I know what hardcore wrestling is, hardcore is whenever you go out there and you put a hundred and five percent inside of those ring ropes! Terry Funk Like a bloodstained and bedraggled Tyler Durden clawing at the terrified body of Lou the Tavern owner, hardcore wrestling shook the sport we all love by the throat and took the entire industry by storm. If you were lucky enough to be a wrestling fan during the blood splattered heyday of hardcore wrestling (especially if you were savvy enough to follow ECW and the rest of the Indies), then youll understand this next bit. If not, forget it, thisll just sound like your dad drunkenly bleating on about some band he saw in the 70s... Hardcore wrestling defined a certain type of fan. We saw ourselves as harder, smarter and prouder than any other fans - and we loved our wrestling. Whether you cheered Stone Cold Steve Austin or DX in the WWF, or you idolized Sabu and Tommy Dreamer in ECW (or both), it doesnt matter. You were there, you were a part of something and we are all united in that bloodstained revolution. With the advent of hardcore wrestling, an entire generation of fans witnessed an age-old sport in the process of undergoing a major revision. It was an artform caught in an irresistible freefall, suspended momentarily between eras. Hardcore wrestling, then, was the sound of a terrifying and wonderful collapse. Of course, the party couldnt last forever and today, perhaps rightly so, extreme hardcore wrestling has been consigned to historys wastebasket. Sure, for enough money, Necro Butcher would almost certainly hook his love spuds up to a car battery whilst participating in the ice bucket challenge, but somehow, it just isnt the same. The sheen that elevated hardcore wrestling beyond mere consenting GBH has dimmed and it is increasingly hard to explain to our partners and children why we still have VHS videos that feature grown men in Japan blowing each other up with C4... Still, wrestlings face was changed forever in that decade or so and we were among those that changed it. Thats another wonderful thing about professional wrestling, to be a part of it and to exact a lasting change upon it, all you have to do is love it...
I am a professional author and lifelong comic books/pro wrestling fan. I also work as a journalist as well as writing comic books (I also draw), screenplays, stage plays, songs and prose fiction.
I don't generally read or reply to comments here on What Culture (too many trolls!), but if you follow my Twitter (@heyquicksilver), I'll talk to you all day long!
If you are interested in reading more of my stuff, you can find it on http://quicksilverstories.weebly.com/ (my personal site, which has other wrestling/comics/pop culture stuff on it).
I also write for FLiCK http://www.flickonline.co.uk/flicktion, which is the best place to read my fiction work.
Oh yeah - I'm about to become a Dad for the first time, so if my stuff seems more sentimental than usual - blame it on that!
Finally, I sincerely appreciate every single read I get. So if you're reading this, thank you, you've made me feel like Shakespeare for a day! (see what I mean?)
Latcho Drom,
- CQ
