Every year during WrestleMania, Twitter is split completely down the middle. On one side, you have people tweeting passionately about a fake sport; I’m typically in that group. On the other side, you have people complaining about that first group clogging up their timeline by tweeting about a fake sport.
My general stance is that you can’t really help what you’re into, and so long as it somewhat conforms to society’s norms, you should embrace it. There are blogs out there dedicated to Garfield comics without Garfield in them, or inserting images of Drake into scenes from Breaking Bad. And I think that’s totally fine. Who am I to judge? I collect ski caps with high school basketball logos on them.
This isn’t to say I believe it screams normalcy for a 34-year-old guy to enjoy watching men in Speedos pretend to fight with each other. But I cling to the belief that there’s a difference between me and the infamous “IT’S STILL REAL TO ME, DAMMIT” guy. I have a relatively legitimate job with a livable salary, I’m married to a lawyer and I appreciate a cup of tea and a good novel.
It’s just, I happen to think wrestling — for all its at-times egregious flaws, the steroids and misogyny and whatnot — is a tremendously entertaining form of television. When you watch a really well orchestrated match — to me at least — it’s an adrenaline rush on par with a great NBA Finals game. And somehow, wrestling is one of the only things I liked as a kid that I still really enjoy now, along with Spider-man, Batman and blue cars.
Don’t get it twisted, though: I’m fully aware that wrestling is totally ridiculous. Though it has its share of self-reverential nonsense — Triple-H, in particular, takes himself way too seriously for a guy who literally slept his way to the top — it often can’t help but make an unabashed mockery of itself, usually by design.