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‘you’re breaking the fourth wall!’
Wrestling is massive again, and I’m not quite sure how that happened.
Every casual conversation I have with a group of lads seems to inevitably turn to how John Cena recently turned heel. Having not tuned in at 5 in the morning, my immense powers of deduction tell me that his character arc has probably gone from good to bad.
I’m 30, my daughter is up at the crack of dawn, and I NEED my sleep. Barring Conor McGregor making a surprise return to the UFC, I can’t foresee any circumstances that would make me sacrifice a night’s sleep for a sporting event – certainly not WrestleMania.
I personally haven’t watched WWE since the days of Kane, the Big Show, Stone Cold, Bautista, and Triple H in his long-haired pomp. Like most young boys, I went through the phase of paper champion belts, weird jelly action figures, and suplexing siblings on the trampoline. I just fell out of love with it around high-school.
Once I clocked that these glistening gladiators weren’t in-fact hitting each other in the face with sledgehammers and steel chairs, my interest tailed off and veered towards authentic combat sports like boxing and MMA. I’m fully aware, however, that this isn’t a sticking point for wrestling fans.
The theatre is what people love. Each wrestler has their own dramatic and constantly evolving storyline involving greed, or love, or betrayal (that normally culminates in someone being put through a table while commentators scream ‘Oh my God!’).
It’s this topsy turvy character development that adds an element of jeopardy to what are ultimately scripted bouts. There are millions of people who feel genuine adoration or hatred towards these athletes based on what script has been written for them. Triple H switching on Shawn Micheals in 2002 still keeps me up at night.
In all seriousness, I 100% get why grown people still enjoy watching wrestling and more power to them. It’s an amazing spectacle, the athletes are genuinely brilliant, and the drama is guaranteed.
What I do take quarrel with, is fans who, for some bizarre reason, refuse to accept that they’re watching fiction. The amount of grown fellas I’ve overheard in pubs or on trains saying things like, ‘Coady Rhoades was genuinely seething at The Rock,’ or ‘No one can beat Roman Reigns,’ is insane.
I didn’t get the response I’d hoped for when scowling: ‘He will bloody lose if writer John Swikata wants him to. You sausage!’
Being in awe of a developing story is one thing, but some fans are genuinely left heartbroken by the actions or sporting shortcomings of their favourite wrestler on any given night – like everything wasn’t written into a script and rehearsed 50 times before they watched it on Netflix.
