BY WILL KEMP

It’s 11:30 AM on Christmas Eve and I’m sitting here on my bed in boxer shorts and a Wham t-shirt after a Swedish Berries-induced bender that seemed to go on for days and days and I am pumped the fuck up. I don’t care that I have to work Christmas eve at my shitty retail job, or even Christmas day at my shitty retail job. I don’t care that I don’t get to go home to my 99.5% white population home town of Kingston, Ontario and see my mom and my grandpa and the few friends I have, while my family continues to tear itself apart for no real reason other than being people ginormous douchebags. I don’t care that my family isn’t having one cohesive family dinner and I’m stuck here in Toronto while my mom has to invite my grandpa over to her house (which looks like it’s Hiroshima 24/7) to make sure he has a proper Christmas dinner because my cousins and uncle are complete turdbags. I don’t care that my mom works what seems to be twelve hour days (which is why her house is always in shambles) and deserves to have one fucking family dinner go right where she doesn’t have to deal with all the psycho-drama that’s taken over my family. I don’t care about any of that.

That’s all a lie, obviously, but I just needed to get that off my chest.

ONTO MORE IMPORTANT THINGS - WRESTLING.

For some reason there’s a stigma attached to being a wrestling fan, like we ought to be ashamed, like we ought to flee to the safety of dark corners because our vampiric-amputee-leper-retard skin will burn if we don’t. I don’t know how this whole stigma came about, but it has, and now people are more ashamed of being wrestling fans than they are jacking off to midget-on-horse porn.

I know that wrestling is fake. Wrestling is as fake as Santa Claus, and Pamela Anderson’s tits, and Jesus Christ, and George Lucas’ sense of artistic integrity after Empire Strikes Back (arguable, I know).

However, just because wrestling is fake does not mean it isn’t awesome. When Evan Bourne hits a shooting star press I don’t say “Well, that wasn’t awesome, THAT WAS FAKE!” When El Generico hits his BRAAAAAAINBUSSSTAAAAAH and drives someone’s skull into a fucking turnbuckle, I don’t sit there thinking “Gee, he didn’t REALLY nearly break that guy’s skull.” No shit, no fucking shit it’s fake, because if it were real that man would be nearly dead. It’s called suspension of disbelief, just like when you suspend your disbelief while trudging through the pool of shit that is Twilight. No, El Generico didn’t nearly kill a man with a brainbuster into a turnbuckle, but it damn sure looks like it, and with the proper selling (acting like the moves are real) it makes everything that much more awesome.

Oh, and just to clarify - yes it’s fake, but that doesn’t mean that what these people do doesn’t hurt. Feel free to take a few knife-edge chops to the chest and not feel pain. In fact, why do these people break their necks or tear their quadriceps if everything is so fake?

I know I’m jumping around everywhere, but let’s get this out of the way before I forget: not all wrestling fans are stupid. (DEAR GOD, WILL READS, WATCHES THE NEWS, AND WATCHES WRESTLING, WTF?) A lot of wrestling fans are incredibly fucking dumb, especially those A.D.D. fucks who watch wrestling and think they can emulate the moves they see and run around chokeslamming people through coffee tables. However, for every complete retard who watches wrestling there’s two people who are logical, sensible human beings. Just like for every retarded meathead that watches the NFL, there’s, well… (SEE, GENERALIZATIONS ARE FUN!)

Of course everyone loved wrestling as a child, but then they ‘grew up’ and instead found the best outlet for their aggressions was slaughtering hundreds of people in front of a computer screen or watching two half-naked men grapple and roll around in a ring until one submits to an arm bar, BECAUSE GOD DAMNIT MIXED MARTIAL ARTS IS REAL AND NOT GAY LIKE THAT QUEERMO WRESTLING SHIT, THEREFORE MAKING IT ABOVE WRESTLING.

I have no problem with mixed martial arts, but go fuck yourself if you think it’s a hundred times better than wrestling because it’s REAL. You know what? At its best mixed martial arts looks like a fluid art form that takes skill and power and can make someone stand up and yell “HOLY SHIT!” when a guy gets knocked out by one punch and at its worst it looks like an amateur gay porn with two men wriggling around on top of each other.

The very same fucking thing can be said about wrestling. When everything clicks in wrestling, it’s absolutely brilliant. When the heel (read: bad guy) plays his part and the face (read: good guy) plays his, and the two wrestlers have chemistry and there’s a reason to fight (i.e. for the belt, for pride, just to put on a good match, because Mae Young gave birth to a hand) that people can get behind then wrestling is an art form. It’s a choreographed art form just like action movies. Was Shoot ‘Em Up incredibly fake? Yes. All of the shit they did is just really good editing, special effects, and stunt men. However, anyone with half a fucking brain goes into that movie knowing that what they’re going to see is not going to be some deep, profound, amazing story, but instead non-stop action that makes you go “HOLY SHIT!” It’s the same to be said about wrestling. When wrestlers are really ‘on’ and a match is a five-star match I’ll take something that’s fake any fucking day over a ‘real’ fight that lasts a few minutes. Give me the Hart vs. Hart epic, or Angle vs. Lesnar (pre-MMA) in the 60 Minute Iron Man match on Smackdown a few years back and I’m a happy man.

I am by no means saying that wrestling is for everyone, because it’s not. However, if you go into wrestling with the mindset of ‘well, this is absolute shit’ then you’re already setting yourself up for failure. However, go into it with an open mind and I guarantee you will find SOMETHING you like.

One thing I love about wrestling is the variety of it all. It’s evolved so much from its carny days, and even the territories days that it’s insane. You want comedy? Watch CHIKARA, where there’s guys dressed up in giant dragon costumes. Fuck, even watch the WWE because Santino Marella is one of the most brilliant characters developed in the past decade. You want blood and violence and all that shit? Watch old ECW, watch deathmatches. In fact, watch Terry Funk vs. Cactus Jack in a King of the Deathmatch match. Do you want to see GOOD, amazing technical wrestling? Watch nearly any of Chris Benoit’s matches in Japan - you know, before he went all crazy. Do you want to watch people FLIP IN THE AIR ALL CRAZY LIKE? Watch some luchadores. Do you want to see things that make you stand up and go “HOLY JESUS WHAT THE OH MY SHIT!”? Watch Mankind fall off the Hell in a Cell, watch Jeff Hardy Swanton Bomb off a scaffolding. Do you want to see a great story? Watch the Malenko vs. Jericho saga unfold. Watch Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart from Wrestlemania X, watch Kawada vs. Misawa from ‘94. The Tiger Driver ‘91 is STILL my favourite fucking move ever.

Let me go slightly off-topic here for a moment and keep with puro (Japanese) wrestling, because that in itself is a completely different beast than what most people have been exposed to as far as wrestling goes in North America. First off, the Japanese crowds are absolutely insane in the sense that they’re very reserved and quiet, often just clapping most of the time. It’s really a sight to see. Anyway, Japanese wrestling is usually very different from North American wrestling in the sense that it is usually a lot of a slower and more methodical pace, with guys hitting armbars and hip tosses for a good ten minutes before we see them breaking out the big moves, with false finishes galore. It’s truly something to behold when two Japanese guys are on their game. It’s a spectacle, in fact.

Anyway, there’s my shameless plug for Japanese wrestling. That’s not to say that North American performers can’t do the same though, and that’s not saying that the Japanese product is superior. They’re two very different styles if you want to generalize them both.

Wrestling is by no means above being terrible, but that’s half the beauty of it. Not everyone or everything can be a Stone Cold Steve Austin, or The Rock, or a Hart vs. Hart, or a Steamboat vs. Savage. Look up ‘wrestlecrap’ and you will find some of the worst things you’ve ever seen. The Shockmaster, The Gobbledygooker? Absolutely fucking stupid. Stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuupppppppppiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiddddddddddd. Just like for every Godfather, there’s a Christmas with the Cranks. In every form of art or entertainment (and fuck you, when wrestling is at its best it’s an art form) there is going to be a lot of shit, but there’s also going to be something that catches your attention, draws you in, MAKES YOU FEEL SOMETHING, and in the case of wrestling makes you thank Christ that you didn’t just get suplexed through a flaming table like ‘that guy’ did.

All I ask of you is to give wrestling a chance and suspend your disbelief like you do for Grey’s Anatomy and Desperate Housewives and Heroes and all that good stuff. It’s all a work of fiction just like wrestling is, because it’s all entertainment.

Wrestling needs to be taken at face value - a variety act that is not trying to sell itself as DEAR GOD THIS IS SOME REAL, SERIOUS SHIT.

In fact, go out to a local independent wrestling show with no pre-conceived notions of how it’s going to be fake and how you could be at home right now watching something just as fake on the TV and just sit back and absorb it all. You will witness at its best that these guys have just as much passion as anyone else, and these guys will hopefully put on a show that will amaze and captivate you. If it’s a terrible promotion just above backyard wrestling shit, then you can just sit back and laugh and feel better about yourself because you’re not a blithering retard like these douchebags.

So, all in all, wrestling isn’t for everyone and I expect a lot of people to stop reading after the first few sentences if anyone’s reading this at all. However, if you give wrestling a chance at the very least you’ve wasted maybe two or three hours of your life and you can move on saying “Well, I tried.” I’m not trying to convert anyone, but fuck you if you’re going to rag on people for liking wrestling when you have no basis to do so.