nestles nicely with other genres.

And sometimes the batshit lunacy is entertaining in and of itself.