10 Stages Of Life As A Wrestling Fan
8. Discernment
Much like the Tamagotchi, the Pog, and what every roster member bar Roman Reigns is to Vince McMahon, wrestling is just a fad for many.
To those who clung to it as art, our tastes realigned accordingly. Bret Hart was the millennial man who, without us even really knowing about it, convinced that generation that wrestling was a form of genuine art. Where Hogan used his immense carny charisma to simply absorb a f*ck-tonne of punishment and magically recover, Hart used his immense technicality and storytelling ability to pull his people into the action throughout lengthier matches. His arduous struggle made genuine sense as a simulation of combat. His smooth work, escalated brilliantly and logically from one sequence to the next, was the work of a more cerebral wizard.
By now, we probably knew it was predetermined, and could not care less; this new brand of pure wrestling felt more real than the Ultimate Warrior’s rabid head-shaking act we once took at face value, when really, he’d probably just seen two men holding hands on his way to the arena.
The sight of Shawn Michaels pinballing himself around the ring and propelling himself into the rafters was such an incredible spectacle that we came to appreciate wrestling in spite and because of the fabricated nature of it all.