10 Stages Of Life As A Wrestling Fan

There is an 11th stage for adults young and old: hiding your pro wrestling fandom from friends and family at all costs.

That’s not to say pro wrestling is inherently embarrassing, but the non-fan isn’t aware of Daniel Bryan’s amazingly cathartic triumph over tragicomic absurdity at WrestleMania XXX, nor the sheer guts shown by Steve Austin to recover from Owen Hart’s botched piledriver at SummerSlam ’97, nor the fact that wrestling is a diverse genre spanning both high art and escapist entertainment every bit as “worthy” as cinema. They’re not even aware of the physical torment the performers put themselves through. They think it’s all fake. The casual fan deems wrestling a reprehensible and laughable circus in which its clowns die young.

So it’s no wonder that, when your new girlfriend visits the house for the first time, you hide your collection of DVDs in your underwear drawer like a collection of grot mags, and only admit to your lifelong obsession when you are certain that she is willing to put up with you.

Non-wrestling fans can’t understand the fascination, where wrestling fans know that the immediate fascination fosters a lifelong obsession with far more peaks and troughs than the character arcs of WWE’s main roster 50/50 brigade…

To the impressionable young minds predisposed to it, the very sight of the living cartoon superheroes of pro wrestling is like no other.

We were all Vince McMahon…as children: awe-struck and delighted by the sheer, rippling, tanned mass these stupendously massive men boasted and the amazing feats of athleticism of which they were capable. McMahon, then, is a man child who has taken to throwing his toys out of the pram because they’re not as big as they used to be.

Well, the height met by Hulk Hogan’s big boot passed for a feat of athleticism to those who didn’t know any better - likely because he cast of spell of pure selling magic throughout the eight or ten minutes beforehand. Bewitched by our new hero in a state of impossible physical anguish, several children were mesmerised by his ability to overcome. And, when he did, it genuinely felt like we helped him in his plight.

Hulk, for many, was the entry point to pro wrestling. The sight of the bronzed God on the lightning-blasted purple VHS WrestleMania videotapes was like a portal into a world in which the impossible was made possible, live and in technicolour - and, to our untrained eyes, it was all real.

The endorphin-triggering, triumphant entrance themes; the preposterous costuming; the molten heat of huge arena crowds - we’re all asked at several point in our lives what draws us to “fake wrestling”.

Viewed through the eyes of a six year-old, what wouldn’t?