Monday, March 15, 2010

Opening Bell (Statement of Intent)

This blog is mostly going to be about good 'ole fashion wrestling, or "rasslin" as people in the know claim it is derisively referred to nowadays in places where they produce "sports entertainment."

I say mostly because I reserve the right to go off on non-wrestling tangents pertaining to things like the strange, largely ill-advised, production choices on the new High on Fire record, the tragedy of post "Night in the Ruts" Aerosmith, and other such gravely important matters when the mood strikes me.

My intentions aren't to bash the current version of "sports entertainment", but to preserve the glorious, nostalgic feelings I still get while watching classic matches from the 1980's when wrestling, along with metal, formed the twin pillars of my adolescence and went a long, long way towards making that often tumultuous, scary time a lot more stable, comfortable and, yes, fun.

Metallica, the Horsemen, Motley Crue, the Million Dollar Man, The Road Warriors--these were the people my friends and I talked about on the way to the bus stop in the morning and argued for and against in pitched battles at cafeteria tables over stale bread and the ever present tomato soup.
I still get excited in 2010 when Chris Jericho comes out and cuts a withering, hilarious promo on the "parasites and sycophants" whose number, no doubt, includes yours truly and when I see Doug Williams do his rolling German suplex, but I can't help feel like something has been lost.

Of course, I'm an adult who may be teetering dangerously close to "grumpy old man" territory and wrestling isn't the only business that has changed in the past 25 years, but I feel like something fundamental has shifted in the presentation, production and perception of this great spectacle and I'm hoping that celebrating the past might give me a better appreciation of the present.

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