Pro Wrestlers Deserve to be Called Athletes
It’s high time we start giving them the respect they’ve earned.
Over 200 days a year. No off-season. Just running, jumping, bumping, and crashing on concrete, steel, and wooden rings with the thinnest layer of padding. Bones break, ligaments snap, and even the absence of serious injury leaves the constant ache of smaller ones. Short of something debilitating, there’s no time-off to recover, because if you stop, there’s always someone waiting to take your place. Whether it’s in a high school gym or a hundred-thousand seat stadium, the show must go on for the entertainment of some of the world’s most rabid fans.
It’s ironic that pro wrestling, the most gruelling athletic endeavour on Earth, is laughed at by most sports fans.
Fans of more traditional sports often balk at professional wrestling being mentioned in the same breath as their favourites. Just read the comment section on any Fox Sports article on the WWE. You’ll see the word “fake” so many times that after the 50th comment, you’ll start mixing it up with the word “the”. What these trolling keyboard warriors are missing is that even if pro wrestling isn’t quite your taste, it contains much of what we love about legitimate sports.
Let’s get one thing straight from the outset. Pro wrestling matches are not competitions. The results are predetermined. Furthermore, various major elements of each match are also determined ahead of time, the exact amount of which depends on the wrestlers in question. This has been the case since the start of the 20th century, when traveling carnival performers made the transition from shoot (legitimate competition) wrestling to a more entertaining style of athletics that necessitated the “fixing” of matches.
Modern wrestling is not fixed. It is not rigged, dishonest, or fake. It is exactly what Vince McMahon (hereby referred to as “Vince” from now until the end of time) told the New Jersey State Athletic Commission in 1989; “an activity in which participants struggle hand-in-hand primarily for the purpose of providing entertainment to spectators rather than conducting a bonafide athletic contest.”
Vince coined the term “sports entertainment” to differentiate his product (known then as the WWF) from other pro wrestling organizations at the time. But the term actually provides the perfect description for the industry as a whole. Pro wrestling is the bastard-child of athletics and theatricality. The problem is that so much time has elapsed between pro wrestling’s divergence from shoot wrestling and the current era that people can’t see the forest through the trees. They no longer see the sport that provides the foundation for the entertainment, despite the fact that pro wrestling is the most athletic that it has ever been.
The top pro wrestlers must possess a rare and diverse skill-set. This is especially true for WWE Superstars, as the WWE product is heavier on the entertainment side of the spectrum than anyone else. Wrestlers must be competent-to-great public speakers. They must have a keen understanding of storytelling to build compelling matches and programs. They must be skilled actors, both in their promos and in the ring.
Professional wrestlers are great performers, but today more than ever, they are called to be better athletes, because it always comes back to what you can do in the ring.
Pro wrestling is an exercise in pageantry and spectacle. It’s a muscled-up soap opera where larger-than-life personalities collide for the entertainment of paying fans. The fact remains, however, that all the promos and storylines in the world fade into oblivion if those collisions, those in ring encounters between athletes, don’t live up to the expectations created by the entertainers. What would have happened if Hogan couldn’t slam Andre? What if Brett Hart and Shawn Michaels couldn’t wrestle for an hour straight? Conversely, will we remember the Festival of Friendship in 10 years after Owens and Jericho underwhelmed at Wrestlemania 33?
I might be reaching on that one.
The point is that the entire purpose behind the showmanship and storylines is to sell the in-ring product. We care more about the matches if we care about the people in them, but as fans we still demand high quality wrestling to make the stories feel worthwhile, and the bar for what constitutes “high quality” is higher than ever. While the ‘Attitude Era’ pushed the envelope with edgy storylines and violence, today’s talent pushes the envelope with acrobatics in the ring. It takes The Red Arrow today to get the reaction that a moonsault got 20 years ago. I think it speaks volumes that while many pro wrestlers are failed football players recruited for their size and physiques, those guys are routinely outpaced by the likes of Kenny Omega, Seth Rollins and A.J. Styles: smaller performers with the balance and body control of elite gymnasts.
Fans are demanding bigger moves, more action and a higher degree of difficulty than we’ve ever seen. With more complex moves comes a greater need for the utmost precision, because your opponent’s life and livelihood is literally in your hands. The outcomes may be scripted, but the impact of bodies on canvas, steel and concrete are very real. One errant knee is a broken nose. One bad piledriver is a broken neck.
Speaking of injury, let’s talk about playing through pain, because pro wrestlers have the market cornered on toughing it out. We praise athletes for playing through injury, especially around playoff time. Imagine that, but every day is playoff time, and they’re no off-season for surgery. You just keep going until you literally can’t bare the pain anymore, and if you’re not already a star, your spot might not be there when you get back. By the way, if you’re a WWE Superstar, you’re working 250 shows a year, all around the world.
One of those Superstars is a guy named Mark Calloway, who you might know as The Undertaker. For my money, he’s one of the two or three greatest professional wrestlers to ever breathe oxygen. For anyone’s money, he’s one of the most respected performers in the history of the industry, not only for his talent, but for his toughness. He famously wrestled for months with broken ribs by putting on a flack jacket and having the medical staff duct tape it around his torso. The Undertaker is 6'8, and probably weighed around 320 lbs at the time. Do you think taking a 300 lb bump with broken ribs was fun?
By the way, he’s kind of needed a hip replacement since 1998. Is he tough enough yet to be an athlete?
Part of the reason that people like the ‘Taker do ridiculous things with flack jackets is because they’re competitors. They want to go out there every night and compete.
I can already hear a bunch of you yelling at your mobile devices. “They’re not competing! The matches are fixed. You even said that!”
I said that the results of the matches are predetermined, and they are. Nobody said that there was no competition. Every night, these performers go out and do what all other truly great athletes do; they compete to be the absolute best at what they do. Better than anyone else. Every wrestler who still loves what they do wants to steal the show and have the best match every night.
They compete for the adulation of the fans. Many of them probably compete with the hope of being recognized for that they are; high performance athletes sacrificing their bodies every night that they walk down that aisle.
Professional wrestling doesn’t have to be your thing, and that’s fine, because we’re not talking about the product. We’re talking about the players. The ones who spend all the hours in the gym, make all the sacrifices, and get none of the respect from so many people. I’m incredibly proud to be bringing a taste of pro wrestling to Grandstand Central, and I look forward to engaging with people who give wrestlers the credit that they deserve.
