Wrestling

I enjoy watching pro-wrestling. There, I said it.

Many people look down on wrestling fans, and I find that very irritating. Not as irritating as people who think they're wrestling fans, but don't know a damn thing about it. But I'll get to that another time.

"Why do you watch wrestling? Don't you know it's fake?"

Definitely the number one retort that anti-wrestling folks shoot at fans like me. Do you watch Friends? CSI? Prison Break? Sienfeld? Don't you know that's fake too? Yeah, we know wrestling is fake.

Not really.

Owne Hart really died. Eddie Guerrero really died. Granted, not due to wrestling per se, but take a look at Darren Drozdov, or "Droz", as he was known, who broke his neck in a match against D-Lo Brown a number of years ago, and has been paralysed since. Kenta Kobashi, a Japanese wrestler who made the "Burning Hammer" famous, has reputedly killed more than one person due to that very move. Which he still does on a regular basis, and is cheered by almost every Japanese wrestling fan.

I do dislike the over-dramatisation of that prevalent in wrestling today, however. This is especially relevant in WWE programming. Weddings and vampires? Oh come on.

But I love watching wrestling for the pure athleticism that's on show night after night. I remember the first time I saw a hurricunrana, and thought it was the most beautiful and impossible move ever done. Now, the era of 619's and Canadian Destroyers put others to shame.

My favourite wrestler is Bret Hart. Not was, but is. I used to feel so broken-hearted whenever he lost a match (back when I thought everything was legit). And with the screwjob in Montreal, it just reaffirmed my admiration for the man.

Wrestling has come a long way since I first started watching it, no doubt. From the time when a "Japanese" sumo wrestler was unstoppable and a balding man got stronger the more punches he took, to a trash-talking rapper, and the same balding man, but balder. Not too much, I guess.

But to the "point" of all this.

Some of you might know that the "dominant" brand of "sports entertainment" today is the WWE (formerly known as the WWF, formerly known as a WWWF). There's NWA-TNA too, but I won't go into that today. Those among who who are even more enlightened would also know that WWE has a few "shows" and those "shows" are Raw and Smackdown. (ECW, Heat, Velocity, etc wont be discussed today...).

What flashes across the screen before every WWE broadcast?

No, not titties.

The "Don't try this at home" segment. Now, apparently, some people can't read. Those of you who can read, take a look at this. Now, this isn't the first case of some idiotic kid hurting another equally idiotic kid because "they were trying to imitate what wrestlers do on TV."

So the Indonesian authorities have banned the broadcast of Smackdown in the region. Bullshit, you know?

If a kid hurts another kid because he or she is copying a wrestler, the first people who need to be shot are their parents. You let your kids watch things like this, deal with it. Or at least explain to them that the big man in tights isn't really tring to smash the other guy's skull with a chair. And that if you jump of a ladder, you get hurt.

Speaking of jumping off ladders and getting hurt and wrestling being "fake", take a look at this.

The second batch of people who should be shot, are of course, the Indonesian broadcasters who apparently have either (a) telecast a show with definite adult themes during prime-time or something or (b) editted out the "Dont try this at home" segments.

If they aren't guilty of those, of course, feel free to shoot the parents again.

Isn't it moronic, how the media are so quick to blame violent TV shows and video games for the behaviour of a few dumb kids? The Columbine High tragedy was almost attributed to the shooters listening to Manson and playing Grand Theft Auto. I listen to Manson and play Grand Theft Auto. You don't see me guns a-blazin, do ya? Baby kicking is another issue.

So why blame pro-wrestling? Studies have shown that the average Saturday morning cartoon has more instances of violence than a standard episode of Raw or Smackdown. Hard to believe? Well, listen to your own arguments.

"I used to watch wrestling, you know. But know it's so lame! All they do is talk and talk and ony fight for like five minutes."

Now watch Tom and Jerry or Road Runner or something and count the instances of "violent acts" that are shown on-screen. There we go.

Still, this little page of me venting my fustrations won't really affect anything in the long run, oh well.

So, I've come to the end of my rant, quite suddenly.