White Trash Confessions

A have a dirty little secret. Not many people know about this, but in the interest of coming clean, and hopefully helping someone else through my confession, here goes:  

I love wrestling.

I know. I know. I should be getting my sports fix from soccer or rugby or even college football - not Professional Wrestling. But not me. No no. I love watching those giant men grappling with one another. I mean have you seen Sting? Have you seen him? His legs are like tree trunks and my inner goth is totally turned on by the pseudo-Crow makeup. Let’s not forget that he wears skintight spandex leotards. He’s not the only one either. There’s Triple H. There’s The Rock. There’s CM Punk. There’s Chris Jericho (oh, Chris Jericho). Edge. John Cena. Rey Mysterio. Kurt Angle. Batista. In recent years I have come to see these guys for what they are: very good looking, incredibly built performance artists. We all know wrestling is fake (right?), but it still requires amazing athletic ability, decent acting skills, and a great sense of humor. It’s the sense of humor that gets me. These tall, sexy, mean looking muscle men are funny!

I didn’t always feel this way though. As a child, I hated wrestling because my sister insisted on watching it at the expense of my cartoon consumption. This was  point of contention. I loved my sister, I looked up to her and in ways, I wanted to be just like Alicia, but I also really hated wrestling. I fought as hard as a toddler could against watching wrestling, but my sister always won out in the end. I didn’t know how to work the tv when I was 5, so I grudgingly tolerated WWF on Saturday afternoons. I can't deny that I thought Jimmy "The Dragon" Showboat was pretty cool. He could make fire. And Rowdy Roddy Piper was on an episode of The Mario Brothers Super Show, so I could tolerate him. But Jake the Snake? Randy Macho Man Savage? The Hulk? I could definitely live without them and their muscle-bound antics. These, of course were the guys my sister loved. The good guys. I've always been a bad guy kinda girl.

A lot of the issue with wrestling has always been the whole, "it's fake" thing. My mom took every opportunity to tell my sister this, which I imagine had something to do with years of watching wrestling with Alicia’s dad when they were married, and hating every moment of it. My bigger issue with it was that it was boy stuff, and I wanted to be a girl. Not necessarily a girly girl, but a girl, good and proper. And girls just don't like wrestling. Clearly, this illustrates that I have had issues with my identity from day one. I've always been trying to be who I was supposed to be instead of being who I am. This lessened for a short time between 1997 and 2001 - The Halcyon Days. I will say this for my sister - I truly admire how comfortable she is with herself. It's really pretty awesome.

Anyway, about wrestling - my ideas about it started to change when I became boy crazy in the sixth grade. Having always been precocious, I bypassed the cute hand holding classroom boyfriend bit and went straight to pining after high school boys. It was all about competition, after all. All my close girl friends were a year older than me and at junior/senior high dating tenth graders. So, I had to get me one. I didn’t want to be left out. Being 1997, before the internet had become what it is today, we talked (novel idea) on the phone and had sleepovers. Much havoc can be wreaked with an ordinary house phone, let me tell you.

Before the end of September, I was chatting up my best friend Heather's new boyfriend George, among others, on a regular basis. I have always been the mother hen type, and I had to insure that his intentions with my friend were noble. Or something. This culminated in my being invited to his co-ed birthday party in September. His co-ed pool party. Yikes. I barely remember anything about this stupid party. Some people played chicken, but I was too busy trying to blend in with the blue pool liner. I was worried that someone would notice that I was not as cute as the other girls, and I didn't really know how to talk to the boys in person. Savage Garden wasn’t kidding: “On the telephone line I am anyone �" I am anything I want to be,” and I was.

            At some point, we all wound up back inside the house watching wrestling. This is when I made a discovery. Boys like this crap, and if I like boys, maybe I better learn to like it too. They were engrossed. I would remember this for later. I started took note of the big players: Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock for starters. Again, I found myself more interested in the bad guys like Sting and Mankind. How could 11 year old me not love the guy who looked like The Crow and the guy with the leather mask and smiley face t-shirt? So cool. So edgy.

By the time I made it to the seventh grade, my sister had married a fellow wrestling fan and I was dating a boy who was more interested in cars and records than men prancing around a square ring in tights and makeup. I bought a pair of Steve Austin boxers just because they had some skulls on them and they said 3:16. (I was going through a religious thing and I didn't realize that Austin 3:16 had nothing to do with "For God so loved the world . . ."). Although I could once again respond to wrestling with ire since the boy I was kissing felt the same, I couldn't escape it since I was spending most weekends at my sister's house. That was OK though - she and her husband could watch wrestling in the living room while the boy and I were practicing exploratory biology in the back. Life was good. I didn't think about wrestling much, except when talking to some guy friends at school.

I had this one friend, Edward, who for a time, was the big brother I never had. He was a senior when I was in the seventh grade and despite his gruff exterior he was a really great guy. He was a Fire Explorer, he was a metal head, and he was a total wrestling fanatic. I gleaned little things from nights at my sister's house to throw into conversations with him during my lunch period. There was a group of us who would escape the horror-show of the cafeteria to spend lunch together in the band hall. "Yeah, I like Mankind,” I would say. Then, because I was never able to get the wrestling channels on TV at home (We literally got 5 channels until we got cable) Edward would regale us with the details of Mankind's fights that week. I wasn't so interested in what he was saying. Rather, I was interested that he was interested in what he was saying, and in turn found me interesting as well. I needed male attention in the worst possible way.

After Edward graduated and my sister went on the road with her truck-driver husband wrestling became a non-thing for me. As far as I knew, the whole McMahon clan had dried up and blown away. The only wrestling I watched at that time was the clay-mation “Battle Royale” every week on Celebrity Deathmatch. Several years would pass before I really began to have a true appreciation for the “art form” involved in the “sport”. Between my junior and senior year in high school, I dated a guy who wanted to be a professional wrestler. "Yes, of course I know it's fake," he told me. I still never really understood why he wanted to be a wrestler, but seeing as he never really made any strides toward making it a reality, maybe he didn't know either.

However, since I was schtupping this guy and I wanted to keep doing so, I re-entered the world of wrestling fandom. My old favorites, Sting and Mankind were still around, and for the first time I was able to look at them not as idiots in makeup, but as actors. It was a whole new thing. First of all, I'm not going to lie, it didn't hurt things that Sting is 6 foot 2 and his thighs were as big around as my waist should be. Didn’t hurt at all. It was more than teenage lust though. These guys were real, legitimate actors and I was totally impressed. They created their wacky wrestler man personas from scratch, and then played these personas out on live television. It was improv. It was melodrama. It was stand-up. It was theater. I like theater.

My relationship with the “would be” wrestler didn't last all that long. Great sex does not a great relationship make. All I had left after the spark died was a new appreciation for the world of professional wrestling and an even bigger crush on Sting. A crush that I would finally admit to out loud to a select few. Not long after I graduated high school, my mom canceled the satellite and we were down to having 5 channels once again. Luckily, in 2006 YouTube entered my life. We have had a very fulfilling relationship, YouTube and I. Whenever I want to watch classic wrestling clips, they are right there, 24 hours a day, in color! Not only can I watch more recent stuff (Rowdy Roddy Piper Returns! What?!?), I can also watch classic clips from The Golden Age of Wrestling, which happens to be the mid to late 90s. Matter of fact, that night at George’s birthday was apparently a huge night in wrestling history. Who knew?

I’m not gonna lie, it’s probably a good thing we can’t afford the cables, because I would turn into a teenage boy for Monday Night Raw. One day we will have the cables though, and when that time comes, heaven help me, my inner white trash may come out for all the world to see. And you know what? I’m totally OK with that.

 

Reviews

[Takeshi Yamada]

Nice retelling of your on and off relationship with wrestling, Joyce! It was interesting for me to hear your perspective on wrestling. Being a man, my interest was purely the dramatic clashes and imagining which guy I'd like to be my tag team partner. I found many parallels with my own experience, though. My older brother used to watch it all the time when I also wanted to watch cartoons. I could also familiarize with escaping the cafeteria to lounge around band room. Well told story and I like the closing.

[wordman]

we are who we are,i`m sure the wrestlers appreciate your loyality
personally i think it`s over rated,and like boxing much better !