I'm unbelievably exhausted. I've just got back from a 4 hour wrestling training session. 4 solid hours of being thrown around and throwing other people around in a gym. Tremendous fun.

I've been wrestling for a few months now. I have my second show coming up in March, and I really enjoy it. Often, when I tell people that I'm a wrestler they'll say something ridiculous like "It's not real", or "It's all set up". (Kids, if you don't want your view of wrestling spoiled forever, look away now).

Sure, it's not actually two guys going into a ring and throwing each other around and really meaning it. Sure, most of the moves are planned before hand. And yes, virtually all the moves require cooperation from the person taking the move and the person giving it. But so what? It still takes a degree of skill and practice to pull the moves off convincingly. And let's face it, some of the heavy wrestling moves look fantastic, but try to do them in real life and you'd have no chance.

Let's look at the Body Slam. This is where one guy picks up another, holds him in the air, and then slams him down onto his back. It's conceivable that a strong guy could pick up a lighter guy and hit the move on him in a "real life situation" (in fact, I'd love to see it happen in a pub-fight). But if you're trying to pull it off on a guy as big or bigger then you are, you're not gonna get him off the ground. So the other guy has to put a little jump in. And once you've got him into the air, he's actually holding himself onto you. You can take your hands away and he'd still be up there ready to be slammed.

The wrestlers know when there's a move about to hit them. They have to know, so that they can break their fall properly. In real life, a body slam or a suplex gould break someone's back, or at least give them some heavy bruising. And I hate to think what a DDT onto a concrete floor would do to someone's head.

So in reality, wrestling is less of a fight, and more of a dance. A painful dance, to be sure, but a dance none the less. There are set moves, there are even set sets of set moves, but when everything's pieced together, everything works. And of course, the best thing about it is, a good wrestler can take a move which (if executed correctly) causes him no pain at all, yet make it look as if he has suffered a severe beating. So what if it's set up. It looks cool, and it still takes skill to make it look cool.

But enough of the view from inside the ring. Let's imagine you're in the crowd watching a fight. Most wrestling matches are a variation on a similar format. There are distinct "Good Guys" (faces) and distinct "Bad Guys" (heels). Obviously, the idea is for the crowd to cheer the face, while they boo the heel. Of course, the heel character is usually bigger than the face, and quite often very arrogant, so they'll come along and beat up the face and then mock the crowd, which obviously gives the face time to recover and make a comeback... which rarely lasts very long before the heel is in control again. After a vicious beating, the face may lose consciousness or fight back using his last ounce of strength, and knock both people down for a while. This is the perfect time for the crowd to get pumping for the face. Now, the face will be up and go for a last attck, which will be stopped and something nasty pulled by the heel. Depending on who's supposed to be winning there may be some outside interference on behalf of the heel, or the heel may try a move which the face avoids and hits his own move to win the match. If you've ever seen any of the "rocky" movies, you'll know the score.

OK, it sounds corny, but when you're in the crowd, cheering or booing as necessary, there really is a great atmosphere. Even though you know it's not "real", you can't help wincing when a particularly nasty move is carried out. Even though you know he's not REALLY unconscious, you still can't help stamping your foot to get him to power out with his last remaining ounce of strength.

And so you know have two choices. You can either:

1.go and watch a wrestling match (doesn't have to be a big show - many towns have small amateur wrestling associations which are great fun - the only wrestling I watch is amateur stuff. I only started doing it because I wanted some trousers like "The Falcon"), get stuck in cheering the guys on and going "ooooh!" or "aaaah!" when they take a nasty bump. 

2. Find a local wrestling association and train up to become a wrestler. It's tremendous fun, it's incredibly easy to pick up and you'll get to meet a lot of people. And then you can say to people "I'm a wrestler now", and they'll say "But it's not real, it's set up", and you can remember this column, before  Power-Bombing them through a table.






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[chad, stick this in fine print at the bottom] People always say to me "God, man, you're always complaining, is there anythjing you DO like? Well, here you go. I like Wrestling. And Chad, wrestling's popular, and I still love doing it, is your theory still holding up?