Maybe we should go back to calling it 'rasslin'

I find the idea of wrestling as an entertainment (or activity) completely repulsive. The idea of being up that close and personal with another male’s sweaty armpit turns my stomach. The fact that he would be perpetrating personal mayhem on my while my nose was stuck in his pit, or someplace even more repulsive really does make my gorge rise.

Maybe I could wrestle a girl? I have wrestled girls, in fact. But that was when both had an entirely other objective in mind. Enough smut. Let’s move back to the whole wrestling thing.

I have never been a fan of wrestling. I think it’s all fakery and despite arguments to the contrary its defenders’ll never convince I I’ll never be convinced it’s anything but a sham sport. Indeed, as a sport, I would put professional wrestling on a par with roller derby. Entertaining in its way, but still just an entertainment.

That is why professional wrestling has superseded real wrestling. If you were to watch true wrestling of the sort they do at the Olympics you would be comatose with boredom in short order. It’s all about assorted holds, and nothing much more. There is no yelling of epithets, no challenges to the spectators, no garish costumes. Just holds.

I used to watch wrestling when I was about 12, when we first got TV. We knew it was fake even then, but we were 12 and we found it a hoot. This was in the glory days of Gorgeous George with his peignoirs and blonde ringlets. There was also Mr. Moto, who was a Japanese guy who really played dirty pool in the ring. The war was still within living memory of the adult audience, so the rotten little (you’ll pardon the expression) ‘Jap’ was fair game as a villain.

Then there were also the midgets. They weren’t called ‘Little Persons’ wrestlers, just midgets. They were fun. And sometimes, just to confuse us, the lady wrestlers would come out. That was a whole different thing, and we found ourselves diverted, to say the least. But, as I said, we were 12. And 12 back then was 12, not something ‘going-on-25’. We knew nothing.

So, the movie The Wrestler was a big thing at the Oscars this year. I’m happy for Mickey Rourke. I used to like him as an actor in conventional vehicles like Diner, long before he went, shall we say ‘eccentric’. Then something happened to him and happened to his pretty, rather feminine (back in the old days) face. I don’t know what, but he looks entirely different. I don’t follow this stuff so closely so I can tell you no more than that.

Anyway, evidently he excelled in The Wrestler, and I am happy that he seems to be getting his career back on track, although I gather from my Perez Hilton that he is still a trifle on the bizarre side at all levels.

And that’s about all I have to say about wrestling.