It’s been a long time coming and it’s time to head into the chapel to make a confession. I’m a professional wrestling fan and I don’t care who knows, thanks to the Syracuse Chiefs.
On Saturday night at NBT Bank Stadium, my daughter and her fiancé went to a wrestling match in Syracuse. It was even more special because this was the first wrestling event ever held at NBT Bank Stadium.
Minor league baseball teams have done some crazy promotions to attract fans in the past, but this new one has opened an old door for a dedicated wrestling fan in Syracuse to finally make a confession.
This made me reflect back on my guilty pleasure of more than four decades and I decided it was time to just come out and say it:
"‘My name is Paul Esden and I have been a professional wrestling fan for forty-four years’."
Now hold on a minute I can read your mind so let me digress.
There are two types of professional wrestling fans (maybe a few more but I will break them into two for purpose of this discussion).
The group that I belong to has admired the sheer skill, athletic ability and yes ‘Jerry Springesque’ of
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it all for many years.
The other group believes that someone can get punched in the face ten times while the crowd counts and later conduct an interview without a blemish, black and blue or fat lip to show for the multiple chair shots, elbows.
I can personally tell you (from both ends of this equation) that if you get punched ten times or punch someone ten times your face is going to replicate Mr. Balboa from the end of any of the fifty Rocky movies.
If you don’t believe me pick up Rick Flair’s autobiography where he outlines how each match and the winner is choreographed each time with both parties knowing the outcome before the fight. Unless you are Bret Hart but I digress…
Zinger
I have watched wrestling go from a bunch of Mom and Pop shows on Saturday morning to Mr. McMahon’s empire gobbling up most of the competition on his way to building the WWE Empire.
I have seen the Macho Man’s flying elbow, Mr. Hogan ‘Hulk Out’, Pipers Pit and the great Super Fly Snuka go corner to corner to deliver the big splash. Back then fans kept to themselves and were looked down on if they discussed Wrestlemania, Summer Slam or the Royal Rumble.
When I was young I went to the local gymnasium and watched the likes of Killer Kowalski wrestle in a ring that looked like an old mattress. As time passed I reveled in the Monday Night Wars with the emergence of the NWO and Ray Mysterio getting thrown like a lawn dart into the side of a tractor trailer by the Wolf Pack, that being one of the most entertaining times in the history of professional wrestling. My children have grown up as fans and we watch matches to this day together when they visit.
Times have changed, however, as the ESPN app not only tracks matches and will tell you who won, but Sports Illustrated has had wrestlers grace the cover, ‘E’ Channel and its Total Divas, John Cena’s True Grit – wrestling has finally gone mainstream and now I am free to declare my fandom.
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Now there have been story lines that were painful to watch (and still are) and sometimes the wrestlers hang on too long before retiring but I take the good with the bad. I look forward to the next 44 years of enjoying matches because as the faithful know being a fan is … for Life.