Pro wrestling and the suspension of disbelief
They say the things you enjoyed as a kid may not be as good as you remember. Perhaps 10-year-old me was simply looking for an escape, but it felt like getting hit by a chokeslam when, amid the trials and tribulations of grade school—exams, guidance counselors and slowly entering the gates of high school—I accidentally discovered the world of the WWE and pro wrestling.
With all the hard-hitting chair shots, explosive finishing moves and gravity-defying aerial dives, wrestlers may very well be real-life superheroes. I started watching WWE between late 2009 and early 2010, and I thought the drama and heated rivalries were real.
Objectively speaking, wrestling hasn’t been as popular as the height of the Attitude Era during the late 1990s, with larger-than-life characters Stone Cold “Steve Austin,” The Rock, the D-Generation X, and the villainous onscreen character of Mr. McMahon. And as it turns out, wrestling is “fake,” which is an unwelcome description of the sport. There are storylines, pre-determined outcomes and writers laying out what happens onscreen, but the over-the-top action and wrestlers putting their bodies on the line are very much real.
While wrestling can be distant from reality, it reminds me of how memorable moments are made, not built.
What hooked me the most were the characters that branch out through action figures. My dad would get me my first action figure of Chris Jericho, a favorite wrestler with whom I share a birthday, at the stalls of Ever Gotesco Commonwealth. This would only lead to more nights he’d go home from work with a new figure in his hand. The back issues of WWE magazines were also sold cheap at Booksale, which I would, of course, take a gander at for hours and hours. Wrestling became an obsession, and I would dream of becoming a WWE commentator one day because little old me wouldn’t want to risk getting injured.
We even had a phase of laying down power bombs or chokeslams on the bed, completely denying the “Don't Try This At Home” message. As a kid, the suspension of disbelief is as high as The Undertaker throwing Mankind off the top of the Hell in a Cell.
In high school, I found myself gravitating more toward film and cinema. From action figures, my dad introduced me to Entertainment Weekly and the DVDs he owned and loved. Comic book movies were at the height of their “golden age” then—even when I slowly grew out of wrestling, my adoration for characters and stories that provided a sense of heroism and grandeur stayed the same. It remained an escape from my ordinary life.
Of course, it wasn’t long before my interest in wrestling came back, with the phenomenal WWE debut of AJ Styles, a former top star of WWE’s then-rival promotion Total Nonstop Action (TNA) Wrestling at the 2016 Royal Rumble, and the enigmatic return of Matt & Jeff Hardy, also known as The Hardy Boyz, at Wrestlemania 33. It was also when WWE started to have a plethora of new talent in Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Finn Bálor, Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn.
Soon, my sheer curiosity about catching up with the WWE started from casually watching match highlights to getting back to a love I thought had ended long ago.
There were some old faces I was familiar with but also new characters I was excited to delve deep into. It felt like I never left. This time around, the storytelling was what got me invested. I try to follow the industry through the confines of what’s going on behind the scenes. From a writer’s point of view, I wonder where the story can go next or how this character can go through another arc toward a new chapter. As far as wrestling can be as distant from reality at first glance, it reminds me of how memorable moments are made, not built.
As I watch the WWE now as a 24-year-old, I think about the magic created when I first laid eyes on the product, of playing Smackdown vs Raw 2011 with my cousin, and 12 or so years later, playing WWE 2K23 on my laptop. I’m still figuring things out, finding my footing in this world, and pro wrestling remains an escape. I remain entertained by the silliness of wrestlers acting and “fighting” in a pre-determined bout, still feeling awe and shock before and after the bell rings.
It’s what storytelling does to you: we lend our minds and hearts even just for a moment, and we experience the beauty of stories. I’m glad I got back into pro wrestling, as it called me back to remember who I was years and years ago.
