2025-02-27
I've been wanting to write a blog post but have been struggling to think of what to write about. Instead of repeating the same old things about tech and whatnot, I thought I’d try something new and write about professional wrestling.
My friends often ask me, "Why do you like wrestling?"—a good question and much less antagonistic than the statement I hear a lot: "yOu kNoW wResTliNg's fAkE, rIgHt????!!"
Let me start with the second point. Yeah... everyone knows it's scripted. Do you think Grey's Anatomy is real? (No shade towards my beloved Meredith Grey.)
As for why I like it? Let me start with how I got into watching it. My first exposure to wrestling was Monday Night RAW in 2012. My memory of it was: *"I don't really get it, but this R-Truth guy just got back from Disneyland and keeps talking about 'Little Jimmy.'" I thought it was amusing, but I wasn’t hooked. Why would I watch this when I could GRIND League of Legends until 1 AM?
So, I tucked that knowledge into the back of my mind. Then, in 2016, I was hanging out at my college buddy’s apartment. He had WrestleMania 32 on, and I was casually watching until I saw a man in a baseball jersey jump off a 20-foot cage onto a table. I was convinced something had gone awry and that I had just watched a man die. A minute later, I saw Shane McMahon get up. I was truly shocked and thought, I need to see more of this.
But alas, I didn’t have cable TV, and WWE TV was $60 a month or something insane like that. So, again, I tucked it into the back of my mind and forgot about it.
A little less than a year later, I was hanging out with the same buddy, and he was watching wrestling. This time, I came in right as the last three people were in the ring. At the time, I thought this was odd, but whatever. As the match continued to the final two—a wish.com Jason Momoa (Roman Reigns) and a buffer Jason Statham (Randy Orton)—I saw Randy Orton hit something called an RKO and then throw Roman over the top rope.
The energy in the room was insane. No one could believe Randy had won, and they were all chatting about how his WrestleMania match would go. Again, I thought, This is odd. It’s scripted—why are they so excited?
You know the story—I tucked this information away and went about my life.
Fast forward to 2023. We’re now in a post-COVID world, and I’ve moved more than I ever wanted to. My fiancée and I made friends with an older neighbor in our apartment. He was a pleasant guy—a little odd, but let he who is without oddities cast the first stone. We were supporting him in giving up smoking, and every week he went without smoking, we’d head over and watch Monday Night RAW with him. To his credit, he did great! Week after week, we’d head over and watch wrestling with him. As we did, I learned more and more about the wrestlers, their gimmicks, and who was champion.
Watching week by week, I saw that it wasn’t a tournament per se but rather that the matches were story point catalysts. We’d see folks join the show, win some matches, lose some matches. Week by week, we started to understand more about them. We’d know their walkout music, understand what faction they were part of, and whether they were a good guy (face) or a bad guy (heel). As this unfolded, we became invested in what they’d do next. We’d cheer or jeer these archetypes like you would at a stage play. They were characters the audience could connect with. Every week, they’d give a live stage performance, delivering story beats, hitting their marks, and presenting it under the pretense of a wrestling match.
Like any TV show, some things were predictable, but others were not. These are physical matches, even if they’re pre-determined. Concussions, broken bones—you name it. Outside of injuries, there’s also a dynamism to a show that has the flexibility to change week by week. Is the audience not connecting with a storyline? The writers can switch things up so the audience isn’t stuck with that story for the next six months.
A great example of this was in late 2023, when Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson returned to WWE and demanded a match against his cousin, WWE Universal Champion Roman Reigns. This would prevent the previous Royal Rumble winner and fan favorite Cody Rhodes from having his storybook ending. Needless to say, the fans were unhappy.
But instead of placating the audience, they pivoted the story into something more interesting. The Rock addressed the audience itself, calling them "Cody Crybabies" and insisting he’d get his match no matter what. In kayfabe (in story), The Rock wasn’t going to allow this. But Cody and his allies managed to damage the ego of the heel Rock so much that he needed to align himself with Roman Reigns to defend the honor of their family.
As I watched this unfold, I was hooked. What’s going to happen? Can Cody dethrone the face of the company, Roman Reigns, AND a world-class dickhead like The Rock? I thought, There’s no way. Roman is really good, he makes a lot of money for the company, and Cody literally started a competing wrestling promotion five years earlier. No way.
But he did it. The joy I felt as he won was more than I could have ever expected. He got his storybook ending after losing the same WrestleMania match against Roman the previous year.
This was a story I really enjoyed, and it was one of a dozen or so storylines happening at the same time.
There are a lot of stories being told on each show, and to be honest, not all of them are winners. But they provide enough variety and good pacing so that if there are stories you’re less interested in, you can avoid engaging with them and enjoy others.
Long story short, I like wrestling because it’s stories about people. And if there isn’t a single story you enjoy from wrestling? Then you’re a liar.