Sports Rant: A Confession to make

Today, I made a somewhat difficult decision as I was choosing wether to watch the NBA all-star game or go out to The National Sports Grill in Torrance with my best friend Jai and watch WWE No Way Out. Honestly, this was not a difficult decision. My satellite showed that TNT was going to replay the All-Star game and the WWE is on the "Road to Wrestlemania" so this Pay-Per-View event was going to be good. This leads to the confession that I alluded to in the title of this blog entry.

I am a professional wrestling fan. 

Yes, I said it and you know what I am PROUD of this. This hobby is probably the one I take the most grief and crap for, and considering that some of my other hobbies include Comic Books and Video Games, this must be pretty bad in comparison. Too often I have had people call me out and ask "Why?"and scream out "It's FAKE!!" or "You should have outgrown this by now, it's for kids!!" among other unsavory comments. I usually tune it all out because for me, this is right up there with Baseball, Comics, Games and such, an important part of my childhood that I grew up with and STILL enjoy. I see no reason WHY I should allow popular opinion to tell me what is appropriate for me to enjoy in my free time. 

And YES, I still enjoy it even though I am well aware that the matches are predetermined and much of what they do in the ring is fake and scripted, but I do not watch it as a "Sport". This is as the company calls it "Sports Entertainment" They DO have to be in some sort of athletic shape to be able to run around the ring and perform many of the moves where they chuck each other around the ring. BUT I do not watch it primarily for the athleticism, I watch for the story that they tell. The best comparison I can make is that it is a violent soap opera. The daytime soaps that people watch are very fake and predetermined to say the least, and to try to say THEY are based on some sort of REALITY would be just as ridiculous as saying the fights in wrestling are realistic. 

Getting back to my point, I enjoy the characters that are presented in pro wrestling. As a child, I grew up cheering the heros (the technical term being face, short for babyface) against the evil villains (or heels as I would later learn). Hulk Hogan and the Undertaker, Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Steve Austin and the Rock. Nowadays after the internet had blown open much of the "behind the scenes" secrets and spoiling any and every storyline, I have begun to appreciate the business for the technical aspects and how sometimes they can get one over on me and make me feel like I can suspend reality for a moment and cheer like a kid that believes that is "real" like in the good old days. 

It is nice to still have some friends (i.e. Jai) that feel the same way about it. Now that I have found a bar where a bunch of people that share the same view gather once a month to cheer their favorite character, I feel like I am not so alone in this way of thinking. 

(Honestly, I probably cut this entry a little short because I could either go on and on about more of the ins and outs of the business that I have learned over the past 20 some odd years or just cut it off at this point to prevent anyone from wanting to question my sanity any more than they already do.)

-Good Night and Good Luck

-Dre