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Initial Publication Date: April 19, 2007 |
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Mr. Spock had been brought back to life after his own
physical death in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.” Bones wanted
Spock to discuss the phenomenon and encouraged him by saying, “You
really have gone where no man has gone before. Can’t you tell me
what it felt like?” The always logical Spock replied, “It would be
impossible to discuss the subject without a common frame of
reference.” “You mean,” Bones correctly concluded, “I have to die
to discuss your insights on death?”
In
writing this column, I sometimes feel as though I face the same
challenge as did Mr. Spock. “How in the world,” I asked
myself, “can I describe what professional wrestling was and what
it was like to be a part of that world … to people who never
wrestled? How can I explain the feelings, the emotions, the
passion, the respect, the camaraderie associated with something that
no longer exists?” I realize that a small percentage of my
readers are professional wrestlers who actually wrestled in the
1970s and early 1980s. I know that they “get it.” For example,
when I share the following story, they will understand totally, so
much so that a tear or two may come to their eyes. But, most of the
readers of this column are not professional wrestlers. Most of
them, after reading the following paragraph, will probably say,
“That makes no sense at all.” My challenge is to “make it make
sense” to all of my readers.
I was wrestling in the mid-1970s in Tennessee. On a long drive back
to our home base of Nashville, one of the lady wrestlers shared a
true story with me. She put it this way: “My mother had asked me a
few times over the years about the [wrestling] business. She asked
me if it was real, and, of course, I told her it was. She had been
sick for a while and over the past several months, she just got
weaker and weaker. Last week, we knew it was close to her time. I
was sitting in a chair next to her bed. She said, ‘Honey, tell me
one thing before I go.’ I nodded okay, and she said, ‘Is the
wrestling real?’ I looked into her eyes, and with tears rolling
down my cheeks, I said, ‘Yes, mom. It’s all real.’ She smiled,
gently squeezed my hand, turned her face to the side, and she died.”
I
received an e-mail from Brandon W. recently which read, in part:
“Yo, Rock -- fan of the column … A few questions: 1.) Why do you
guys get offended when people say it's fake? I know you guys get
hurt and you hit each other hard enough to make it look good, but
…” “Well, this is interesting,” I thought when reading
Brandon’s e-mail. “I’ve written over
fifty-eight full-page stories so far. This guy says he’s a fan of
the column, and, yet, he doesn’t understand why we would take
offense when someone says wrestling is ‘fake’. That’s the same
thing as saying we personally are fakes. Maybe I wasn’t able to
convey that point in the first fifty-eight columns.” I
continued reading Brandon’s email. His point number two stated,
“2.) You often pine away for the good old days, but I've never read
what the difference is between then and now as you see it.” “I
haven’t explained that either?” I asked myself in a mild state
of disbelief. “That just doesn’t make sense.” I thought I
had made it clear that an amazing professional sport and unique way
of life was replaced with ‘sports entertainment.’
With a questioning frown on my face, I read the
balance of Brandon’s e-mail: “The first match I ever saw was the
Nature Boy -- whoooo -- and Chris Adams. Of course I was immediately
hooked as any red-blooded boy would be. That was about the mid
eighties and the only change I see is that the guys take a lot more
chances and the whole production is bigger. Take it easy, Brandon”
“Oh, now it makes sense,” I said to myself. “There it
is. The first match this guy ever saw was in the mid-1980s. That
was AFTER the ‘transition.’” THEN it made sense. Simply
stated, people under the age of thirty do not understand what
professional wrestling was.
They
never had the opportunity to experience it. In future columns, I
will have the wonderful opportunity to introduce the “under thirty”
crowd, as well as everyone else to deeper levels of understanding
into the wonderful world of professional wrestling. It should be an
extraordinary journey. And, with the continued input from readers
such as Brandon, I will be able to continue tweaking the writing of
my columns to entertain and enlighten all of my readers.
In future columns, I will take you deeper into the innermost
workings of professional wrestling. You’ll learn just how far we,
the wrestlers, would go to “protect the business.” I’ll tell you
why the “good guys” and the “bad guys” would never eat in the same
restaurants at the same time. I’ll let you know why it was easier
for me, as a career-long “heel,” to walk out of a restaurant if a
“good guy” was there – rather than the other way round. You’ll know
why certain wrestlers would oftentimes be dropped off two blocks
away from the arena. Promoters didn’t want more than a few
wrestlers living in the same town at times. I’ll tell you about
the phone call from promoter Roy Shire telling me that I might need
to move to another town because three other wrestlers already lived
within the city limits of Hayward, California.
In future columns, I’ll share with you the overwhelming,
all-consuming passion we all shared for the wrestling business.
You’ll experience, through the written word, the amazing power, the
prestige, and the tremendous sense of accomplishment we always felt
after a match. You’ll understand the utter physical exhaustion we
felt after a match and why we loved the feeling. You’ll know why we
pushed ourselves beyond our limits. Each night, we would stretch to
go beyond where we had gone before (to keep with the opening Star
Trek theme). You’ll be able to see friendship and a sense of family
beyond what most people will ever know. You’ll experience the
excitement and the danger. You’ll learn that the lifespan for
professional wrestlers is shorter than that for just about any other
profession – and you’ll understand why a shortened lifespan is a
small price to pay to experience that which we lived. You’ll
experience the injuries, and you’ll know why we took pride (and take
pride) in them.
I’ll
tell you about the time a Japanese wrestler kneed me in the face
near the end of our match. My eyebrow was split, but the bleeding
wasn’t covering my entire face until I was nearly back to the
dressing room. The promoter walked briskly towards me and said,
“Get back out there. Let the fans and the TV cameras see your
face. Don’t waste that blood.” When I looked in the mirror the
next morning, I saw that I had a big black eye under those butterfly
closures on my eyebrow. I said aloud, “Excellent! This is going to
look great on the TV interviews tomorrow.” That complete story and
many more like it are upcoming in future columns. And, that’s just
the tip of the iceberg. We’ll talk about the wonderful art of
deception – how to do illegal moves that the fans and the TV camera
see but the referee can not. That is really fun. So, you and I
have a lot to look forward to in this column. Until next week, keep
those e-mails coming.
