It's Not Fake, It's Pre-determined

 

Ah, Bobo, you were one of Gramp's favorites

 

I'm twelve years old, sitting in the high school gym on a Thursday night, and a large, sour-smelling man in a red, white, and blue singlet is threatening to kill me.  


His finger is about 6 inches from my nose, his anger due primarily to the fact that my Aunt Daisy, sitting next to me, just kicked him in the ass when he fell to the floor in front of us.  Two minutes earlier I was nearly flattened by a 350 lb, denim-overall clad behemoth who goes by the moniker of "Man-Mountain Tyler".  I may be about to soil myself, and in this moment there is absolutely no question in my mind that professional wrestling is both 100% real and the best thing on this or any other planet. 

As a kid, if ever we found ourselves at Gramp's house on a Saturday at noon, we could count on the TV being tuned to Big Time Wrestling, "coming to you from the luxurious grand ballroom of the Hotel Sofitel".  Gramp would be seated in his recliner at the back of the room, we kids sprawled on the floor, various uncles and sometimes aunts on the couches, as villains battled titans for our amusement.  Gramp knew them all, and we learned to know them as well: Dick the Bruiser, Chris Carter, The Man-Mountain, the Great Wojo, a young Scott Rechsteiner, and the King of the Coco-Butt, Bobo Brazil.

Scott (Rech)Steiner in recent years, though he had a glorious perm/mullet in the 80's.

 

To young me, it didn't matter that the writing was bad, the stories so contrived that if I stopped to think about it I probably could have scripted the matches as well as the promoters.  The good guys could do no wrong, and the bad guys were evil, cheating sons of bitches.  While the WWF was just reaching network TV special status at this time, Big Time Wrestling had been a staple at Gramp's for years.  The WWF was a gigantic promotion, filling stadiums with fireworks and bombastic entrances, but Big Time Wrestling had an honest to goodness gym teacher from Toledo, Ohio on the roster.  Hell, that guy lived an hour away, how could anything be more real than this?

We would watch the matches, yelling at the screen, booing the bad guys, gasping in surprise when a heel would pull brass knuckles out of his trunks and paste his opponent.  How in the hell could the referee not see that?!?  I remember when Chris Carter, an anointed hero in the promotion, betrayed his partner and was suddenly, irredeemably, a bad guy.  That bastard was dead to me, and I hoped he caught a steel chair to the face.

Thank you, YouTube, for having a Chris Carter match.  It really ties the room together.

It was in the early days of Carter's run as the big villain of the promotion that my oldest sister came home from school with the news that the Student Council was going to be bringing Big Time Wrestling to our town.  The promotional hook of the night was a handicap match pitting the heavyweight champion against Pup and the Z-Man, who were a janitor and industrial arts teacher at our school, respectively.  Not only was wrestling coming to our high school gym, but my sister was in charge of ticket sales, meaning that the first 3 rows on one side of the ring were instantly reserved for an extended family get-together.  I scored a front-row seat, dead center in front of the ring.  Gramp and the uncles were in the next row back, presumably to limit the possibility of them hitting someone with their chairs.

I had sat in my chair for most of the night, thinking that the wrestlers looked a bit smaller than I thought they would in person but enjoying the action, when the next tag team match was announced.  I cannot for the life of me remember who the good guys were, but they were facing Man-Mountain Tyler and that son of a bitch, Chris Carter. 

I don't remember much about the match, so it mustn't have been inspired wrestling.  I do, however, remember Tyler falling out of the ring and nearly landing on me.  As my aunt sitting next to me described it, "all I saw was a big blue ass coming right at me".  I also remember what happened when Carter got tossed from the ring to the floor in front of my aunt and I.  

As Carter turned away from the pre-teen he'd just scared shitless, I remember turning around in my seat.  There, standing just off my shoulders, were Gramp, Boone, and Buck (my grandfather and two of my uncles, in case you didn't read my last post), fists raised and shouting obscenities at Carter through these lunatic grins they had on their faces, having the time of their lives.  Knowing full well that they were watching "rassling", they wanted to get in on the act.

INTERLUDE:

I know that professional wrestling isn't a legitimate sport, and it's fair to say that I was, at the very least, highly dubious of it even as a kid.  Dad was always very clear on this point.  He called it a soap opera for men, and I think that's as fitting a description as any.  We were still several years from Vince MacMahon admitting to the world that WWF matches were pre-determined, though, so that left enough gray area for a kid to be utterly, completely convinced for a few minutes on a Thursday night.  Even after everyone knew for a fact that it was fake, I still watched wrestling regularly through my college years.  It became a fun thing to do with the guys; sitting around yelling at the TV, choosing sides, rooting for the villains, feeling what I have to assume my uncles and Gramp felt.  Yeah, it was fake, but so was everything else on TV, so why not enjoy it?

END INTERLUDE.

It's just after 1 in the morning on a Sunday.  I'm winding down after a night of singing, flipping channels to find something mindless that I can watch while my brain coasts down to bedtime speed.

Men in Black 2... nah

Family Guy... nope
Big Bang Theory... shoot me, no.
Ring of Honor wrestling... I think I need to watch this.

45 minutes later I'm wide awake, mouth hanging open at the way The Briscoes and Goto defeated Roppongi Vice and Okada (a fisherman driver looks nasty as hell), and also wondering how long New Japan Pro Wrestling stars have been working matches for Ring of Honor. Son of a Bitch, they still have me right where they want me.

Yeah, you tell me that wouldn't hurt

Yes, I am a grown, college educated man who will watch professional wrestling if the right opportunity arises.  I'm also very much a product of my upbringing.

As a bonus, if you would like to see a very contentious yet lucid defense of pro wrestling and have 25 minutes to spare, watch this video. Serious language warning on this one.