All The World’s A Stage… Or At Least A Wrestling Ring

Recently I was afforded the opportunity to fulfill a childhood desire of mine—attend a professional wrestling show. It was great and succeeded my expectations. Usually sporting events of all types are better witnessed in the stadium/arena that they take place in; even if they’re viewed from the nosebleed seats. Over my lifetime I’ve had the pleasure of attending a few professional and collegiate football, baseball, and basketball games as well as a tennis match that featured the Williams sisters facing one another in the finals of the U.S. Open. I even went and saw a MMA show recently. However, even though some view professional wrestling as a sport—and it does take a certain degree of athletic ability to be such a wrestler—the open secret is that these events are shows in every sense of the word. Thus, the term professional better describes the amount of acting that takes place rather than the degree of their athletic prowess. Don’t get me wrong; a lot of these guys (and gals) are in phenomenal physical shape. How else can one bounce up and down from turnbuckles and against ropes upon fellow human giants and folding tables night after night with nothing more than a pair of Speedos or Spandex pants all while maintaining a muscular physique?  Then there are others that aren’t so much in great shape as they are just beneficiaries of working in a profession that their abnormal sizes fit into. Despite the amount of athleticism these individuals possess, we all know and clearly understand that the outcomes of these matches are essentially contrived.

With this in mind, one can easily understand the need for the over-the-top characters, stereotypes, scripted melodrama, buffoonish costumes, energetic entrance music, sexually charged innuendoes, and massive amounts of aggressive marketing that surrounds the actual wrestling matches. Without such, these events would just be a monotonous cavalcade of contests involving two or more oversized sweaty testosterone-driven ex-football jocks prancing around a squared mat. Rivalries must be invented. Good guys (“faces”) need to be pitted against bad guys (“heels”). Colors, logos, symbols, attitudes, hair styles, garb, songs, flags, weapons and trash talk are all carefully mixed together and choreographed through these various wrestlers. These ingredients serve to create a fictitious world where grudges are dealt with through faux fights fueled from false bravado.

This collection of flamboyant and seemingly crazed men appeal to the primitive warrior spirits that have long ago been buried deep within most men through decades and centuries of forced conformity and assembly-line lifestyles. Living such an existence has forced us into cookie cutter houses, paper-doll families, and decaffeinated lives. These creatures of wild imaginations and equally fictional destinies are an outlet to the unchecked rage and imprisoned creativity that modern civilized society has silenced through the demonizing of hyper-masculinity. This is in large part because there no longer exists a need for the hunter-gatherer or the vigilant protector of the home front.  All hunting and gathering is done at the local grocery store and home security systems coupled with lethargic police departments are tasked with defending our domiciles. For a brief moment, these people watching men (and sometimes women) engage in pseudo hand-to-hand combat dressed in warrior gear, are allowed to temporarily escape the normal confines of verbal and legal conflict resolution; all while pretending they are witnessing true, primal conflict play itself out under fluorescent lights and TV cameras with the added element of raucous cheering.

As I sat there taking in the sights and sounds of my seat in the arena, I not only watched the numerous matches taking place. I also studied the make-up of the crowd in my immediate area. I sat in back of an entire family of Mexican immigrants. Of course professional wrestling is big in that country as well, where it is referred to as “lucha libre.” The Jack Black comedy film, Nacho Libre attests to this. Usually the Mexican “luchadores” are hidden behind colorful and sparkly masks. Such characters are often found "competing" in American based professional wrestling organizations of the past and present like the WWF/WWE and the WCW. Examples are the well-known wrestlers, Rey Mysterio and Sin Cara. Everyone from this family enjoyed the matches and maybe it served as a small taste of home.

To my right were a father and his two sons. The father was around my age and neither of us was too familiar with most of the combatants in the ring. However, his two sons knew plenty about each and every character that strutted into the “squared circle.” So, from time to time we would briefly reminisce about the old-school wrestlers we grew up watching like the late Macho Man Randy Savage, the late Junkyard Dog, the late Andre The Giant, others like Sgt. Slaughter, The Iron Sheik, and of course Hulk Hogan. It goes without saying that, as every guy gets older, we opine that the wrestlers we spent hours watching on television as kids were the greatest ever and that that particular era would never be recaptured. Ask any old guy such questions and he’ll swear the same—whether it’s sports, music, movies, or fashion. 

On my left were the most interesting couple of gentlemen I noticed that night. It seemed to me to be a father and son. Both men would be considered elderly. The younger was clearly late 50’s to early 60’s. Presumably, his father, was late 70’s to early 80’s. Sadly upon the latter, one of his eyes was damaged to the point of blindness and he didn’t say much. Nonetheless, small moments of joy flashed upon his snow-white-bearded face from time to time as his son yelled and screamed excitedly in response to the action in the ring. I shared bits of conversation with the younger as well. We also discussed the "good ole days" of wrestling. Of course he could remember many other wrestlers before my time like The "Nature Boy" Rick Flair, The Superstar Billy Graham, Gorilla Monsoon, and  Bruno Sammartino. Of all the people I could see in my immediate circle, this middle-aged man was the most energetic. It was sort of sweet and nostalgic to witness he and his father sitting together watching a live wrestling match. I imaged how many hundreds (if not thousands) of such moments they both shared over their decades on Earth. It was beautiful to see a father and son still next to one another enjoying a shared passion--even if that passion was as scripted as a daytime soap opera.

As I continued to examine this occurrence unfold, I was struck by how seriously some of these people took the matches. Especially the adults. I was like many kids growing up in the 1980's and '90's who idolized Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, and Koko B. Ware. I thought it was all real. I bought wholeheartedly into the good versus evil matchups like the patriotic Sgt. Slaughter waving the American flag against the wrestlers who opposed the "free world" such as Russia's Nikolai Volkoff and Iran's The Iron Sheik. I remember the very first WrestleMania when the main event featured Hulk Hogan and Mr. T against the team of Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff,. I hated the annoying managers such as "The Mouth of  the South" Jimmy Hart and Bobby "The Brain" Heenan. And nothing got me more hyped up like a Hulk Hogan promo where "Mean Gene" Okerlund simply held the microphone in front of Hogan as he proceeded to go on a tirade that always began with, "You know what Mean Gene..." and was punctuated by words and phrases like "brother", "thousands of screaming little Hulkamaniacs", "do your training, eat your vitamins, and say your prayers", and always ended with the catchphrase, "What ya gonna do, when all of Hulkamania runs wild on you?!?!" This stuff was as much a part of my childhood as Saturday morning cartoons and episodes of The A-Team.

But it was during my time in high school that an epiphany of sorts occurred. I remember it so clearly. I was sitting in the living room watching a wrestling match and suddenly it's like my eyes were reopened. The moves being performed in the ring now looked very fake. The timing appeared to be really off. On top of that I started wondering about the lack of blood and bruising when the wrestlers were hit repeatedly in the face. I also began to question how at certain times the characters would miraculously become reenergized after seemingly being beaten severely. As I examined the match more closely, the light of knowledge went off and I was suddenly disappointed. After all the years of believing in professional wrestling's authenticity, to have my unblemished image of it brutally crushed like this was low blow of sorts.

From that point on, instead of being entertained by such television, I was annoyed and disenchanted by it. It would be many years before I would sit and watch professional wrestling again. All that time when my stepfather would yell that wrestling was phony, I would shrug him off as simply a person who didn't appreciate it. I would never believe wrestling was anything but real. But at that moment during my adolescence, it was like a child discovering that Santa Claus, The Easter Bunny, and The Tooth Fairly were all hoaxes--simultaneously. So, even though I occasionally viewed an episode or two years later when The Rock would show up on Monday nights, I looked at it solely for its comedic value and nothing more. The emotional connection to certain wrestlers or hopes of specific outcomes of the matches no longer existed. My only interest extended no further than amount of hilarious buffoonery that was provided by some of these Spandex swaddled brutes.

Therefore, as I relaxed in my plastic folding theater seat in the arena that night, I could not understand why anyone but the children took this crap seriously. I was there just to check something off the list of things I never did as a kid (the others are attending a rodeo, a monster truck rally, and visiting Yellowstone National Park). Truthfully, the adults were more involved than the youngsters. But why? Is it that our grown up lives are so mundane and predictable that we'll pay money to pretend this stuff is real for a while as an opportunity to escape the norms and miseries that await us at home and work? Did the dreams and aspirations of childhood dissolve magically within the acid of the realities of adulthood where we've accepted our sad lots in life to a degree that we look forward to small short-lived thrills like imaginary conflict? Do we somehow yearn to live vicariously through these loud, muscle-bound caricatures and stereotypes who battle for us because our lives are devoid of any purpose or passion? Is it simply distraction? Or is there more? I think that's part of the answer. 

However, another part of me wondered whether or not on a broader scale, if we as people in this nation and form of government, liked being lied to and entertained? Or, do we just go along with the charades because to question everything or strive to live in reality would take too much energy and force us to confront how truly messed up our present world is? In other words, are we trained throughout our existence in this system to avoid too much truth because once you know something, you're responsible for it? Is it easier to just embrace the lies and pretend like everyone else--even if we are well aware of what exists behind the masks and well constructed movie sets of our lives?

The concept of fake combat found in professional wrestling, I think exists in many other facets of our "modernized" society. The media and its many news outlets operate in a similar manner. What is presented to us as unbiased news is actually thoroughly discussed, heavily edited, and slanted in whatever direction will best arouse the interest and emotions of the public. News coverage, like movies and music, is simply an additional form of entertainment. The difference being, with news, most the material to work with occurs on its own and serves as sort of modeling clay for the directors and producers to work with and shape as they please. Whereas music, movies, etc. are birthed in the imagination of the creators and artists. But even they draw inspiration and ideas from real-life events pretty normally. However, just as there are good guys and bad guys, noble causes and evil plans in professional wrestling, issues and events are presented in the same format and new programs pit "experts" and various other talking heads against one another for entertainment purposes. They bring out the same dry conflicts that people will always get worked up about; be it abortion, gun-control, affirmative action, gay rights, raising the minimum wage, the death penalty, etc. And sure enough, people tune in to watch and listen to the same moldy drivel spit back and forth between these clowns. Sometimes it ends up as loud and brash and the wrestlers' trash talking session between matches. There's no difference. The outcomes and battles are as predictable as what takes place in arenas and stadiums all over the USA when the professional wrestling show comes to town. These news programs which profess to bring us the latest updates and talking points about what's important to our lives, desire for us to get as rowdy about these trivial and age-old issues as people do about their favorite wrestlers being pitted against their arch rivals. When you step back from all of the commotion, it's all the same--a distraction. Something intended to pull you and I in for a few minutes to both avoid dealing with the depressing state of our lives and/or not pay attention to what the deceitful duo of the government and corporations are really up to.

It's wonderful for them to pass laws under your noses concerning corporate tax breaks, restructuring voting districts, and the newest multi-billion dollar weapons system (that we'll probably never use) while you're tuned into the latest fights over gay marriage and making marijuana legal. While the government and corporations work together to make decisions affecting the world outside of the United States, sending brave service members into volatile combat zones for corporate and geopolitical interests (not the defense of the nation), and slowly continue to defund education and healthcare while increasing the privatization of prisons (and thus, our criminal justice system as a whole), many are distracted by where the Confederate Flag hangs and what religion the president is. These media outlets don't inform us--they entertain, or rather distract us. And like all the enthralled people that night that surrounded me--they want more.

We don't want reality. Yes, that's a sad reality. We would rather buy into the game that our officials are truly democratically elected and not pre-chosen for us to make a decision between only two which essentially carry out the same agendas. Their differences on certain social and/or economic perspectives are minuscule compared to the larger picture. And that's where we magnify it all and pretend along with them that such things really matter. It's tragic. Our desire to be lied to and pretend has resulted in our nation relinquishing our minds to the commercial-political-propaganda machine. We have resigned ourselves to be satisfied with being told what to think and have abandoned the acknowledgement of the dire need to know how to think. We are the very zombies in the horror films we watch, walking aimlessly around looking to devour anyone that dare be different. We purposely tune out and run towards a state of unawareness because living in the clouds is much more fun than facing the truth about what has happened to our economy, society, and political system.

We believe that we operate in a legitimate democracy when the truth is, in this nation, a democracy has become a political institution and form of government which convinces the populace that their voting power has legitimate influence over decisions made by the government and the direction of the state. Nonetheless, in reality, all major economic, militaristic, social, and political decisions and the directions thereof are controlled by one person or a select few in the corporate and political sector. Democracy professes to be a system where the governed have the final say in matters. The truth is, Democracy is simply another form of either an oligarchy or a dictatorship. The difference being, the aforementioned forms of government aren't usually shrouded under such a thick layer on nonsensical rhetoric and unrealistic ideals.

We have applied the same concept that the hyper-Capitalistic pharmaceutical industry relies on for success; it's much easier to swallow the pill for temporary relief than it is to deal with the causes of the symptoms and sickness--side-effects notwithstanding. We have been neutered and lulled to sleep by the distractions and lies to the point where we wish not to be awakened. Just give us more football, wrestling, and news shows. Pretending this system is real is like believing professional wrestling is a genuine athletic competition. It may last for a while. But ever since that special day as a teen, I couldn't enjoy it the same way or even force myself to get into it like before. There's something about revelation that brands the truth upon your mind. You can't go back to how you thought before. You see things differently and then begin to question other areas of life. Well, maybe some people can revert back. But I choose to use my mind. Otherwise, I'm just another character on the stage.