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| Why I love pro-wrestling; A glimpse into the madness of a fan | |
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| Topic Started: Nov 17 2009, 03:27 PM (172 Views) | |
| Dr. Chad Matthews | Nov 17 2009, 03:27 PM Post #1 |
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Under the Bright Lights: Special Edition Surely you’ve been there before…when your passion for pro-wrestling comes to the attention of someone you know. If you’ve ever gotten a positive reaction, you’d be in the very small minority. Most respond with an “oh” or some other manner of expressing disappointment and/or disillusionment. I guess that leaves telling the person about your message board or column/review writing skills and success out of the question, doesn’t it? You’d be better off telling him/her that you like roller skating with the elementary school kids once a week or proclaiming yourself to have an alter ego named “Zordon: Lord of the Flash”…anything would go over better than being a wrestling fan… Well, I’m tired of hiding it. I no longer wish to follow up the obligatory “you know its fake” incredulous question with a sheepishly embarrassing “yes, but I enjoy it because of performance.” Nor do I wish to have to “laugh with” whomever bursts into a mockingly toned sneer of disrespect laced snickering. By God, if you are reading this than certainly you, like me, are not the type of fan that watches wrestling to see giant men in their underwear pummel each other in a pre-determined fake fight or to see scantily clad, well endowed women attempt to do the same. No, if you are reading this…then you want to FINALLY be able to counter all the snide remarks, sighs of disapproval, and yawns of boredom with something…anything that might make someone understand why you love this stuff. In an effort to bring that to the table…I present the following, in hopes that some of you may relate to it and be able to use it to help your cause in the future… Why I Love Professional Wrestling You know, it’s funny…taking the road less traveled seems to be a habit of mine. For better or worse, I seem to be drawn to being different. I’ve chosen to be a healthcare professional that doesn’t yet have widespread acceptance, I went to a college that takes a backseat to more popular schools along the “Tobacco” road, I got engaged to my wife after just three months of dating, and I root for Notre Dame’s football team during the least successful period of their history. Given my choices in life, it is as if pro-wrestling fandom and me were destined for each other. Since bouncing on my granddad’s knee as a two year old, I have been drawn to wrestling. It was that day that I had my first experience with pro-wrestling. Twenty some odd years later, pro-wrestling history is something I can recall as easily as any other subject. My experiences with it are many. Some are as trivial as the amusing car ride with a colleague where we talked about it for hours after having discovered each other’s mutual admiration for it. Others are as near and dear to my heart as the night that my dad and I watched Ric Flair win the Royal Rumble (a unique, 30-man over-the-top rope battle royal held in January of each year) or when we watched our first Wrestlemania – great childhood memories. It has reached a point where anyone that really knows me well just understands that, for some reason, I can’t outgrow wrestling. And it would surprise even them to know that it was not until I became an adult that I really became a fan for life. When you are young, wrestling attracts you because it is larger than life or because your friends watch it. At times, wrestling – taken at face value – can be quite entertaining. Anyone who has ever seen Hulk Hogan do an interview or the Rock go off about someone’s candy ass or Stone Cold hose down his boss with brew from a beer truck can vouch for that. But that wears off…that’s the kind of entertainment that doesn’t hold your interest as you mature. Makes for great memories, but people grow up…and that’s the kind of stuff that they grow out of. As you mature, wrestling either finds a new way to hold your interest or your interest in it simply drifts away. Luckily for me, entertaining talkers weren’t why I became fascinated with wrestling, no more than pre-game shows were why I became fascinated with sports like football and basketball. You see, I grew up in an era in which wrestling was not a weekly TV show like it has become in the last decade or so. When I was growing up and first watching wrestling, everything was about the pay per views (PPVs). I learned about and became a fan of pro-wrestling by watching old PPVs…not watching it on TV. And what you see on wrestling TV is not the same thing as what you watch on PPV. TV shows were intended to build PPVs, where you actually got to see the wrestling matches. Ricky Steamboat, who is highly regarded as one of the best in-ring performers ever in the wrestling business, said during his 2009 WWE Hall of Fame induction speech that to him “success was never measured in wins and losses…it was about the performance.” The in-ring PERFORMANCE is why I love wrestling. It always has been. Pro-wrestling is a performance art, not a fake fight. It requires athleticism and coordination, much like dancing. To me, dancing is the most legitimate comparison to a pro-wrestling match. Dancing is judged and scored based on how well the dancers perform and the story that they’re able to tell while doing so. Wrestling is the same, for despite the pre-determined winners, it is the responsibility of the wrestlers to perform at a high level, while telling a story to the audience. Their matches are judged by their peers and scored by the limited few that choose to act as their unofficial critics (a fraternity that I was once apart of). It seems so simple, but is very obviously more complicated. In order to appreciate something, I think you need to know how it works. Wrestling often gets compared to soap operas. Well, I did not appreciate soap operas until I was told that they film them quickly and that there are very few stops for retakes, so they better damn well get it right the first time. Do I like soap operas? I wouldn’t watch by myself…but I can appreciate what goes on behind the scenes enough to find entertainment in them so that I can watch them with my wife or my mom. Behind the scenes of a wrestling company, there’s a lot that goes on that most would not take the time to find out and that I think is necessary to know in order to understand that it is more than just a bunch of dudes play fighting in their underwear. The following are some of the more interesting things, in my opinion: -Wrestlers spend 300 days a year away from their families to entertain ours -They know nothing more than the winner prior to a match. They are given a pre-determined amount of time to have their match. During that match, they talk to each other the entire time, calling most every move on the fly according to the story they are trying to tell the audience -Most of them train for years before getting a shot to be on TV. Once they are on TV, they have to “get over” with the audience…meaning that if they don’t find a way to get the crowd to either love them or hate them…they’ll lose their chance. For instance, John Cena was a nobody going nowhere. And then he used his hidden talent for freestyle rapping, believe it or not, on a Halloween episode where he dressed up as a Vanilla Ice. The crowd finally had a reason to like/dislike him. -The wrestling ring is hardly padded, the chairs are real, the tables are real (if not cheap), the bleeding is real, and probably the only thing that they do in the ring that doesn’t hurt is taking a fake punch – it’s a dangerous line of work. For instance, Edge’s laundry list of injuries include a broken neck, a torn Achilles, a torn pectoral muscle, a broken wrist, and a broken jaw (among others) -There are politics to try and hang on to titles and top positions just like in any other job -Wrestlemania, which is now a global event each spring, began as a big gamble to try and give wrestling a Super Bowl caliber event. It paid off. It is now an event sought after by the mayors of cities across the US because of the amount of money it brings to the local economy. People from all over the world go to Wrestlemania. For instance, it brought 50 million dollars to the city of Houston in 4 days. Speaking of Wrestlemania, there is no better place to see great performances. I tell people that make fun of me for watching wrestling that they cannot have any clue what wrestling is all about until they watch a Wrestlemania…especially live. It is the event where the wrestlers really step up their games to try and out perform each other. Shawn Michaels has become somewhat famous for that, earning the nickname “Mr. Wrestlemania” for his consistently excellent matches at the biggest event of the year. To add a touch of realism for you, he also has a tendency to shout to his peers once he’s returned to the dressing room: “Follow that!” If I’m actually showing someone why I love pro-wrestling, I’ll have them watch a Michaels match from Wrestlemania. There are documentaries and movies out there like “The Wrestler” that can give someone with no appreciation for wrestling a glimpse of what might make someone with all of their teeth and half a brain interested in it. However, those do not give you the whole story, often depicting all that is wrong with wrestling. My hope is that everything you’ve read might give you a better understanding of what is right with wrestling. A great wrestling match is every bit if not more entertaining to me than a great football game or basketball game. There’s just something about it that will always draw me in. Perhaps now you know why… |
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| Q | Nov 17 2009, 03:34 PM Post #2 |
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| Stinger | Nov 17 2009, 04:34 PM Post #3 |
To me, to be a conservative means to conserve the good parts of America and to conserve our Constitution.
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Wonderful column Chad. I find myself agreeing with your reasons. Nice, quick read. I like it, would love to see more columns from you (you know I always loved the UTBL series). You going to post this one on LOP? |
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| Dr. Chad Matthews | Nov 17 2009, 04:46 PM Post #4 |
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Thanks, gentlemen...no, i'm not going to post this one. I talked to Calvin about doing maybe a guest column or two per year, but I don't want to take anything away from those that busted through the columns forums to get their spot on the main page. I've been in a column writing mood as of late, so I might churn out a few here and there. It's really just a matter of, as i'm sure you can attest to, having something you'd like to write about. |
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| Stinger | Nov 17 2009, 07:19 PM Post #5 |
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To me, to be a conservative means to conserve the good parts of America and to conserve our Constitution.
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Can definitely attest to that. Do you mind if I post this on our main page (the blog)? |
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| Dr. Chad Matthews | Nov 17 2009, 09:49 PM Post #6 |
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Absolutely don't mind...go right ahead |
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| Stinger | Nov 17 2009, 10:02 PM Post #7 |
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To me, to be a conservative means to conserve the good parts of America and to conserve our Constitution.
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Thanks! Posted... http://heelzone.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/under-the-bright-lights-why-i-love-professional-wrestling/ |
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| Jules | Nov 20 2009, 10:58 PM Post #8 |
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A great read Chad. Very apparent that you put a lot of heart (and mind) into it and that normally produces a memorable column to say the least. |
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