Michael Sidgwick's 10 Favourite Wrestling Matches
In which I admit that I might be a wrestling hipster.
I first became enamoured with professional wrestling when strolling through Woolworths as a kid, in which the gloriously OTT sleeve designs of the old WrestleMania VHS tapes seemed to glow from the aisles.
With lightning striking over quasi-mystical purple backgrounds serving as the backdrop for impossibly colourful heroes, those images were hypnotic. So, too, were the performances of Marty Jannetty. A sympathy magnet, he played what I later understood as the Ricky Morton role to expert effect. He looked so pained out there that, when he recovered, it was the ultimate catharsis for a young man who had been worked into a state of empathetic frenzy. It became the foundation of my fandom.
When the little pr*ck from down the street first broke my heart, in telling me that the action was fake, I didn't believe it. By then, Bret Hart was my favourite wrestler - and there was no way he was fake. Everything he did looked so credible. When I grew older, the ruse became self-evident. But I didn't care. I could see Bret stamping his feet to literally amplify the intensity of his onslaught, but I was so hooked that I admired the art more so than I felt betrayed by the artifice.
I watch wrestling to suspend my disbelief - that for those twenty to thirty minutes or so, I'm watching something that evokes the legitimate thrill of sport, sans the pitfall of a bore draw.
If you can sell it adequately enough, I'll buy it...
10. Bret Hart Vs. Owen Hart - WrestleMania X
If Marty Jannetty was my favourite wrestler, Hulk Hogan was a close second.
Seemingly invincible, Hogan was the perfect hero for young children because, with his formulaic matches, he made sense of a confusing and testing world. You could rely on Hogan. He never let you down. When I tired of the formula, Bret Hart, with his incredibly realistic, layered and bespoke performances, was there to ensure that I didn't grow out of wrestling altogether.
The first WWF Bret Vs. Owen match wrote itself; with an inherent and relatable tension, the tale of familial separation was unlike anything the WWF had ever presented. I didn't have a younger brother, so I couldn't directly sympathise - but Owen's performance was so pitch perfect that it made me glad I didn't.
It was a masterclass of pacing. Bret, as the elder brother, was understandably reluctant to wrestle anything beyond a technical exhibition opposite the younger brother he still loved. And, at first, that's what it was - until Owen, with a series of transgressions, cajoled the intensity out of him.
If, as an adult, I appreciate the peerless mode and structure of storytelling, as a kid, the outcome of this match - Owen's win - was an emotional gut-punch. In many - if not all - ways, it is the distillation of the wrestling art.