When considering whether or not something is a sport, many debates seem to arise. The thought of cars only making left turns appearing in a Sportscenter highlight following a spectacular catch by Chad Johnson or a diving stop by Chone Figgins is pretty ridiculous. Watching the festively plump John Daly blow two-inch putts makes one truly question society's definition of an athlete.
As a young sports fanatic, there were four sports that seemed to matter to me. Basketball with Pat Riley's Knicks, baseball with Dallas Green's Mets, football with Rich Kotite's Jets and, finally, professional wrestling with Vince McMahon.
The sickened faces that I've seen after admitting to my WWF fanaticism have varied quite a bit. There's the curious \why would you watch greased up men in spandex"" face and the simply appalled ""you need to be examined by a medical professional"" (and not the 80s wrestler, Slick, aka ""The Doctor of Style."")
What many of you--who may now doubt my sanity-fail to understand, is that wrestling, for me, had religious meaning. Young Christian children have Santa Claus and Rudolph and even the effervescent Easter Bunny. Not having that luxury, my loving father turned me toward the ring. For me the overweight jolly man who brought me gifts became Yokozuna, a sumo wrestler whose main move was to simply sit on his opponent's chest.
And just like a young child who finds out that the Easter Bunny doesn't really hide eggs throughout your home, I was terribly upset to find out that the winner of the 1994 Royal Rumble did not truly win anything, except for a fake gold belt. (Lex Luger and Bret ""The Hitman"" Hart both were victorious, with their feet hitting the ground simultaneously).
I will admit it here for the first time. When I found out wrestling was fake, tears streamed down my face faster than a Ricky Steamboat roundhouse kick. The world as I knew it was fabricated. Although that could have been the end of my fandom, I marched on, embracing my counterfeit love as something no one else could understand.
In following years, I attended three Wrestlemanias (X, XI and XIII), ditching Passover Seders in order to attend ladder matches. I missed many of my grandmother's matzoh ball soups just to smell ""what the Rock was cooking.""
And to write these ""galoots"" off as ""knuckleheads"" is asinine. Sure, baseball has Sen. Jim Bunning from Kentucky, the MLB had Sen. Bill Bradley from New Jersey and the NFL had congressman Jack Kemp from New York, but the WWF had Gov. Jesse ""The Body"" Ventura from Minnesota, who promptly switched his pseudonym to ""The Mind.""
The national passion for professional wrestling has faded over the years. Vince McMahon, the owner of World Wrestling Entertainment, was once an ingenious marketer, finding new ways to reach new audiences. But the characters have become less entertaining, and the program relies more on inappropriate sexuality than amusing and absurd plots.
I realize, in pursuing my dream of being a sports writer, people think it's best to let go of a sport whose competitors sometimes wrestle to see who will have the custody of a child.
But I refuse to back down. I am here to help. I offer a chance for wrestling fans to come to terms with what they are. Don't be afraid to come out from behind your life-size cardboard cutouts of the Heart Break Kid. And if you don't have one, I have three extras lying around in my basement.
Sam Pepper can be reached for comment or ridicule at sepepper@wisc.edu.
