It is with great pride that I can profess having no childhood obsession or even minor infatuation with professional wrestling. I recall several of my neighborhood buddies owning toy bins filled to the brim with WWF (as it was then referred to) action figures, masks, outfits, trading cards, video games, and other random bits of painted, polymeric paraphernalia.
The video games were always good. Quite honestly, 95% of the 3% I know about pro wrestling was learned through the early video games. The Ultimate Warrior, The Big Boss Man, Andre the Giant, The Undertaker, and of course Hulk Hogan -- these names, Royal Rumble, and a couple moves like the piledriver or the Boston crab are all I knew, mostly thanks to the Frankfort Wal-Mart's miniscule arcade. That's about as far as I got, though.
Something about grown men, who are otherwise overflowing with machismo, and their awestruck sons paying top dollar to see buff, festooned, long-haired men in skin-tight spandex is rather disturbing to me. Personally, the only air-tight packages I'm interested in paying for say "Rubbermaid" on the side. But, hey, maybe that's just me.
Growing up, I frequently played the role of the childlike equivalent to an atheist, trying to throw human reasoning as a nonbeliever at my WWF-smitten playmates to convert them to what science and the rest of the world recognized as truth: The wrestling events and everything about them were completely fake. I think, though, at the time there was still an air of mystery and confusion as to the proclaimed falsehoods surrounding pro wrestling, as if no one was entirely confident that the shows were merely theatrical productions. But now there's no question. In fact, the WWE, or whatever organization acronym the big dogs of pro wrestling are hiding behind now, make no bones about it: they openly admit each show is storyboarded. Yet this has obviously failed to soften the interest of its fans. I don't know the statistics, but I would venture to say pro wrestling is as popular as it ever was. To me, bewildering.
Critics to my bewilderment would probably argue that it's merely entertainment -- a testosterone-infused, Broadway-style show upon a stage enclosed with stretchy ropes. Still ridiculous, but okay. However, most fans call this a "sport" -- it's clearly not. Entertainment, sure. But there's no competitive event taking place. Find a new term.
Mostly I feel sorry for the wives and mothers who have to deal with this obsession in their households and/or are dragged to the shows and also for the parents who are still subletting their basements to their fanatical 40-something-year-old sons.
Let me preface my comments by disclosing my conflicts of interest: I was a fan as a kid but haven't watched it in years. That said, there's a great essay by Roland Barthes, "The World of Wrestling" that I think nicely summarizes the allure. The two main points are that, first, it functions as a spectacle of excess. It's actually the obviousness of it that is its strength. There's a sort of purity in the grandiloquence of it. The second point, which really stems from the first point about obviousness as a strength, is that it helps communicate cherished principles and ideals like suffering, defeat, tragedy, justice, etc. The analogy Barthes makes consistently, which I think is apt, is to Greek theater.
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