9 Guilty Pleasures That Wrestling Fans Secretly Love

1. Chasing The Dragon

I first encountered wrestling when I was a super little kid €“ like four or five. But I didn€™t stick with it because I was too young to even really conceive of what was happening. As the first half of the 1990s began, wrestling in New Zealand disappeared because the product was basically down the toilet. By the latter half of the 90s though, wrestling came back in to my life with a vengeance. I really got fully immersed into it in 1998 and that was a great time. Sure WCW was already on its decline, but I didn€™t know that. I didn€™t have the internet. I didn€™t know what a €˜booker€™ was. I didn€™t know about politics, greed, legal wrangling, ratings, and ego. All I saw was Goldberg crushing everything in his path, and cruiserweights doing things in the ring I didn€™t think were possible on earth. The first PPV I watched from start to finish was Bash at the Beach 1998. And it was completely magical. I didn€™t even really know who half the people were, and the main event left me devastated (thanks Hogan!). But I recorded it on video and must have watched it at least a hundred times. I had to go into hospital later in the year and when I came home to recover I think I watched that damn video every single day. I didn€™t tire of seeing Goldberg wipe out Curt Hennig. And then of course there was Kidman and Juventud having a match that seemed more like ballet than fighting. Bash at the Beach 1998 had me hooked. But here is the thing €“ it€™s not even a very good show. If I saw it as an adult, then I would think it was one of the stupidest things I had ever seen. Karl Malone and Dennis Rodman in the main event? What the hell was that about? And why was this guy Kevin Greene fighting the Giant? And hang on - why the hell is Bret Hart so far down the card and losing by DQ to Booker T? None of that matters though. The whole spectacle captured me and 18 years later I€™m still here (with the odd hiatus as my last article indicated). That€™s something unique to wrestling fans. We all have a moment or moments that are indelibly etched in our memories in which we were blown away by larger than life characters doing these magnificent stunts. And all of our discussions, all our arguments, and all our viewing is all in the pursuit of of one simple desire €“ the desire to recapture that magic for just a moment. We might like to pretend otherwise, but really all we want as fans is to live those memories again, no matter how fleeting that experience mght be. And that€™s why our passions for this entertainment is so disproportionately out of kilter to its importance on our everyday life.