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Feb. 23, 2005 I just finished reading the article by Eric Schomburg, and I found it very interesting that professional wrestling is just now burning out. That it had not gone the way of roller derby, American Gladiators, and professional track and field. Many times in the past wrestling seemed to be on death’s door, but always came back to haunt the late night television audience. When doomed shows such as G.L.O.W. (glamorous ladies of wrestling) came on the screen, you couldn’t find the remote fast enough to change the channel. Now I was raised in a home where every Saturday afternoon my dad turned on the TV and we watched professional wrestling in glorious black and white. Where the really great wrestlers such as Grizzly Bear Smith, Ivan Putski (the Polish Strong Boy), The Mummy, Johnny Valentine, Andre the Giant, Dirty Dusty Rhodes, Chief Wahoo McDaniels, Black Jack Mulligan, and many many more. They would come out of the shadows of smoky arenas and fight it out for thirty minutes. Even some matches lasted as long as an hour, especially the tag team events. So why is the audience leaving such shows as WWE’s RAW. Well probably for the same reason that I myself quit watching it years ago. No body wrestles anymore. The matches that I enjoyed were where the wrestlers came out, showed their distaste for each other, and went at it. Using holds such as an arm bar, full nelson, half nelson, chicken wing, drop kick, abdominal stretch, figure four-leg lock, and the claw. Yes there were those wrestlers that had special gimmicks like hypnotizing their opponent, or wearing a mask to hide who they were. But they could wrestle as well as look bizarre. What is professional wrestling today? It has degraded into little more than a ten to fifteen minute soap opera. The plot usually begins with the wrestler’s manager or agent (usually female, wearing tight clothes) making threats against the opponent. Then the bad guy would slap or punch her, maybe even knock her out with a usually brutal body slam on the hard concrete floor. To her rescue comes the wrestler she manages and the fight finally begins, or so you would think. But no, the bad guy grabs a metal folding chair and smashes the head of the good guy, knocking him out. Then placing the unconscious man or woman on a folding table where they jump from the top rope to destroy the table and supposedly the other wrestler. Which leaves the viewer with ten minutes of nothing but violence they could have watched on the evening news. Not one wrestling move had even been attempted. No demonstration of using their mind and body to defeat their opponent with the skills they have learned. So what do we watch for entertainment now? We watch shows where real people go to islands in far off lands and try to survive. There are always those countless shows about police officers, detectives, crime scene investigators, or emergency room doctors. Maybe professional wrestling would become more popular if they told people that the events were real, and not from a written script. For it was much more interesting and real when everyone thought it was fake. ------------ About the author: Tim Quinton was born October 12, 1956 in Gonzales, Texas. He lived there till he joined the U.S. Army in 1979, and left in 1992. During these years he was stationed in Kansas and Hawaii, where he attended Chaminade University of Honolulu majoring in history. After the service he returned to Gonzales were he lives with his wife Kathy. Email: tquinton@stx.rr.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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