WWE Christmas 2015

An ode to wrestling. 

I was never a huge fan of wrestling. It my brother who enjoyed it and since there wasn't anything else to do I would sometimes sit and watch. So I can't claim to be very knowledgeable about it. But I think I know it well enough to also know that anyone who would have anything negative to say about it is mistaken, ill-informed, or dishonorable. The creativity, fitness, finesse, and execution that went into these spectacular extravaganzas week after week is still unappreciated by some people. There is nothing unreal about the dedication to training, craft, performance, and pain of these athletes. They have to have the look, the timing, and the endurance to pull off stunts no other type of talent could come close to touching. But what always got me was the level of what today I'd call "fan service." You can't watch WWE (or WWF back then) and not see how truly, genuinely dedicated they are to the fans. Night after night, the show must go on, and no one delivered like these guys.

And that appreciation of the fans was reflected right back. Picture the eyes of some trailer trash kid when his favorite wrestler makes his big dramatic entrance, and tell me you don't see in them a sparking cascade of positivity, hopefulness, and justice into his young mind that few experiences available to him could match. The story arcs of some of these guys are like modernized Greek myths, and these man-gods captivated whole families with their hubristic falls or heroic risings. The archetypes (the profit-focused businessman, the honorable marine, the turned-good gangster, the sell-out, the hillbillies, the trickster) gave young kids, especially poorer young boys, a framework for exploring and working out life's challenges and competing pulls, and they could always find something of themselves, sometimes a lot of themselves or those they knew, in the men of the ring. Like some kind of 1800s travelling Shakespeare troupe on the plains, they brought wide human struggles into small living rooms that didn't always have books on the shelves or dinners in the oven. I'll always appreciate them for that. Watch any match, and look at that crowd holding signs behind the ring. Look at the faces of kids with their dad beside them. No alcohol, no cussing, no bad deed unavenged. Entertainment at its purest.

I meant to post these GIFs just for fun, but there's just something deeper to them all that always catches me sentimentalizing. I always go back to that old TV with the rabbit-ears on the last channel (UHF 53) before the religious one (59) and we're sat there in front of it, taking it all in. There were worse things one could watch.

So this year, I am remembering old Christmasses with a couple of new pictures. I hope the holidays always surprise you with sudden joys and hidden happinesses.

Merry Christmas. 🎅🎄🎁🤼