My wrestling journey (Part the first)

I started this blog to mainly write about women's wrestling. How I got into it, what I like about it, who I admire, etc. But the story really begins when I got into watching professional wrestling, period. I'm going to touch on that now, and part the second will really delve into my passion for women's wrestling.

In March of 1999, I was 16. In 1997, we had gotten a computer and I had been sucked into the world of America Online chat rooms. Particularly one which was for roleplaying Marvel comic book characters. In the summer of '97, I became close with a small group of people who regularly attended the chat room. Eventually we got to know each other outside of our characters. I'm still friends with some of them today.

To make a very long story short, one of them I "fell in love with." And when I say love? I really mean "obsessed to the point of having no social life outside the computer whatsoever." I was a teenager, full of that teenage angst bullshit. This guy was 2 years older than me and not a very nice person. To say the least. We were off again, on again, etc. for 2 years until February of 1999. He broke up with me, deleted his screen name and didn't contact me for a long time. Me? I was frantic. It was to the point that I would search AOL screen name profiles to try to find ones that fit his writing style.

Yeah. It was that bad. I had to find something to fill the void he'd left, something that would get me off the computer. I found it on a Monday night. Just casually flipping through channels. Not sure what made me stop, honestly.

Maybe it was the hotness of the Undertaker in his Ministry of Darkness persona.

I don't quite remember what got my attention, but I remember it was the Monday after Wrestlemania 15. One of my first memories was of the Undertaker holding Sable hostage and having Stephanie McMahon kidnapped. Little known fact....I'm a sucker for a damsel in distress story. So the whole Undertaker/Stephanie/Vince storyline interested me from the get go. I wound up watching the whole thing. Couldn't tell you a thing about that night other than the fact I was hooked.

So hooked, infact, I got permission from my mother to order the Wrestlemania 15 rerun on Tuesday. Yes, I was *that* hooked. I loved it.

This from a person who'd scorned pro-wrestling for most of her life until that year. My cousin was a heavy Hulk Hogan fan and I remember teasing him endlessly for liking that 'fake' sport. Wow, did that come back to bite me on the ass. (Still can't stand Hogan though, sorry!)

At the beginning, it wasn't so much the athleticism that got my attention. It was the hot guys & girls, the characters they played, and the storyline. It really was a soap opera for guys, as I'd heard somewhere. It was also a soap opera for women who don't like normal soaps. Like moi. At first, I didn't pay too much attention to the women's division because it was nearing the end of Sable's run in the WWF, and Debra was given the belt via a decision by HBK in a bikini contest (if I remember correctly). Not the best way to interest somebody in the women's division.

God bless Ivory, Jackie, Luna and Tori. I remember those four really kept it alive (albeit on life support) with sporadic matches. Ivory & Tori's hardcore match impressed the hell outta me (despite Tori wearing only undies and a white shirt) - Tori took a mirror over her head. I do remember thinking, "These women are tough!"....

And promptly went back to ogling Triple H, UT, Edge, Christian, etc and so forth.

I came in at the tail end of Stone Cold Steve Austin's feud with Vince, so I missed a lot of his antics. The destruction of the Titan Tron by him and Big Show was something I caught, as well as his and the Rock's feud. The Rock was damn funny, I loved his promos and his matches. I really started to admire these guys for their athletic ability when I saw the Hardy Boyz vs Christian & Edge at No Mercy '99. I know, it was a spot fest, but it showed me that these guys (and the others) were really willing to put their bodies on the line. This was no mere fake punching - this was ladders in the face and moonsaults off the top rope!

I devoured past Pay Per View tapes (and later DVDs). I learned about the greats like Bret & Owen Hart, Ricky The Steamboat Dragon, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels. I had the misfortune of buying & recording the "Over the Edge" PPV in which Owen passed away. That was my first big realization that wrestling wasn't fake. Like cold water in my face, I couldn't look at wrestling in quite the same way after his death. Reality intruded, and I watched from thereon after with a more mature outlook. Worse, I didn't learn and see how truly great Owen was as a wrestler and a character until after he died. He passed way too soon.

On occassion, I would flip to WCW but I never really caught onto it like I had the WWF. It was in it's final stages by the time I got into professional wrestling, so I had missed the Monday Night Wars. Likewise, my cousin told me about ECW and I found it on late at night on miscelanous channels. It wasn't the golden years of the mid-90's, but I was suitably impressed by the technical skills and the hardcore style of it's roster. When it got onto TNT/Spike, I watched it regularly but it too was dying out. A shame, since once I learned about it's history and saw some of it's PPVs, I could see why it had (and still has) a very diehard fanbase. A company that boasted of Shane Douglas, Steve Austin, Chris Jericho, Dean Malenko, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Brian Pillman, Raven....that's a company you don't underestimate.

I got into wrestling by accident, but it certainly did the trick. I no longer stayed on the computer for hours at a time, searching profiles. Now, I watched every WWF show (even the recap shows like Superstars, Jakked, Velocity, Heat, etc.) & recorded them all, bought and begged my mom for merchandise, and went to every show that came to Louisville. Even when they would bring in talent to the big OVW shows, I would go. (One time, my mother and I chased Crash Holly all over downtown! He eventually lost us, but it was a ton of fun.)

In other words, I replaced one obsession with another. :D

As far as women's wrestling went, however, I admit I wasn't too sold on it. I appreciated the aforementioned ladies for busting their asses, but never put too much thought into what they did, how they trained, etc. That changed one day. One woman got me thinking and looking into what women could really do in the ring. One woman got me interested, and it led to me eventually seeking out other venues in which women weren't a side attraction - they were THE attraction. That took a while, admittedly. But in 2000, one woman got me to sit up and pay attention as the women's division caught fire.

She accompanied her guy to the ring and rooted for him, like any manager did. But when he got the pin, she did something I'd never seen before.

She climbed the turnbuckle, back to the ring, and performed a picture perfect moonsault onto the defeated person. Essa Rios counted the 1-2-3 and raised her hand.

This was my introduction to Lita. She was unlike any woman I'd seen in the WWF to that point. Long red hair, a huge tattoo on her right arm/shoulder, and a devil-may-care attitude. She did moves that, I confess, I didn't think women could do. It was at that point I started to care about the women in the industry, how they were portrayed & treated, and how they performed in the ring.

Lita planted the seed - the resurgance of the WWE's women's division would make it grow. Eventually it would blossom into a full fledged passion that has yet to subside in me.

I'll leave off for now. The second part of my wrestling journey will cover my discovery of women's wrestling, as well as my appreciation of the pure athleticism that men like Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero portrayed. (And yes, their deaths as well.) Or it might be in 3 parts, I'm not sure. But for the moment, I'll pause here.

"The 99"...

This was originally posted on my Twitter using TwitLonger. Then I wanted to post it here, so I copied/pasted it. This just really grinds my gears. Read on fearless readers...

I checked the mail today and someone had stuffed 4 little flyers in. The front had half a person's face with the "rated R" symbol in the eye. It said "The 99", gave the location which is the local mall, dates and times and sponsers. On the back was two coupons to get into this show for 2 bucks only when it's a 10 dollar value. There's a small blurb at the top saying the 99 symbolizes the "average amount of deaths" among young Americans due to drugs, alcohol, suicide, etc. There's a website on the flyer so I looked it up a few minutes ago.

Basically it's a pretty graphic production you walk through that tries to 'wake up' people from 16 - 25 years of age and get them to make better decisions (no drugs, alcohol, texting while driving, etc.). Now I'm cool with this but something still nagged at me. So I googled it.

Turns out this 'production' is a Hell House. Ever heard of them? You might if you live in the South. Basically a Hell House is something churches put up to compete with a haunted house. It gives you a tour through the life of a sinner, complete with a visit to hell, then afterwards talks to you about accepting Christ as your Savior. I have no problem with Hell Houses (aside from the fact I don't think fear is the best way to Evangelize), because they're clearly marked as such.

This 'The 99' production is NOT. According to someone who visited, they lead you through all the bad situations young adults need to avoid but then the tour goes through Hell. You end up in a small room, watch a video, and a preacher tries to convert you. Some of the news blurbs on the actual 99 site have scenes from the drugs & car accident, and one news reporter says they can't show any more of it because the producers want to keep the ending a secret.

Well sure they do! They don't want to turn off non-Christians who might visit and/or take their kids there, thinking it's a good message. It IS a good message, but the ending is totally unnecessary. It's Ambush Evangelism. It's GOTCHA!Preaching. It'd be better to clearly state this is a Christian production, give people a clue that this has a religious message at the end, instead of tricking you into spending money to visit it and then pounce on you at the end. It's deceitful! It's not right. Unless you look very carefully at the sponsers on the flyer, you'd never realize it. Once I did, I saw where Evangel (a local mega-church) and the On Fire Christian Center were two sponsers alongside companies like Arbys, Chic Fil A, Texas Roadhouse, etc. That gave me a clue and made me research it when I got home.

My point is, Jesus never resorted to tactics like this. Know what He did? He talked to people. Got to know them. Didn't condemn them. He sat with prostitutes and tax collectors. He taught them. He never ambushed people nor deceived them.

Stuff like this makes me mad. I may go up to the mall on one of their production days and scope the outside out. It's taking place in the middle of J-Mall and there's not that much space so I wonder how big it'll be. I may or may not actually walk through because I want to see if the blogger was right about the presentation. And depending, I may speak up. Stuff like this just isn't necessary. Gandhi had a point.

"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

I wanted my second post to be about how I got into wrestling and then into women's wrestling. But this really got on my nerves so I wanted to share it here. I'd actually write more but it's almost 2 a.m. So until next time...