I used to think Professional Wrestling was fake. Then I went to WCW's SuperBrawl IX at the Oakland Arena and saw 40,000 screaming fans who thought otherwise (or pretended to). Hollywood “Hulk” Hogan wrestled Ric Flair. Goldberg (with whom I had previously shot a TV commercial in Los Angeles) beat some guy named Bam Bam Bigelow. And a slew of other steroid-poppin' guys wrestled. And I got to see it all from fifth row seats!
Professional wrestling. Now, that's entertainment, baby!
The Real vs. Fake debate is now as much of an issue as Clinton's philandering. Their tagline is, “It's not fake. It's unreal!” But to the fans, it's immaterial. When you go to one of these events, you just don't care.
All you care about is the fact that Ric Flair—currently engaged with kickin' Hollywood “formerly Hulk” Hogan's butt—doesn't see this masked guy (his own son!) coming into the ring with a cattle prod! LOOK OUT, RIC!! ZAPPPP! And the ref misses it entirely and says Hogan wins!!! No way! He wuz ROBBED! Oh, the humanity…
Our client put it best when he said that professional wrestling is a soap opera for guys. It's entertainment in the same vein as the Action Movie. You know it's all fake, but you go to see how it turns out.
Pro wrestlers have changed a lot over the years.
It's gotten bigger, brasher and way more acrobatic. It's no longer about pitting the muscles of one contestant against another. Rather, their vocal cords. The fights themselves only last a few minutes, (thanks to the aforementioned unscheduled cattle-prods, folding metal chairs to the back and other underhanded yet highly entertaining tricks).
In fact, the fights would be over even sooner if it weren't for the easily distracted refs, who never seem to notice these flagrantly illegal activities. They've raised incompetent officiating to an art form.
Who watches professional wrestling?
The one thing that concerned me, though, was the decision by the arena to sell beer at this event. Who was this genius? Is he/she unfamiliar with the kind of people this sort of enter-painment attracts? Not surprisingly, the crowd was mostly white trash boys, their fathers and their grandparents. Holding the great grandkids.
Guys who work hard and like to vent some pent-up hostilities whenever possible. Guys for whom boxing is either too nonviolent or too rule-abiding. But mostly, guys who have repressed homo-erotic tendencies. In short, guys who throw down at the drop of a chili-cheese dog.
Yeah, those are the kind of level-headed folks you want to get all liquored up and then whipped into a testosterone-loaded frenzy.
