10 Stages Of Life As A Wrestling Fan
9. Obsession
Paul Heyman once said of pro wrestling, and he f*cking nailed it, that you either get it or you don’t.
And those who get it want it mainlined into their veins. Pro wrestling is everything. The elixir of pro wrestling is in its awesome fusion of sport and entertainment. Wrestling operates as a controlled emulation of sport’s imitable emotion, with its moments of despair and carefully-calculated triumph, with each match timed perfectly (in theory) to pull in younger customers lacking the attention span to concentrate on real sports.
Your guy got to win. That was key. The agony that is life as an adult sports fan is ecstasy for the childhood wrestling fan.
And, because our guy got to win, and his winning delighted us, we wanted to see him win. All the time. We threw conniption fits in toy shops when our parents didn’t buy us their action figures. We cried, learning the work subconsciously, until our friend’s parents bought us one that day our own had to palm us off. And, when our parents finally relented - “This’ll shut the little b*stard up,” they probably said, absolutely Pedigree’d into the brutal canvas that is middle age - we reenacted their victories move for move.
We p*ssed our parents off yet more when we made them buy the This Tuesday In Texas VHS the second after we rewound the Survivor Series 1991 tape.
“Didn’t Hogan and ‘Taker just go to a non-finish, Michael?”
“Yeah, and they just f*ckin' did it again, so go buy Royal Rumble 1992 right now!”
And, with a defeated tear in their eye, they did.