9 Guilty Pleasures That Wrestling Fans Secretly Love

2. Pretending To Be A Wrestler

When I was 13 I came up with my very first wrestling character €“ €˜Archangel€™. I hailed from New Zealand (obviously) and being that I was a huge WCW mark at the time, I chose as my finishing my moves the spear (because€GOLDBERG!) and the Death Valley Driver €“ the insanely dangerous but awesome looking finisher of Perry Saturn (which in a stroke of genius I renamed the €˜Angel Valley Driver€™). I would come out to an entrance music by Korn or some other hideous abomination of alternative music that was inexplicably popular at the time, and I would then €˜wrestle€™ an old rolled up foam mattress. Despite the fact that a wrestler who calls himself Archangel is the dumbest and gimmickiest concept imaginable (in other words an idea that Vince would probably have loved), I had a huge amount of fun pretending to be the champ. I don€™t know how I didn€™t either hurt myself, or break anything substantial in my parent€™s house, but I am grateful that I didn€™t because in my mind those moments were amazing and I want to keep it that way. I would like to pretend that I outgrew all this fantasizing but that would be nonsense. I am too old now to have imaginary wrestling matches (my idea of a workout is finishing a pack of chocolate biscuits in one go), but when I look back over even the more recent years, a little bit of fantasy is always lurking beneath the surface. For example, I absolutely have a piece of music that I have decided is my €˜ring entrance music€™ should I ever find myself working for WWE. I have already figured out what I would wear to the ring. And of course I have posed with a belt, because for my 23rd birthday a friend of mine bought me a cheap kid€™s replica of the tag team belts as a gag gift. We all had a good laugh, and I put the belt over my shoulder (it wouldn€™t fit around my gut) and while we all thought it was hilarious, I would be lying if I didn€™t admit that at least twice I caugh myself looking in the mirror with that strap over my shoulder thinking €˜damn man that looks right€™. That€™s how ridiculous wrestling fandom can be. I know I am a 31-year-old male with an allergy to exercise. But I don€™t think there is ever a time where I will stop working on my wrestling character that only exists in my imagination.