It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows. Too me, as I get older, knowledge is a key ingredient in everything I do in order to participate. That's why I like to learn everything about which I am participating in. Goethe once said, "Knowing is not enough; we must apply!" To me, this statement speaks volumes of my life as a wrestling fan. Once a six year old bewildered by massive athletes doing seemingly inhuman & super hero acts from Hulk's hulk up to Shawn Michaels nipping up after the beating of his life, it was this that filled me with hope and passion. It's the suspension of belief that gives us compassion for these "fake" fights, but as I think harder and harder of the Science of Wrestling it becomes practice rather then a passion.
Science is organized knowledge. Wrestling is supposed to be entertainment. Through the rigorous torments of boring matches, promos, and backstage skits, I remain a fan. Knowledge always rules over ignorance, but when it comes to wrestling logic, while being a key factor, it must be set aside to allow yourself to become encapsulated with the show. The very reason most turned away from wrestling is they get older and basically once they know the ins and outs, get frustrated & stop watching. While people complain about the storylines, wrestler X is not getting a push, and the bad booking you have lost the very reason as to why you were a fan in the first place. I could sit here and try and tell you what's going wrong and what's right in wrestling, but it's not going to mean anything to you because you have developed your opinion and once you know, you know, you know?
"The dumbest people I know are those who know it all."
Malcolm Forbes
Oh, the wacky wonderful quotes. It was once said the first major step towards knowledge is to know we are ignorant. While we sit in our armchairs and critique, we have no understanding of what is really going on or why a certain thing happened other then our speculation. I would like to re-work a quote here by Umberto Eco if I mat. I have come to learn wrestling is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had underlying truth. As I stumble towards my point with strained eyes from staring at my computer screen for the last thirty minutes, the revelation that I know nothing more then a twelve year old child holding a John Cena sign dawns upon me with great weight and power. My own supposed knowledge has become my worst enemy and in attempt to rationalize, critique, and dissect the world of wrestling, something I love has become the biggest victim of my relentlessness. I know no more than I know and know less about what I think I know. Too simplify, my thoughts is to see the rational theory. I search for the point that I used to find with ease. It's something I had, lost, and is now completely missing. Wrestling shouldn't be some unique code that few understand and be used to attack those who don't know the "workings" rather a vast world of characters & stories all can enjoy. This could be misinterpreted as me saying psychology and things like that don't matter; this would be completely false as I believe strongly in psychology.
I sit and read page and pages of wrestling info, news, views, and opinions from the newest fan to someone who has followed wrestling since the 70's. The range of emotions from each person is staggering. I watched the Royal Rumble with my uncle who is 64 years of age this year. I watched as he cheered, got frustrated, and by the finish of the show, was happy. This was intriguing as he had experienced something very similar to what I had watched it just hours earlier. Wrestling is an art form I like to think I have a fairly deep understanding of and something I'd almost consider myself a connoisseur of. Some flavors I love, some I hate, and some I just don't get, but in the end I search for the same thing every person who has ever watched wrestling wants: entertainment and to see amazing athletes perform breathtakingly.
"The possession of knowledge does not kill the sense of wonder and mystery. There is always more mystery."
Anais Nin
Wrestling is so vast and so different than a form of entertainment that you get so much out of what is considered by most as a joke. But we as wrestling fans have our own little world where we get drama & athleticism and heroes & villains. We get a range of emotions few movies could ever wish to offer: suspense, comedy, surprise, passion, love, hate, and much more.
We bite our nails and pull out our hair in frustration and come back for more and more. The same thing that causes these emotions all seems to cause intense arguments between people trying to prove they know "the ins and outs" of the wrestling business. Wrestling fans feel the need to know every last aspect about wrestling from a business standpoint, in ring standpoint, and backstage view of things. We search through tangled webs of deceit, backstabbing, lies, sex, drugs, and money to try and find out why wrestler X never got the push we feel he deserved so much. Reading lines in the sub plot as to why did this & that happen meanwhile forgetting Occam's Razor: usually the simplest answer is more often then not the right answer.
Keeping this all in mind, wrestling fans are some of the most intense & sometimes overbearing people on Earth. You would rarely find a football fan reading the annual financial reports of the team and searching for conspiracy on why they didn't call up a young talented player from the secondary squad. You wouldn't find it for any form of sport out there besides wrestling. You would find a select few for the entertainment business, but still, nowhere near the amount of people that do so in the wrestling community.
The simple fact is that the wrestling business is one hell of a mixed up, messed up, confusing, intriguing, and mind numbing conundrum to figure out. I know my last statement seemingly goes against my previous two pages which is usually right and to complicate things even more, I truly believe in both answers. We as fans tend to make things more complicated then they really are. May be wrestler X isn't getting pushed because the promotion sees nothing in him. "But no! That can't be! He is amazing" one will say to himself and search through conspiracy after conspiracy as to why this is happening instead of just shrugging it off like any other normal human being.
Are you confused? I sure am.
This is why the wacky world of pro wrestling and its "science" is so immense and consumes seemingly way too much of our lives. We may be wacky, but the world of wrestling is wackier. We complicate things, they complicate it further. It's a never ending novel of plot twists, fascination, and wackiness!
I really hope you weren't searching for some hidden truth from this column. No, this is a trip through the mind of half asleep, half crazy wrestling fan trying to find sanity in a bunch of thoughts. My only hope is that someone has these thought or at least similar ones and can say to themselves "Jeez, this world really is wacky" & subsequently laugh at the silliness that wrestling fans are for searching for hidden meanings in messages in things that are so much clearer then we make them.
Or you can try and search for the hidden meaning in this column like you do in the science of wrestling.
Up to you.
Copyright © 2005; TheWrestlingVoice.com & Douglas Nunnally.
All Rights Reserved.
Disclaimer & Privacy Statement
| What Did You Think About WWE Backlash 2008? |
|
|