( Kayfabe is the term used for the portrayal of Professional Wrestling as ‘real’. Someone who ‘breaks kayfabe’ is like an actor breaking his character on stage or on camera.)
Most boys my age think about cars, or motorcycles, or basketball, or other stuff that make them feel more masculine. I choose not to be interested in whatever those things are. I’d rather think about men in spandex pretending to fight in a ring (or in many cases, outside of it).
When I was a child, I was always intrigued by the images of arenas with neon lights on a ring that appeared late at night on TV. ‘Welcome to the World Wrestling Federation, the worldwide leader in sports entertainment,’ an announcer yells at the top of his lungs, as a muscled man in yellow and red rips off his shirt to the delight of the crowd. ‘Wag kang manood nyan, kalokohan yan (Don’t watch that, it’s stupid),’ my dad would always say as he gets the TV’s remote control to change the channel. He would often tune it in to boxing shows, where men punched each other in a similarly looking ring as the one I always see on the other channel, but without the colorful lights and cheering crowd.
Somehow, the images of the lights, the crowd, and the muscled man ripping his shirt off seemed to follow me. A poster of him was posted on the wall of my childhood friend’s room. The poster read that the man’s name is Hulk Hogan. My friend said he’s the strongest man on earth, and he could defeat anyone, however big his opponents may be. When we went to shopping malls, the man named Hulk Hogan was everywhere. His face was on shirts, posters, advertisements. Toys of him were also in every toy store, with different poses. I was intrigued and gravitated towards Hulk Hogan and wrestling more and more, but whenever I tried watching the WWF shows on TV, my dad would always switch the channel because according to him, he didn’t want me to be into a ‘fake’ sport.
To be honest, it wasn’t the ‘sport side’ of professional wrestling that got me into it at first. It was the spectacle, the entertainment side of it, which got me attracted to it as a kid. In Hulk Hogan’s era, the WWF looked like a festive circus. There were clowns and sideshow freaks, men carrying live snakes, men pretending to be zombies. Everyone played characters, and everyone was performing. There were guys who represent the good, and they are put against the evil ones. It was a big morality play, told in cartoonish fashion.
When I had my first own television set in my room, I was finally able to watch my first pro wrestling match. All I remember is that it started with an Undertaker interview, then to a quick, short match with the nameless, smaller guy losing to the Tombstone Piledriver. My interest in the show of pro wrestling grew and grew until I was 12 years old, when I first saw my first full Wrestlemania (the biggest pro wrestling event in the world) —Wrestlemania XIV— which featured Shawn Michaels defending the WWF World Championship to Stone Cold Steve Austin, with Mike Tyson as the special referee.
Pro Wrestling was at the peak of its popularity during that time, as Vince McMahon and the WWF went head-to-head with another wrestling company owned by Ted Turner (the owner of Warner Bros and CNN), the World Championship Wrestling (WCW). The WCW already had the WWF’s most established stars the likes of Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage under contract, and the WWF found themselves plagued with continuously low TV ratings. Wrestlemania XIV was to change the landscape of professional wrestling forever, as we witnessed Stone Cold Steve Austin win his first WWF World Championship. It ushered in a new phase of the WWF which would bring them back to the top of the industry, and one that would influence the lives of many young wrestling fans — The WWF ‘Attitude Era’.
The ‘WWF Attitude’, led by Steve Austin and Vince McMahon, was characterized by its adult-themed and Jerry Springer-inspired storylines called ‘Crash TV’. The shows were fast-paced, matches tended to be violent, and the language used was crude and politically incorrect. Gone were the circus-like presentation and the cartoonish characters, and in their place was a stripped-down and gritty WWF universe shown each week in episodes of WWF RAW is WAR.
What attracted me most in the ‘Attitude Era’ were the characters being portrayed. Even as a child, I always wanted to be a performer, and while many kids of my generation grew up idolizing movie or television stars, I always wanted to be like the larger-than-life characters I used to see on WWF TV. These characters, portrayed by wrestlers who risk their bodies to entertain their paying audience and developed through soap opera-like storylines, are why I am still hooked to Pro Wrestling until now.
Today, Pro Wrestling’s popularity is starting to dwindle. Mixed Martial Arts is taking its place, and most people (even pro wrestling fans) are attracted to the real or legitimate competitive violence it offers. However, I still am gravitated towards Pro Wrestling. Whether it’s the Family Friendly presentation the Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment is offering, or Dixie Carter’s struggling Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, or the exciting show of athleticism Ring of Honor, Dragon Gate USA and other independent wrestling companies are bringing to the table, it is the spectacle, the drama, and the shows that still amaze me the way I was amazed by Hulk Hogan ripping his shirt off as a child.
It is scripted, fake, at times choreographed. It’s a show. It’s a performance. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
