Shoot from the hip...

Alright let's just get this out of the way: Yes i still watch wrestling.

Professional wrestling to me is no different from watching a crappy movie at the AMC or watching a television show with characters that look like they're straight out of the pages of an Abercrombie ad. (I think I ventured into a gay bar like that once...)

If robots can have balls, I can watch wrestling. I'm looking at you Bay!

It's simple entertainment. Plain and...simple...i like words...

When I was two, my uncle Larry introduced me to colorful and exuberant characters such as the Road Warriors, Ric Flair, Ricky Steamboat and other oily men in tights of Jimmy Crockett Promotions, or as it's better known, the NWA or World Championship Wrestling. I'm not sure why I gravitated towards it, and in retrospect I still don't know why to this day. It was the first athletic contest, ( No I don't call it a sport, nor do I call it fake. Until you take five body slams in a cold, hard as concrete ring, never call it fake) that I was exposed to growing up. After that, my father introduced me to football and basketball, but wrestling was my first true love...of...athletic contests...of sorts...

Being the fortunate individual that I am, I believe I grew up in the pinnacle of the wrestling era. Besides Jimmy Crockett Promotions/NWA/WCW/Mid Atlantic Championship, the Hulk Hogan/Vince McMahon World Wrestling Federation era (I refuse to call it the WWE) was the first major promotion I was drawn to. The characters were fun, clean and non threatening with easy to remember stories of good guy vs bad guy. No shades of grey. Lots of merchandise, and of course Hulk Hogan. Then when I was a teenager, I gravitated towards ECW, or Extreme Championship Wrestling a local niche promotion in Philadelphia that gained a cult like status because of their extremely violent matches, adult storylines, and actually treating the audience like they weren't retarded. In the Northeast region of the country ECW spread like a virus. The WWF and WCW would run shows and have people chanting ECW during their most heated matches. Because of this the WWF and WCW had to up their game, by segueing into the Attitude Era and the NWO respectively to the mainstream public. With competition between the three brands, professional wrestling was in my opinion at it's highest peak aesthetically. There were great matches, amazing in-ring performers, and most importantly adult stories that didn't go out of it's way to insult your intelligence. (Mae Young did give birth to a hand however...)

When I watch wrestling, it's not for the backstage vignettes, nor the soap opera storylines. I watch for the story that the performers tell in the ring. It's extremely difficult to relay a feud, and tell a quick easily digestible story in fifteen to forty minutes with a solid beginning, middle and an end that has a satisfying conclusion. The performers job in the ring, is to make the audience believe that these guys are fighting for real. As inane as that sounds, it's true. And it sounds silly but that's what also draws me to watch it. Can these guys make me believe that they truly want to pin the other man even though the finish has been predetermined and entertain me at the same time?

It's not for everyone. It's like the Wire, or Fat Tire. You either get it, or you don't. And if you don't you ridicule that person and make them feel like less of a person because of it. That's right Phil...

Not to mention that these guys wrestle 300 days a year with no off season. The NFL has nine months off, the NBA and NHL have six months. Baseball...who watches baseball still anyway? Seriously have you ever been to a Dodgers game? If I'm not drunk by the 4th, it's a wasted day and I fall asleep. It's fucking boring. We need steroids back in a big way. Anywho...

At the end of the day, a great in ring match to me is more impressive than a 4th quarter comeback, a winning three pointer or Joey Chestnut eating 200 hot dogs in ten minutes. (You've never seen my drunken binges...I can match it...it's not pretty.)

So I guess this blog will be a part tribute to the lost art of professional wrestling...(I mean sports entertainment...yes that'll do), and part ramblings on why it's not cool to watch anymore. (yet I still do)

Oh and I'll bitch about TV shows, movies, and video games. All the stuff that doesn't get me laid basically. You know cause they're aren't enough blogs dedicated to that already...