Why I Love Professional Wrestling

I love professional wrestling. In my opinion it’s the perfect form of entertainment. It has drama, comedy, intensity and unbelievable athleticism. I know what some of you are saying. It’s unrealistic, scripted, it’s pretend fighting, it’s fake. And to a certain extent I agree with all of that. You know what else fits that description? Almost every movie and tv show in existence. According to variety.com The Marvel Cinematic Universe has made $30 billion at the global box office. It’s no more fake, unrealistic or pretend than professional wrestling. In fact I would argue professional wrestling is more realistic than a lot of movies made today. Green screens and CGI don't exist in professional wrestling. You can’t yell cut in front of a live audience when things go wrong. When you’re live on national tv you can’t start over when you forget your lines. On imdb.com 277 actors are listed under “stunts” for Avengers Endgame. In these ways wrestling is far more realistic than people give it credit for. The problem is that most people look at wrestling as something predetermined trying to be a sport. WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque said it perfectly earlier this year, “I say this a lot; we’re not a sport. We’re a movie about a sport or a TV show about a sport.” Growing up a fan of pro wrestling and mixed martial arts, this is how I’ve always viewed wrestling. It’s not a sport, it's a tv show. It’s storytelling mixed with full contact athletics. This is how I became a fan and maybe after reading this you’ll give professional wrestling a shot. 

In the fall of 2005 my dad, sister, and I were flipping through channels. Suddenly on the screen there was a fella wearing red face paint and had a mouth full of worms. That’s right, my first exposure to professional wrestling was the Boogeyman. There was a unanimous “ew that’s gross” and the channel was changed. The next Friday night was about the same except my dad stayed on the channel for longer. I remember him saying about the Boogeyman “he’s like a trainwreck, it’s horrible but it’s hard to look away”. So we watched his whole match. Luckily it only lasted a few minutes, but in those minutes I discovered this tv show was called Smackdown and was part of WWE. My dad saw that I was interested so he explained that this was professional wrestling.

The next few weeks were more of the same. Flip to the channel Smackdown was on, watch it for a few minutes, and move on. Then one night before changing channels a match was advertised. I don’t remember who his opponent was, but I was instantly enamored with this huge figure dressed in all black. It was the Undertaker. We didn’t watch his match that night but I made sure we did the next week. From that point on I was hooked. Most Friday nights we watched at least  part of Smackdown but it was usually the beginning of the show. I missed most of Undertaker’s feuds with Randy Orton and Kurt Angle. I remember seeing Batista, King Booker and Kane but only snippets of them. 

In the summer of 2006 we started watching Smackdown almost every night. Unfortunately Undertaker was tied up with The Great Khali but there was still plenty of entertainment to be found. Brian Kendrick and Paul London were tearing up the tag division, King Booker was hilarious and, in my ten year old mind, Matt Hardy was the coolest guy in existence. One match in particular made me go from a casual fan who liked to watch Smackdown to a hardcore wrestling fan who couldn’t get enough.

On October 24th, 2006 The Undertaker and Kane faced off against MVP and Mr. Kennedy. If you’re a wrestling fan and you haven’t seen this match, you owe it to yourself to find it. In my opinion, it has everything that you could want in professional wrestling. Any time the Brothers of Destruction teamed up you knew it would be a hard hitting affair. This was no different, but the heels (the term for bad guys in wrestling) wanted nothing to do with them. After getting beaten up pretty thoroughly MVP and Mr. Kenney decided they had enough and started walking up the entrance ramp. The referee counted to ten and Undertaker and Kane were declared the winners by count out. Anticlimactic was an understatement and the fans were not happy. This prompted Smackdown general manager Teddy Long to restart the match, this time with no count outs. As the villains made their displeasure known, their opponents came from behind and laid into them, before throwing them back in the ring. The match looked to have another unsatisfying ending when Mr. Kenney and MVP used steel chairs as weapons, drawing a disqualification. But Teddy Long came out again and guess what playa, he was ordering this match to be restarted with no count outs and no disqualifications. Undertaker and Kane, predictably but no less entertaining, dish out more punishment before getting the win. Obviously I can't do the match justice so you’ll have to watch it for yourself. 

Why did this match make me love professional wrestling? Because it was fun. And that’s what wrestling should be. You can have all the drama and intensity you want but if people aren’t having fun watching it, it’ll fall flat. This match was a little silly for people who prefer more serious wrestling. But even they can’t deny it was entertaining. Wrestling has been a little silly since the mid 80s and in my opinion that’s when it’s at its best. It doesn’t mean you can’t have a blood feud where both combatants want to rip the other one apart. Just look at the current rivalry between CM Punk and Drew McIntyre. They’ve bloodied and battered each other and are about to meet in a Hell in a Cell match. But part of their feud revolved around a fan made bracelet. That’s a little silly. 

At this point I was watching all the wrestling I could get my hands on, which was not as difficult as it is these days. Back then every WWE, WCW and ECW pay per view was free on Youtube. I remember shows from every era long before the WWE network existed. I learned the difference between a good and bad storyline and my list of favorite wrestlers spanned from the 80s all the way to what I watched live. That list included the Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, Randy Savage, Rob Van Dam, Lex Luger and Ricky Steamboat. That list has obviously changed somewhat over time. I watched some WCW and ECW but mainly stuck to WWE, which is still the case today. 

That January my favorite wrestler won the 30 man Royal Rumble match. The Undertaker was going to compete for a world title at Wrestlemania 23. We couldn’t afford to buy the pay per views live, but a week after the event they were available to rent at Blockbuster. Knowing the results of the show didn’t curb my excitement at all. I couldn’t wait to get home and see the matches for myself. In my opinion, the 2007 Royal Rumble is one of the best shows of that decade. The Hardy Boys and MNM had a great tag team match, Batista beat the egotistical Mr. Kennedy, and John Cena had his best match to that point taking on Umaga in an absolute war of a Last Man Standing match. Then one of the best Royal Rumble matches of all time took place, culminating with the final two wrestlers, Shawn Michaels and Undertaker, battling it out in a mini one on one match. When The Dead Man finally threw Michaels over the top rope I was on my feet and practically jumping up and down, even though I knew that’s exactly what was going to happen.

Wrestlemania 23 came and Undertaker beat Batista for the World Heavyweight Championship in a physical match on a stacked card. The process of renting the show a week later continued and I was no less excited about it. The bizarrely entertaining battle of the billionaires, the wild Money in the Bank ladder match, and the classic main event of Shawn Michaels taking on John Cena for the WWE Championship made for what is still my favorite Wrestlemania of all time. Batista and Undertaker would continue their classic feud and I continued my wrestling obsession. 

The years went by and, like everything in life, things changed. The move to a PG tv rating and WWE scrubbing Youtube of full length shows contributed to me slowly losing interest. I was also a teenager at this point and being a wrestling fan in the 2010s was far from cool. I started to watch more MMA, joined the wrestling team at school and started dating. I would occasionally check in on the current happenings in the wacky world of wrestling, but it was never for long and I rarely watched any weekly shows.

Shortly after graduating high school I reentered the fandom via Youtube channels dedicated to wrestling. It gave me a sense of nostalgia and reminded me of how much fun I had watching it. I started to keep up with WWE through these Youtube channels and I found listening to them discuss and dissect shows was sometimes more entertaining than the show itself. Part of that was due to WWE being at an all time low as far as interesting storylines. John Cena vs John Laurinaitis won’t bring back any lapsed fans. I was also completely engaged in football at this point. I was keeping track of everything from where high school recruits were committing to all the way to the NFL. 

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world. That was a pretty bad time and we all needed something that put a smile on our faces. With the lack of fans in attendance at NFL games I started to reminisce about the packed stadiums of wrestling. So I subscribed to the WWE network and turned on Wrestlemania 23 for that good shot of nostalgia. I was hooked once again. Just like when I was ten years old I was watching all the wrestling I could, but now the options had doubled. There was Raw, Smackdown, NXT and a new wrestling promotion called AEW.

So here I am at 28 years old. The last three years I’ve been battling a chronic illness that has made life very difficult. I haven’t been able to work consistently and I haven’t been able to do the things I enjoy. Some days the only escape I can find is in professional wrestling. Walking into this over the top, dramatic and larger than life world takes me away from the stress and struggles I deal with on a daily basis. Wrestling isn’t for everyone and that’s fine. I urge you to give it a try and be open minded about it. If you take it for what it is, a show about a sport, you might have more fun than you expected.