i watched as a young tyke, (8 or 9) and always rooted for the "bad" guys. (thus beginning a long career of rooting for the "losing" teams. regardless, i've kept an eye on wrestling off and on (rowdy roddy piper was as funny as advertised by my college cohorts) but even at a young age i realized something was up (or overly impressed that a wrestler was so strong his face wouldnt bruise even after being punched by another strong wrestler). that didnt stop the entertainment value , as someone else noted................funny that a "sport" wouldnt keep records of the wrestlers Wins. Losses. Ties. etc.
forward to the "attitude era" and watching stone cold steve austin was like watching the wolverine movie Logan. wow. they swear. they flip off the boss. they have professional food fights in cafeterias and grocery stores. that's some funny shit right there. stone cold and the rock provided some great entertainment relief from the "real" world. between throwing the Rock's intercontinental belt into the hudson (with appropriate diver equipment provided --- in case the Rock had "to go deep" and the Rock continuing to refer to Stone Cold as "texas trailer trash" and telling him which object he could pick up, turn sideways and shove straight up his "candy ass", i got more than a few laughs from the weekly shows.
once they moved on to other things then the entertainment part did for me as well. it served its purpose and still does as shown by john oliver's show that revealed the WWE hauled in 980+ million dollars last year and has a BILLION followers on social media. THAT is not fake boys and girls.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8UQ4O7UiDs
link to last week tonight with john oliver's wwe show.
after tim donaghy's nonsense was uprooted and became public one suddenly has to wonder how much of "real" sports isnt fictionalized any more. there's a lot of money involved in sporting events and with money you get greed. i'll leave that alone as i'm sure its been covered by a thread on this site somewhere.
on a side note, my grandmother took wrasslin pretty serious. i guess grandpa took her to a card that featured gorgeous george on it. and when the other wrestler was "cheating" and "hurting" him, granny took it into her own powers to heckle the ref for doing such a fine job of catching him. so much so that her beer was seen flying through the air into said referee's facial area. needless to say, grandma was escorted out and asked to never return.
basically wrestling is like many things in this world. if it helps one "get away" from life's nonsense , even for 2-3 hours, to me that's worth it. just like a movie (without the $14.50 tickets and $8 popcorn prices). or a sporting event, or a 5k race, or a medieval renaissance festival. the list is endless. enjoy your lives while you can. no one knows what happens at the finish line, and of those that do, they arent here to tell us. enjoy.
