The man flew. Not too far, and not too long, but for a
moment he flew, his body arcing gracefully, twisting, contorting itself into
various shapes in midair until he came crashing down into the body of his
victim below. A fleshy *smack* punctuated the visual as the bodies collided and
then snapped apart. The prone man convulsed harder, while our recent flier
grimaced in pain and dragged himself to his feet, pulling himself up using the
bright red cables that surrounded their gladiatorial arena.
It’s exciting, it’s cheap, it’s colourful, it’s crass, it’s
bawdy, it’s art...it’s pro wrestling and God help me I love it. I have loved it
ever since I saw huge men duking it out in my grandparent’s big colour TV that
had cable. I was that age when the quality of a movie was judged simply based
on the number and ferocity of fight scenes in it, and here was a show that was
all fight scenes! It was nirvana in a bowl and I had the spoon. Of course, my
parents hated it. As did their parents. Even the framed picture of my great
grandpa that hung in the hall seemed to squint a little extra-sternly since I
started watching the “uncouth, vulgar celebration of violence”. Ok, it was
uncouth, and vulgar, and violent, but daaaaad, that’s what made it so AWESOME!
It’s difficult to explain the appeal of pro wrestling to
someone who doesn’t get it. What do I say? Its predetermined fights punctuated
by badly-acted, soap-opera style skits and promos where big hosses go on about
how they will pound their next opponent to dust? I mean, yeah, it’s true, but
that hardly conveys the magnetic quality it has. It does not explain the appeal
of the larger than life characters, like a 7-foot tall mortician with magical lightning
powers, a beer-drinking, middle-finger brandishing rebel, a trio of mercenaries
in combat boots and jackets who come in through the audience, destroy their
opponents and leave, or a small, diminutive man with devastating kicks, whose
onscreen persona and real life story melds into one to create a character that
the paying audience gets behind simply because of his earnestness, and a single
word that becomes a rallying cry for anyone who was told he wasn’t good enough.
The truth is, pro wrestling is an alternate reality. It’s a
comic book universe where what constitutes good and evil are clearly defined,
but the characters themselves slip from one role to another, brave patriot one
moment, insufferable, jingoistic jerk the next. Allegiances change and brothers
drift apart into enemy camps, all to fuel the fire of conflict. New rivalries
are born from the ashes of old ones, and children take the mantle from their
parents, creating generational conflicts that we, the audience know, will never
truly be resolved, because that is the nature of the beast. But we watch
anyway, because just like every other amazing road trip, it’s never really
about the destination.
It taps into something primal within us, these spectacles of
athleticism and human drama. Ahhh, and this is where you say “Where’s the
drama? It’s all fake?” First, let’s not call it fake. Let’s call it what it is –
predetermined. And yes, it’s predetermined. Because it’s predetermined,
sometimes the tiny little weakling beats the big, bad champion even though it
probably would never happen in real life. Because it’s predetermined, a
psychotic cult leader can go toe to toe against a fighting ballroom dancer and
we don’t bat an eye, but revel in the incongruity of it all. You know what else
is predetermined? Movies. Books. Plays. Oh, and magic. We know there are little
trapdoors and pulleys and whatnot, and that the lovely assistant hasn’t really
been sliced neatly and bundled into four neat boxes, but we love it anyway.
There’s a kind of magic in pro wrestling, a feeling that anything can truly
happen BECAUSE it is predetermined. It’s where the favourite has a far greater
chance of losing than in real life, if it takes the story forward. And we, in
the audience, don’t really see the trapdoors and the pulleys and the writers
adjusting the script behind the scenes. We sit there, mesmerized, as the little
man climbs the turnbuckle once more, step by agonizing step, until he stands high
above his much bigger, much stronger, much tougher opponent who has beaten him
so badly that no man should ever have gotten up from that, but the little guy
could goddammit, because he has the heart of a lion, and because he never gives
up, and now he stands, the prize within reach, moments away from glory, with
tens of thousands of voices egging him on, screaming his name, his catchphrase,
screaming for him to destroy the big man below not just for himself, but for
all of them, for anyone who felt helpless and small and tired and lonely, and
the man looks around, he crouches, and in one, single, swift motion…
…he flies.
