Reality of Wrestling

As I sat and watched a tearful Chris Benoit kneeling in the ring hugging his newly won World Heavyweight championship I thought to myself one thing. As I sat and watched Eddie Geurrero tearfully hug his best friend in the center of the ring I thought of one thing and as I sat and listened to the electric crowd vehemently boo two departing professionals I thought of one thing. That one thing is that no matter how many people try and tell me wrestling is fake I watch events like these at the grand stage of WrestleMania and realize that it could not be more real or more to the point surreal. Understanding professional wrestling makes one appreciate what the wrestlers do to entertain us 300 plus days out of the year.

Chris Benoit worked eighteen long and hard years to finally be recognized as the World champion in the biggest wrestling company in the world. The tears he shed, much like HBK did many years ago were as real as any shed by any pro athlete in any other sport. It may be scripted outcomes but when a wrestler’s name gets the call from Vince McMahon to become the world champion at WrestleMania then that wrestler knows that he was just selected to become an immortal. Chris Benoit now gets to live in the annals of time as someone who won the big one on the biggest of stages ever WrestleMania XX.

Wrestlers live their lives for this moment in time and when the hard work and family sacrifice pays off in a culmination such as Benoit’s victory then everything that he sacrificed were as real as it could be for him. The legends that were there to be respected for what they did to pave the way for the current crop of wrestlers should be respected and cherished as much as any pro baseball or football player is respected for what they did for their respective sport. Wrestling may be an over the top form of entertainment but the passionate fans that watch this episodic male TV series that unfolds before us weekly certainly take it seriously. When the passion of MSG booed Brock Lesnar out of the garden it was because wrestling was taken seriously by the NY faithful and Brock essentially turned his back on each and every one of them and their favorite pastime.

The decision to quit was because Brock could not handle the brutal travel schedule that a professional wrestler must endure. That again is a very serious and real situation that each and every wrestler must deal with when choosing pro wrestling as a career. The time away from family, the long hours of driving or flying with little to no sleep does not sound to me like a walk in the park for a fake form of entertainment. Maybe I feel a little emotional about watching someone like Benoit win the title and knowing that Vince did exactly what he should have done to please his fans. Maybe it was watching Bobby Heenan on WWE TV again and thinking of the great times of yesteryear with Gorilla and the Brain. Maybe it was seeing Paul Bearer walking with the Dead man once again but whatever it was it made me proud to be a fan of pro wrestling.

You see it did not matter what happened at WrestleMania prior to the main event because the show was to be judged by one decision that Vince needed to make. WrestleMania-where it all begins again was to either mean WWE will be turning a corner and moving in a direction that should result in profit or begin again by doing the same old shtick all over again (read HHH as champion). I feel that WWE turned that corner at Mania and should never look back at where they came from. The “Attitude era” is officially dead and the re-birth of the company is now upon us, especially with the major announcement of the draft lottery next week. No more worrying about former stars of WCW recreating past glory but new faces ready to carry the company on their shoulders and to prove that their longevity in this business is not a fluke should be the new direction the company is taking.

Vince needs to understand that the fans are there. We have always been here but fans need to feel appreciated just like the wrestlers who occupy the WWE lockerroom. Just like Eddie Guerrero said to Benoit, we believe, we believe in the company and the product as long as our feelings are taken into consideration. We will suspend our disbelief and revel in every moment as long as WWE gives us what we clamor for every now and again. Wrestling is to us as real as any other sport as long as it is presented that way to us. We as fans will respect what should be respected, and will accept what should be accepted as long as it does not insult our intelligence. WrestleMania did not insult our intelligence and more to the point reconfirmed why we watch with such a vested interest in the first place.

Now WWE needs to move forward and start to win back fans of yesterday by making them believe that WWE is back on track. Start to push the wrestlers that deserve pushes and not just pushes due to size or political allies. Respect the past as opposed to ignoring it and pretending it never happened. All WWE ppv’s should be presented like Mania in that all matches are given time to progress instead of haphazard, on the fly booking techniques. When matches and wrestlers are presented as important then fans will accept that they are supposed to be important. WrestleMania XX had a greater level of importance where as normal PPV’s don’t always come across as such. Swerves like the one involving Trish Stratus have so much more impact when they are done over the course of months instead of one week and or seeing it coming from miles away. Lazy writing is one of the biggest killers a storyline could suffer through.

Bottom Line:

I was very happy with what I witnessed during WrestleMania XX.Vince needs to recommit himself and his creative team to taking us on the type of journeys that we traveled to get to XX.Taker and Kane took four months of build up until the payoff of the returning Dead man and Paul Bearer. Jericho and Trish/Christian took four months of build to get to a creative and unsuspecting swerve and Mick Foley and Randy Orton took three months to have their first match together (albeit tag match). Benoit vs. HHH vs. HBK took two months to build up a very intense feud that made the payoff so much greater when we as fans had no real idea what were to happen. By no later than March 29Th the Backlash PPV should be completed and so that the storylines have roughly three weeks to culminate. Smackdown should start this week to lay their foundation so that they have well over two months to have their feuds playing out.

A dream was achieved at WrestleMania XX by Chris Benoit and whether we believe that wrestling is real or not is irrelevant to him. Chris’s emotion was real, Eddie’s emotion was real, Jr’s emotion was real and the passion of the fans at MSG was certainly real. So whether you look at wrestling as fake entertainment or suspend your dis-belief and take everything to heart there is one thing that is for certain and that is when wrestling is showcased right there is no better program on TV, ever. If you sit on the edge of your seat and anxiously await the outcome of every match then WWE did their job correct in making you a fan of a non-real sport. Rumor is that Brock Lesnar’s decision to leave the WWE is based on his assessment that professional wrestling is “fake”. The emotion is real, the injuries are real and the brutal travel is real, fake is the concept that people think that being a pro wrestler is easy and foolish.

For my money wrestling is as real as it gets. Until next time that’s just my view

*nods vehemently* People might not agree with this. But what the wrestlers endure, what us fans feel for the sport, what we all love, wrestling is as real as it possibly can be.