It's Still Real to Me!

​It’s still real to me, dammit! Yes, I love professional wrestling. And it’s not even a guilty pleasure for me anymore. I of course know it’s “fake”, and I’ll admit that it can be really bad at times. But, to paraphrase the great Dutch Mantell, wrestling, when done right, is art. In fact, wrestling is just as much art as a good play, book, film, or television show is. It’s interactive improvisational theatre. With violence. And I love it.

​Now, there’s a good chance that if you are reading this you love wrestling, too. Or at least you used to at one point love wrestling. Maybe you catch WWE Raw or TNA Impact on TV only every now and then. Or maybe you haven’t watched any wrestling in years. Maybe you only read about what’s going on in the dirt sheets or on Twitter. But admit it, at one point in time you loved pro wrestling.

Even though pro wrestling can frustrate me sometimes, I still come back to it. I'll see a great match or interact with a worker and I'll remember why it is I love wrestling so much. I need my wrestling fix!

​So that’s why I come to you today with this new blog of mine: to talk about the art of professional wrestling. Every week I’ll discuss some aspect of wrestling. I have a list of topics I want to cover, some broad, some very specific. I’ve also got some interviews lined up with industry professionals. I’ll be visiting a lot of indie shows around Ohio (at least), so I’ll talk about those, too.

​ Most of my discussion here will focus on the independent scene. Why is that? First, that’s what I watch the most. Southeast Ohio is a hotbed for independent wrestling action, so I have an opportunity to go see a ton of shows. And second, I think indy wrestling is the purest form of the art.

That's not to say that I'll never discuss the bigger TV promotions like WWE or TNA. I have friends that work at that level, so I still watch and enjoy wrestling on TV now and then. And the big promotions bring something to the table that the indy promotions just can't compete with: spectacle. When the big players get things right, it's spectacular!

And that brings me to my final point. This won't be a negative blog. I'll talk about the things I like and don't like in very general terms, but I won't denigrate anybody's work. Everyone that performs for the fans is giving it their all for our entertainment. They love wrestling just as much as I do, and I respect that.

That's it for the intro installment. Next episode: an interview with Tribute Championship Wrestling's Scarry Garry!