"How much of your time do you spend watching grown men hug each other whilst wearing spandex? Don't you have better things to do with your life? If you keep watching that crap, you'll never amount to anything" This is one of the more ignorant assertions, that wrestling fans are simple morons and will never achieve anything in their life as a result of watching Smackdown. Really take a minute to think on how stupid that sentence is. The common perception of a wrestling fan is some overweight guy with poor social skills, a neck beard and body odour, who spends all his time glued to the TV watching wrestling or on the internet talking about it. It's a ridiculous, insulting stereotype. Fans come from all walks of life, and many are teachers, doctors, bank managers and other high ranking members of society. It is insane to write someone off with low intelligence or career prospects just because they like wrestling. Even celebrities can get in on the act. Actors like Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Gillian Jacobs, Adam Sandler, Jack Whitehall, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Segel, Jim Carrey and David Arquette are lifelong fans. Ditto musicians like Bustah Rhymes, Snoop Dogg, Rivers Cuomo and Eminem, or sportsmen like Shaquille O'Neil and Jose Mourinho. Hayley Williams of Paramore has been to some PWG shows and is friends with CM Punk. Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins is such a fan, he owns his own wrestling promotion. Yeah, those people never got anywhere in life, never mind. Once upon a time, jibes like this would have hurt. When you were a kid, hearing something like this was akin to finding out that Santa wasn't real after all (spoiler alert, by the way). But as we grow older, we develop thicker skin, and eventually they all just go in one ear and out the other. THEY can mock all they like, but they will likely never find a greater sense of community like the one that wrestling fans enjoy. We can banter and make fun of each other, but we will always know that whenever we go to watch a wrestling show, we're part of something bigger than ourselves. Even if we go by ourselves, we're never alone. So don't let all those other people and their sarcastic comments ruin the fun, because at the end of the day, it's still real to us, dammit. Thanks for reading, let me know your thoughts in the comments section, and for more articles, add me on twitter at @IAMMARZI.
Stephen Maher has been a rock star, a bouncer, a banker and a busker on various streets in various countries. He's hung out with Robert Plant, he was at Nelson Mandela's birthday and he's swapped stories with prostitutes and crack addicts. He once performed at a Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras by accident. These days, he passes the time by writing about music, wrestling, games and other forms of nerdery. And he rarely drinks the blood of the innocent.
