Cross posted on The Dominate Wrestling fancast main site
I just got my mind blown by Cage versus Willie Mack in the opening match of the season finale of Lucha Underground, one of the best televisions shows on the air right now. Television shows, not just wrestling shows. The storytelling is impeccable, the attention to detail, something we constantly deride the WWE for not having in this day and age, is refreshing. The talent- many ex-WWE stars and stars of Mexican promotion AAA (Asistencia Asesoria y Administracion)- is top notch. The presentation is clean. All of this makes for a very enjoyable program.
But I’m not here to gush about Lucha Underground again. I’m here to gush about wrestling as a whole, and why I love it.
In my childhood years (yes, I was once a child and didn’t spontaneous appear inside of a claim shell because some powerful deity skeeted into the ocean), I lived with a wrestling fan- my older brother that nobody knows. Yet, even having a wrestling fan in the house did not make me a wrestling fan right off the bat.
Like many people before me, and many people after me, I derided wrestling as fake. Only did it because, well, other people did (as I eventually learned, mostly my father).
And then of course I watched it and the rest is history.
So it goes without saying that I love professional wrestling despite it’s falseness, and I love it for one overall, universal reason:
IT’S PERFORMANCE ART.
Wrestling is one big piece of performance art, using the greatest device that the Universe created, the human body.
Performance art is a performance presented to an audience within a fine art context, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation.
Thank you Wikipedia.
While not exactly fine art, wrestling is athletic, comedic, dramatic, romantic, exciting and extremely flawed. If done correctly, it makes for great entertainment, especially when you are in on the joke, let go of your pre-conceptions and enjoy it. Yes, it is fake, but 1: so it everything you watch on television (even the news, think about it y’all) and 2: that’s what makes it so great. It takes itself seriously, and yet it doesn’t. The fans are as much apart of the show, more so than in any other entertainment medium. They always tell you to suspend your disbelief when you watch wrestling, and that is the best advice ever, because once you do, it is an absolute thrill ride. This is my roller coaster (because I don’t like roller coasters). This is my guilty pleasure and I revel in it. So thank you professional wrestling. Thank you so much for your low brow fuckery.
