Edgar Ramirez

8/25/16

Wrasslin’.Do you care about wrestling?Probably not,but my goal is to make this interesting enough that you will care about what I have to say.What I am talking about is why do people love and hate wrestling?Have you ever liked wrestling in your life?I have,like a lot.I’ve devoted many hours and days,I remember skipping days of freshman and sophomore years to watch any kind of wrestling whether it was documentaries or old matches.For most people you love it when you’re a little kid.It sort of like a cartoon, watching these characters and their stories progress and your just watching mindless action.I guess it can be easily compared to like Ren & Stimpy.Except,that these are real men who often work hard from the age 18 to get finally where they want to be at 34.They will wrestle anywhere as long as there is a ring there,wheter it’s bingo halls or backyards of their 80 year old grandpa’s house.They love it and you cant deny it from most of them.However, why do people hate it? Especially now that ESPN is covering it on their first page as a legitimate sport,it seems like the hatred is bigger than ever before.I am here to tell you why.

I started my wrestling fandom at the age of 5.The first thing I remember watching was Wrestlemania 19 with my older brother who had begged our dad to buy the ppv.The only thing that has stuck in my brain after all these years is Shawn Michaels.He was what caught my eye when I was a little kid.The way he wrestled was like watching the best action movie fight scene ever.He was simply put,electrifying.Yet,as a kid I had no idea of the backstory of the match or the man,Shawn Michaels,himself.I started watching it weekly in 2005 after attending a live RAW show in Fresno,CA.It is one of the fondest memory of my childhood,I remember getting in the tight van with all my cousins who lived in Mariposa,all 4 years or more older than me.We talked about about wrestling all the way until we arrived at Save Mart Center where are $15 dollar seats were awaiting us.We were way high but it never took what was the most glorious day of my life.I remember when Kane,whose character is he’s the demon brother of The Undertaker and is strangely fascinated with fire,came out as I could feel the flames all the way at the tippy-top and that awful smell of burnt hair.The best part,however,was of course when Shawn Michaels came out.I remember literal tears streaming down from eyes,losing my voice screaming for Michaels to beat Kane and guess what?He did!Something that was a forgettable episode in 2005 for WWE was the most unbelievable moment of my life,seeing my hero win the main event match on Raw and that’s all that mattered to me.That’s why wrestling has been so important to me.

So why is wrestling bad for people?Why has it’s viewership plummeted from 15 years ago?” Wrestling has always been harassed for being too “fake” and referred to as “gay,” or reffered to as soft and made for children.For me,I feel out of it after 8 years of basically worshiping it and letting it take hours upon hours of my day because I had other interests.It just didn’t fit in with things that I had wanted to watch anymore.Is it that way for most people?Some have labeled WWE as too violent.It’s one of the major keys to the reason WWE is rated PG today.Back in the attitude era,Vince Mcmahon and the higher-ups had basically every guy get hit in the head with a goddamn steel chair!Many former wrestlers have had and currently are having lawsuits against WWE for the mistreatment of wrestlers.They’re mostly complaining about the concussion issue that WWE completely ignored, and none of them getting health insurance to cover those injuries.Some of the former women talent have filed sexual harassment lawsuit against several employees,with a lot of it being thrown under the rug and forgot about.There was a major lawsuit in 1993 against the then WWF about steroids and how the company and the boss himself were accused of handing out steroids out to wrestlers.It was the trial that was suppose to take down McMahon and it completly shattered the company’s then family-friendly buisness.Somehow,someway Vince was able to win and actually probably became better after that,but that’s a diffrent story.

So how did I personally get back into wrestling?I started to form an opinion that I hated after reading countless stories and watching several documentaries of how it had ruined some(I recommend watching Beyond The Mat)but then something occurred to me.I was only listening to all the negative aspects of wrestling,the ones who said it was bad.I never searched for an answer of why I loved it so much.So,that’s exactly what I did.I starting tuning again in early 2014,when WWE had a storyline of this underdog named Daniel Bryan trying to grab the brass rings and main event WWE’s Super Bowl,Wrestlemania, but authoritarian figures did anything to stop them.I had found out about the ongoing storyline by Twitter as I had still followed some wrestling news users.I read more and more about Daniel Bryan.It was sort of a moment in time when the story intimaded reality,it just really felt like nobody in the WWE offices wanted this small,once considered cruiserweight man, on the top with all their other big buff meatheads of today and the past.

Daniel Bryan,however,felt like an exception.He’s probably the most likeable guy on the universe.Before WWE,he wrestled all over the world puttting the world’s finest matches and probably putting his body ont he line every night he came out there.When he arrived in the WWE in 2010,he brought that level of physicataly and psychology to the WWE brand.It was basically not really what mainstream wrestling was at the time and it has been the opening to the doors to the wrestlers that currently peform for WWE. Anyways, Daniel Bryan, the guy and the wrestler,quickly began to be my favorite,just gave me the feeling that I had as a little kid with Shawn Michaels.It felt like his love for just wrestling and telling a good story was on every time he was on television.So while WWE did their best to slide him down the card each PPV,the fans said no.It was sort of the first time I watched WWE and felt we had a voice.Just so many times we were recycled the same old boring things night after night.The wrestling fans wanted no more of it as they basically pushed Daniel bryan to the main event of Wrestlemania and would reach probably one of my favorite wrestling moments whenhe closed the show with the WWE championship.

What makes this a little bitter sweet is no less than 4 weeks after this,Daniel finally reaching those coveted brass rings,it was discovered he’ll have to take time off for he was scheduled for neck surgery.It seemed like this was probably Daniel’s last shining moment,as he was forced into retirement after a failed comeback in 2015 when he suffered a concussion during a tour in Europe.It was so unfourtanate.In Febuary 2016,I watched a man who loved what he did more than anyhting have to leave it.I saw a guy who knew his limits but broke them.Daniel Bryan deserves to wrestle still but he knows he can’t,for himself and maybe his future family.But,what I got of all that is why I like wrestling.Like most sports it has it’s dark and very regrettable past,but i’m sure what you appreciate is the men who go through all of it.My personal feeling is I have just enjoyed the spectale of wrestling.I know it’s fake and I know the outcomes are predetermined,but stories like Daniel Bryan are why I enjoy it.I think you have to ask Mr.Bryan if he regrets any of the smiles he put on any little kid’s face.Making people entertained is just something that’s irreplacable.