Wrestling

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Something tells me that this page will be an eternal struggle. Aside, maybe, from Matt, Stewart and possibly Jonathan, most people I know have a very closed minded attitude to wrestling. It's fixed, you cry. It's crap. It's fake. In reply to that, I can only say yes, no, and, well, sometimes.

Before we go any further, I should explain a few terms that are likely to crop up during the course of this page. They are, mainly, wrestling terms, and so many of you will have only a passing familiarity with them.

Where to begin, then? At the beginning? In 1906 Fred Beell defeated Frank Gotch for the American Heavyweight title. While not the first ever fixed match, it was the first high profile example. The rematch, where Gotch regained the title 16 days later, was also a booked result.

But to take a trawl through 95 years of wrestling is beyond me, frankly. Instead, I'll just ask you to absorb the following statement. Until the 1970's, many title matches came down to who could win the title in a shoot match. One of the main reasons for this was Lou Thesz. Thesz lifted the NWA world title several times, including one reign lasting over six-and-a-half years. Quite simply, the guy was hard. In 1973, after being screwed over a pay-off, he refused to lose his NWA Southern title unless one of the other wrestlers could beat him. The NWA promoter looked at the rest of his wrestlers, looked at Thesz, and admitted defeat. This is made even more remarkable when you consider that Thesz was 57 years old at the time.

Where to begin, then? What about the summer of 1990, when many of today's stars were beginning to make an impact on the pro wrestling scene. A time, as well, when a ten year old boy would see his first pro-wresting event, WWF SummerSlam '90, and be entranced by the incredibly cool Bret Hart, and the incredibly muscular Ultimate Warrior. This, for me, was it. By the time of the next event, Survivor Series, three months later, I was hooked. Sitting on my cousin's floor, watching the debut of the Undertaker, and rushing off to practice holds and moves with my older cousin, I was immersed in the colourful world contained in the ring.

It could all have ended there. But Sky TV was readily available to everyone, and wrestling was, for a time, cooler than football, at least until the Premier League was born. I gave hours to sports entertainment. I bought the magazines, even the ones that sucked. I watched the tapes. I learned the moves, and dreamed of the day I'd launch a moonsault onto the prone body of my opponent and lift the world title.

In the WWF, the Gulf War made it's mark. The Ultimate Warrior lost the World title to Iraqi sympathiser and American traitor Sergeant Slaughter. So convinced was the American public by Slaughter's act, that he received death threats, and was forced to wear a bullet proof vest during is public appearances. At Wrestlemania 7, in March of '91, all became right with the world when Hulk Hogan, the ultimate babyface, defeated the traitorous heel to lift the World title.

The eternal argument (at least between 1985 and 1991) raged over the question of who would win a match between the perennial WCW world champion Ric Flair and Hogan. Me? I didn't care. In the WWF, the Warrior and Bret Hart were my favourite wrestlers. In the WCW it was Sting (like the Warrior he was well built and wore face paint) and Barry Windham, who was a no-frills brawler.

My interest waned slightly as I moved onto secondary school, but in October of '92 the incredible happened. Bret Hart defeated top heel Ric Flair for the WWF World title, and the world was a better place.

Hart came from a family of wrestlers in Canada, and had caught the public's imagination through sheer hard work in the eight years he'd worked for the WWF. By early 1994 he was established as the top face in the WWF, and was given the World title for a second time at Wrestlemania 10. Hulk Hogan by now was history, having been forced out of the WWF due to the steroid charges being leveled against it's owner, Vince McMahon. There was just no way that Hogan, who'd been accused of steroid possession alongside McMahon, could work successfully for a company where everyone knew he'd basically been lying for ten years.

By this time, I knew, to a degree, what was going on in the world of wrestling. I'd become aware of the fixed results, the scripted interviews, and the behind the scenes relationships. I didn't care. The matches were good fun to watch, especially contests like the Michaels/Ramon ladder matches, or Bret Hart's matches with his brother Owen.

Worryingly, then, my waning interest meant that I began to drift away from wrestling. For around three years, I coasted along, living my life, and occasionally taking a glimpse at the magazines in WHSmith's.

Then, in the winter of 1998, Matt Lambe changed all that. He'd picked up a WWF game for the N64, and after playing through it, fighting opponents like Goldust, Mankind, and Stone Cold Steve Austin, I resolved to find out exactly what had happened in the last few years.

It didn't take long. Renewing my magazine interest, buying a couple of videos... I was hooked, harder than before. Whereas previously the WWF had relied on gimmicky creations like Doink the Clown, Repo Man or Adam Bomb ("He's nuclear powered!"), the modern day WWF was fueled with beer drinking brawlers, Olympic heroes, arrogant young pretenders, the fearless Mick Foley, and the evil owner, Vince McMahon.

In short, wrestling had changed in the time I'd been away. From being a pretend sport, trying to be a soap, it had altered its ideas. By focusing on the personality of the wrestlers, they'd automatically made wrestling into a soap. While there were still worryingly unbelievable angles, like the Undertaker's 'Ministry of Darkness', modern day WWF -and to a lesser extent WCW- was full of realistic story's and rivalries, with the odd sly wink, acknowledging it was all just entertainment.

So, you can keep EastEnders. Coronation Street is pointless. Brookside is for the birds. Wrestling, with it's athletes -yes, athletes-, storylines, fights and bumps is my soap of choice. There may be times when it's not so good, but where else in modern day entertainment can a man just raise his eyebrow and get a bigger cheer than when Ken and Deirdre got back together?