WrestleWipe #4

I want to talk about Escapism.

Sorry everyone, this issue won’t be the usual sack of thoughts on wrestling’s various twists and turns. All the news and events of July can take a backseat and be caught up with in Augusts’s issue, the world will still keep turning if I don’t give the wrestling scene the negative spin that it truly, and unwarrantedly, deserves. I have seen the car parks, corridors and wards of hospitals far and further enough the past five weeks that rigging up a piece about professional liars and the lies that they tell has been the last thing on my mind, but pro wrestling has been the one constant in my life that has allowed me to lose myself every now and again. Through the long drives it’s been wrestling podcasts, through the early mornings and sleepless nights it’s been wrestling, in the savoury seconds between the chaos it’s been wrestling chat and wrestling discord and wrestling forums.

Music is too emotive (I made the mistake of listening to one of my favourite albums whilst writing this, ‘S/T’ by This Will Destroy You, and that was a mistake from the get-go if my oniony eyes are anything to go by).

TV and movies are too cumbersome (I spend more time browsing for houdini telly than actually finding something to bloody watch).

I’ve hardly been able to concentrate on a book (‘Dubliners’ is still sitting in my work bag, untouched save for the marks of the previous twenty owners).

Video games have been the only other solace but even then I've been second-screening with wrestling audio discussion, and I’m kinda worried that video game sound designers are going to have my guts for garters if I ever set foot in their general direction.

The past month has got me thinking about the periods of time where I needed that escape hatch, oftentimes without me even knowing, and how often it was professional wrestling that reared its ugly head, beckoning me over with its sombre grin. Two drunk carnies, hunched over on a kerb with half a pint dribbling into the gutter, leaning on one another in a warbled laugh that’s comforting whilst being messy as all get-out. It’s times like these you learn what gets you through, and while I’m trying my damn hardest to not come across overly-sentimental in regards to a pastime that I very often have a hard time justifying the existence of, it’s still the mafia boss to my everyman, pulling me back in when I’m low, just when I think I can rid myself of those spandex shackles.

I remember being sat watching the first run of the Cruiserweight Classic during a time of distress and this voice banging in the back of my head, hurdling round and round, “Is this all you want to do, sit there and watch fucking wrestling?”. It isn’t what I wanted to do, not by a longshot, but it's what I felt I had to do.

I remember being sat watching Shane McMahon hurl himself off a cage, at a time when my life was about to be put through the wringer with all the delicacy of a tattered tea towel. I received some news that night and retreated back to the sanacity of the screen, and lost myself in the nepotistic chaos whilst I crunched and chewed on life’s developments.

I remember lying curled up in a protective ball in my school uniform as Mike Awesome hurled Spike Dudley through two stacked tables, and I remember watching Lobo hurl himself, piggybacked by Dewey Donovan and Johnny Kashmere, off a cage and through four tables, and I remember Hardcore Hak hurling himself off a stagecoach to cram Bam Bam Bigelow through the shards of a table, and I remember all these in the moments, minutes, hours, days and weeks that I needed them.

Occasionally I’ll even revert to pro wrestling in my mind when i’m toughing through life’s day-to-day and year-to-year extreme dips, imaging the grandeur in my head when I need to poker face my way through a thick quicksand pit. It’s always just enough to take the edge off, just enough to remove myself even a little from my current human self. It’s odd how your brain works, how it learns to cope and endure, to come out on the other side as unscathed as possible.

Keeping up with AEW Dynamite and the G1 the past six or so weeks, and catching the little bits of WWE and TNA and whatever else comes floating across my eyes as I stare into the sun, and the endless queue of faceless voices that I stock up in the loading gate, aiming the double cylinders at the sides of my head to drown out the noise and keep me on the level have been a constant consistent catharsis. I don’t want to name names and put praise to anyone for aiding me in this childish self-defence mechanism, but I feel I’ve developed a real good circle of analysts, critics, jokers, smokers and jamokers, with very little in the way of fatty exuberance, and they’re just as important as the pro wrestling that I’ve been cramming in during lunch breaks and mornings.

Is this the most positive I’ve ever written about pro wrestling? Very possible. I apologise for the lack of analysis and quips this month, this was the only subject I wanted to write about it, just to get it off my chest and let me breathe a sigh of relief that I’ve put something out there, as I’m incredibly grateful for every subscription and every follow, and I didn’t want to let you down and I didn’t want to let myself down. Projects like this are tested by these sorts of waters, and these storms will be seen through, to be sure this is a project that I want to keep going for as long as possible instead of dipping out of at the first sign of trouble. To steal a line from Devine, I’m selfish enough to want to get better but I'm backwards enough not to take any steps to get there.

And hey, if you’re a pro wrestler and you’re reading this, take this as an assurance that even a seasoned, hardened, and handsome cynic like myself values what you do occasionally…well, if you’re good, that is.