500 Words...On Sports Entertainment
Posted by Lee Baker
on 01/13/2007
Have you ever felt embarrassed to admit that you like wrestling?
I have. On the first day of my current job my new colleagues asked me what my hobbies were. I listed the usual “man things”:
“Oh yeah, I like football and video games. Drinking beer, having fights, getting jiggy - you know, the usual”
I didn’t mention wrestling.
Don’t get me wrong - I love wrestling. I’ve loved it since I was a kid, but as much as we loyal wrestling fans understand and appreciate the finer art of the grapple game, the non-believers just see it as two men pretending to fight. It’s certainly not considered “cool” by Joe Public. It’s ok to like it when you’re 12 but apparently I should have grown out of it by now, being that I’m 27. Put it this way, I’m fully aware that if I want to maintain my street cred with a friend, colleague or female of the species, I need to be careful about admitting that I spend lots of my time watching wrestling.
… and playing with Transformers.
But fear not! Vince knows what we are going through. He’s 60 and he still likes wrestling. I’m pretty sure he knows that wrestling has gotten itself a reputation over the years for being slightly geeky. These days he certainly does everything he can to make the WWE less embarrassing and more hip, so the general public will be “down with it”. We should be thankful to him for that. He’s making his product more mainstream…
My manhood will never again be questioned. If my mates catch me in a tight spot I can always pretend that I only watch RAW to eye up the lovely Divas. There are loads of them! “Bah, I don’t want to watch sweaty men in trunks grappling each other! Hell no, I’m just checking out the chicks before the late night porn comes on…”
Sorted… but what if my girlfriend catches me watching wrestling? I can’t tell her that I watch it for the sexy women. She’ll kick my ass! What can I do?
Well, there is more to the WWE than embarrassing wrestling and a dozen beautiful women (with a combined cosmetic surgery bill of $1.2billion). It’s entertainment. There are comedy skits, celebrities, topical segments. Heck, there are plenty of reasons to watch it other than wrestling. It’s 2007. WWE isn’t just for wrestling fans. It’s popular culture. It’s not wrestling, it’s sports entertainment!
Sounds good to me! I can admit to watching wrestling without shame!
So what do we get from these modern “sports entertainment” shows?
Well, we get a fat male stripper, women getting worms dribbled on their faces, bad Donald Trump and Rosie O’Donnell impersonators pretending to fight, ‘George Bush’ dancing and flipping the bird, Strip Poker (that isn’t even poker) featuring women who WANT to strip, a bunch of toilet humour and K-Fed: WWE Superstar.
And there I was thinking wrestling was embarrassing.
Give me wrestling any day.
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My name is Lee Baker, and that was 500 words.
Any Questions, queries, praise or abuse, feel free to email me at eoe4w@hotmail.com. A response is guaranteed.
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