I love wrestling. I know this is an odd topic to talk about all things considered with everything going on in the world but it’s something that I don’t really get a chance to talk about with many people beyond annoying my friends and family with it so here it is.
I. Love. Pro. Wrestling.
I have a theory that every kid loves pro wrestling at one point in their life, when they were like 8 to 12. They loved it, loved the mega star of the time. For me it was Cena and I’ll admit he was cool to me as a small boy in 2011. Before that I’m sure it was Austin, and then Michaels/Hart and then Hogan, all the way back to Mexico with El Santo. But then you grow up and you learn to move past it, whether you knew it was scripted or not. For me, it was a match between Sin Cara and Christian were Sin Cara lost to Christian and I was upset about it because Christian was a loser who kept hounding Randy Orton for his world title and demanding endless rematches while Sin Cara was an unstoppable Luchador who was the hero of any Mexican kid born too late to see prime Rey Mysterio. I hindsight, the former Mystico was absolutely terrible in WWE and Christian honestly was on the best form of his life, but that’s beside the point. What is the point is that after that most kids fall out of love with it. Most go back to being normal kids, growing up, getting new interest and hobbies. Others fall back in love with the weird performers in tights and masks. Eventually like a bunch of other kids my age, I found myself back into the wacky, wonderful, bombastic, completely problematic, world of pro wrestling.
But to explain why I love it requires something a bit deeper. A few of my other interest probably help. I also love superhero comics, acting and sports. All 3 are incredibly important to this. Superhero Comics at their core are bombastic personalities clashing against each other for ideals. They’ve grown to be incredibly diverse in their appearance and depictions and are some of the best popcorn fictions that occasionally strays into the incredibly meaningful that you can get. Acting leans more into the story side of things. Acting is one of the funest things you can do. It’s cool to practice something and show it off in front of people to get a reaction, whether it be sadness, joy or anger. It’s awesome tweaking the little things to give your character that much more depth. Finally, sports are almost self-explanatory. If you love sports, you love the excitement, the achievement, watching your hero achieve his and by extension your dreams.
Beyond that though, all these things have lore and story (yeah sports have lore. If you ever heard your parents or siblings wax poetic about watching an old Superbowl or a baseball team win the world series, it’s lore). Watching an underdog beat and undefeated juggernaut, or a teenage kid lift a pile of rubble to save his aunts life or even just watching a play of literally any random topic, its incredibly story driven, doing everything in its power to make you feel something.
Wrestling is all of that put together. You love comics? Boom, here are two people in tights fighting for one good, one bad, fighting each other to the bitter end, Johnny Gargano vs Adam Cole, two out of three falls match, NXT Takeover New York. You want it more out there! More into the manga side of comics? Boom, Sami Zayn vs Shinsuke Nakamura, watch Shinsukes actions and tell me that isn’t a god descending from the heavens to fight only the most worthy in Sami Zayn. You want it the most bombastic it can possibly be? Boom Shawn Michaels vs the Undertaker at WrestleMania 25. Shawn literally descends from the heavens to fight the Undertaker, ascending from Hell. It’s all absurd and it’s all the better for it.
If you want to take about acting? It’s not good, but every wrestler worth their salt can tell you so much about reading an audience, knowing what buttons to hit to get them to react and invest. Kevin Owens, heel but incredibly popular to his own detriment fighting John Cena, face but overdone and has growing resentment from the smarter, older crowd. How does Owen’s turn it around to keep the crowd in line? Stomps on John’s US title belt and sends the crowd into a fervor, booing him in one of the loudest reactions of the night. Miz, hometown boy from Cleveland, being given a hero’s welcome by the people of Ohio, reminds them that he lives in LA and turns those cheers into venomous boos. MJF, facing down a crowd who view him as nothing more than a cheater facing probably one of the most popular smart mark faces in CM Punk who would never turn on him for any reason whatsoever and he needs to get them to view the feud with some depth? Goes into one of the most heartfelt speeches ever about how CM Punk wronged him by his past actions, talking about his bullying at school for being Jewish, and how no matter what he did, he would never be accepted, but that didn’t matter to him because that night, he would see his hero CM Punk and how when he left wrestling, MJF made it a vow that he would be better than his hero and never abandon that kid who needed him most for his own selfish gain. Instantly turns the crowd back onside and almost gets Punk booed out of the building.
If you like sports, wrestling is oddly close, despite the scripted nature. The bond you build with athletes and wrestlers feels identical. Siting on your couch, hoping against hope that they make it to the top of the mountain, and get the recognition they properly deserve. Whether that be Jalen Hurts or Lamar Jackson proving once and for all that he is elite, or that Roman Reigns can cut a promo and become one of the best heels ever. It feels so close to each other that it’s not even funny.
Pro wrestling, once you get swept away by the magic, is beautiful. It’s incredible to sit back and watch and taken by the story these people in the ring are trying to tell. It’s not always the best. A lot of the time it’s derailed by bad booking and whims of a tyrannical republican dinosaur or the 20 something son of a billionaire respectively and god knows that if you’re a minority in any way, wrestling has some very unfortunate storylines for you, but my god is it fun when everything comes to together..
So right now, if you’ve read this far, hey maybe you’ll go just a bit further. Below are some matches and promos that if you’re interested, go and have a look. I’ll give a quick sum up for context to give you some background. Maybe you’ll love it, maybe you’ll hate it, and maybe you’ll feel nothing at all, but hey, it’s worth a shot right? Most will be modern cause your first promo and match will probably need to be a bit more modern for you to get into it. Also bit of a WWE bias, it’s what I’ve watched the most.
Promos:
· Shawn Michaels gets nuclear heat in Canada. (Shawn is fueding with Hogan and has previously wronged Canada’s greatest Hero, Bret Hart)
· CM Punk Pipe Bomb (Punk rails against the WWE establishment and lays out his issue with the company and John Cena)
· Hard Times (Older but Dusty Rhodes, lays out his motivations and why he’ll beat Ric Flair at Starcade)
· To be the Man, you’ve got to beat the Man (Ric Flair does his most famous promo of all time)
· Cream of the Crop (absolutely absurd promo cut by Randy Savage that also works as prop comedy)
· Chris Jericho 1004 hold (Jericho list all the holds he can do)
· Miz calls out Daniel Bryan (Miz tells Daniel Bryan exactly why he a hypocrite and why he should go back to the Indies)
· Edge tells Paul Heyman exactly why he’ll beat both Roman Reigns and Daniel Bryan
· CM Punk comes to Paul Heyman’s funeral and tells the Undertaker, that he’s sorry for his loss……. At Wrestlemania.
· Cody Rhodes: Undesirable to Undeniable
· MJF backstory promo (see above)
Matches:
· Eddie Guerrero vs Rey Mysterio at Halloween Havoc 1997 (Eddie turned on Rey and vowed to unmask him)
· Johnny Gargano vs Andrade Cien Almas at NXT Takeover Philadelphia (Johnny hopes to win the NXT Championship while Andrade and Zelina Vega do everything in their power to stop him)
· Bayley vs Sasha Banks at Takeover Brooklyn (Bayley comes into her own and finally overcomes her rival Sasha, proving that she can be the best and accomplish her dream)
· Elimination Chamber 2002 at Survivor Series (Shawn wins the world title from Triple H in probably the most brutal Elimination Chamber match ever. Also features RVD, Booker T, Chris Jericho, and actual Republican Mayor, Kane).
· Sami Zayn vs Shinsuke Nakamura (Sami gets a dream match against Shinsuke Nakamura)
· Kofi Kingston wins the WWE title from Daniel Bryan (more of a storyline but Kofi Mania is amazing and culminated in one of the best mania matches ever relegated to the mid card)
· Johnny Gargano vs Ricochet (Johnny is on the edge of turing heel and faces down the one and only Ricochet, who can legit fly)
· Becky Lynch vs Charlotte Flair (last man standing match) (Charlotte cheated Becky out of title and Becky wants her revenge)
· North American Title Ladder Match (6 men murder each other)
· Any Royal Rumble but steer clear of 1995, 1999, 2014, 2015, and 2021
· Adam Page vs Kenny Omega (any of them but especially Full Gear 2021)
I love pro wrestling and if you’re willing to take a chance, I’ll bet you’ll love it too,
