I've been meaning to write this blog post for a couple of weeks - ever since I learned of the passing of William "Paul Bearer" Moody - but then life and work and reruns of the Family Feud got in the way and so here I am, overcome with equal parts guilt and nostalgia. Just like a high school reunion!
It's been almost 10 years since I actually watched a professional wrestling event, a fact that would have horrified 11-year-old me to no end. Seriously, what kind of disappointment am I? But every few weeks or months, something will happen - an old wrestler will die, or will show up in a movie or on a TV show - and I'll be rocketed back to that time when I owned more oversized Austin 3:16 t-shirts than dresses or skirts.
From the time I was about 4 until I went away to college at age 18, wrestling was my religion. That sounds like hyperbole; it isn't. I watched every single episode, sometimes more than once, for the entirety of the 1990s and the first few years of the 2000s. I would read everything I could about the performers, to the point where I could tell you not only how many times they had held the Intercontinental belt but also what their real name is and where they grew up. Mr. Perfect was Curt Hennig. Shawn Michaels was Michael Hickenbottom. Hulk Hogan was Terry Bollea. Nowadays, anyone with access to Google can figure that out, but this was just before the Internet. I was using my book-learnin' to productive ends.
My childhood memories are highlighted by Wrestling Events. The Christmas presents I asked Santa Claus for were pay-per-view purchases and tickets to shows. One year, when I was in middle school, my dad took me to WrestleMania (you can even see me on TV holding up a sign after Stone Cold Steve Austin beats Shawn Michaels for the championship, with a little help from Mike Tyson). Another time, in high school, it was the Royal Rumble. These were the presents I dreamed about, not a designer purse or fancy jewelry. My birthday gifts were t-shirts featuring the likeness of Bret "The Hitman" Hart. I devoured anything written by Mick Foley. (Later on, after I had stopped following wrestling regularly, I tossed the Foley books, thinking I would never read them again. I really wish I still had them. They were fascinating looks into the industry, a real-life literary version of The Wrestler, and Foley, without the use of a ghostwriter, is a fantastic author.)
There are probably plenty of reasons why I embraced wrestling as entirely as I did. I was a loner of a kid who never really fit in with my classmates. I had friends for stretches who then didn't want to be friends anymore, and I always felt more comfortable either around adults or by myself. Wrestling was my release, and so I obsessed over it. My stress has always been relegated to my stomach - when I was going through a rough patch at school, I would wake up with excruciating stomachaches that only eased after I learned I could stay home. It sounds like I was faking, but I wasn't. The pain was real. When my parents allowed me to shell out $30 of their hard-earned money (a steal, nowadays) to order WrestleMania or the Survivor Series on pay-per-view, the good stress would hit me and my stomach would act up again. That was how much I loved it, all of it.
I stopped watching when I went away to college, for a few reasons. One was that, frankly, I was embarrassed. In elementary school, I was known as The Girl Who Watches Wrestling because I was the only one (this was post-Hulk Hogan and pre-The Rock, when wrestling's popularity was in a bit of a downswing). Luckily, my middle and high schools were both regional, so I was able to re-invent myself in a new place in the seventh grade and my wrestling fandom became my little secret for most of the next few years. Another reason was that I was going to be living in a dorm room, sharing space and one TV with another 18-year-old girl. I knew I wasn't going to be able to subject her to four hours of professional wrestling each week, so I quit, cold turkey.
Thankfully for me, college was also where I found myself. For the first time in my life, my peers that became friends FELT like friends, permanent ones. And they have been. It wasn't long before I could joke with them about my wrestling fan past, showing them pictures of me dressed as Randy "Macho Man" Savage for Halloween when I was 8 or posing with Paul Bearer and Dink the Clown at a FanFest when I was 10. They thought it was silly/cute, like that school picture when you're wearing hot pink sweatpants and a bowl cut. Ah, childhood. Weren't we all dorky?
Now that I'm almost six years out of college, I'll sometimes think about giving wrestling another shot, setting up the DVR to record Monday Night RAW or Smackdown, but it won't happen. I like the role it plays in my life now, getting exciting when I stumble across some random mention of a wrestler I remember meeting or watching. When I heard Paul Bearer died, I immediately dug out that photo of me and him from 1995 and posted it on Facebook. When I recently watched Magic Mike, I was gleeful when I learned that my hunch was right - the deep voice of the stripper named Tarzan was definitely Kevin "Diesel" Nash, and he's still as dreamy as ever. While grocery shopping last week, I saw the boxes of Fruity Pebbles were not only adorned with Fred and Wilma's daughter but also a cartooned John Cena; obviously, that box sits on my kitchen shelf as I type.
In a way, I guess pro wrestling was kind of like that imaginary friend that kids have when they're lonely or awkward or whatever. I'm just lucky enough that my imaginary friend has a real-life component that brings back some fantastic memories when I'm least expecting them.
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