When I was little I stopped believing in Santa at a very young age. I believe I was about 6, maybe 7. I was always a perceptive kid and quickly picked up on the not so subtle hints my parents would drop each other. One day when I was in the care of my grandmother I snuck back to the place where my parents hid the Christmas presents. After rummaging through the items and later getting those same gifts as presents from Santa I was able to put things together. At the time I didn't really understand why they would go through such trouble to lie. I mean what was the harm in giving me the same gifts and just saying they were from them rather than feed me some bullshit about a guy from the North Pole who uses magic to visit all the good boys and girls. It's one of those things that didn't really start to make a lot of sense to me until years after the fact.
Speaking of Christmas, I recall one of my favorite Christmas gifts of all time. I think I was 8 and my parents bought me a WWF ring and two action figures. I got a Hulk Hogan figure and Ax from Demolition. Of course I knew who Hogan was, but having just recently gotten into the WWF product I wasn't really familiar with Ax. Still I spent hours upon hours of having matches between the two of them. I had created my own world in which Hogan and Ax were in the middle of a bitter rivalry. Over the course of their matches they split many decisions and traded the WWF belt (which came with the ring) back and forth several times. While some may question the entertainment value created by the repetitive combinations of only having two figures, I only needed two. In my fantasy world, their didn't need to be a third wheel Hogan and Ax were so deep into their blood feud that it would take ages to settle that score.
Then again any child with a new toy will eventually desire more. Even though the Hogan/Ax feud hadn't grown stale in my mind I jumped at the first chance to gather more figures to further create my federation from the ground up. After saving some cash through various resources I was able to score a Macho Man figure and a Jake the Snake figure. Savage would side with Hogan while Roberts would side with Ax. This trend would continue throughout the course of the years, as I built my wrestling company from the ground up. One of my fondest memories consisted of a match between Barry Windham and the Undertaker. They were in the midst of a feud for Taker's WWF belt and during a pay-per-view (those were my favorite time to hold my matches) they wrestled a classic that lasted every bit of 45 minutes. Let that sink in for a minute, and yes I did time my matches later into my habit. That means that for 45 straight minutes I was content simulating a match in my head build about 70 percent on pure imagination.
As I got older the stuffed wrestling buddies became a hit with me. Between Christmas and my birthday I was able to score Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior, The Million Dollar Man, and Ric Flair. While simulating matches with figures was fun, actually simulating matches with yourself was even better. I used to put on wrestling shows for my grandmother who was an old school wrestling fan. I'd get out an old mattress cover and spread it across the entire floor. I even hooked up a mini boom box so we'd have entrance music but most important were the characters. I didn't just come out there as the same guy every time, I had different characters I'd portray. My favorite was a guy who I deemed Second Blood which was my typical babyface and loved to punish the heels before getting a submission victory. Though occasionally I had to take the dive and allow my opponent (usually Ric Flair) the win in order to keep the crowd (grandma) interested.
I also had a Japanese heel character named Yoshi Fuigi. His style was much different, and while Second Blood was a technical submission guy, Fuigi was more of a striker. His moves almost always consisted of stiff kicks and chops. In order to keep that heel mystique he would use dirty tactics such as holding the tights, even during circumstances where it wasn't needed. Much like Second Blood, Yoshi would occasionally take the dive (usually to Hogan) but he would then follow a cheap shot up with a heel beatdown. It was very important that Yoshi kept the fans hating him.
Again age would change things and while imagination proved to be another great tool, it was inevitable that I would crave something else. After talking to one of my older friends I found out that they ran a small federation (keep in mind we are kids now) consisting of him and his two brothers, his best friend, and me if I was interested. Hell their dad had even constructed this crazy make shift ring using bed mattresses and plywood. Now before you shake the finger of shame too much let me mention two things. First, I'm not talking a backyard federation like the absurd shit you see on them direct to DVD videos. No I'm talking normal wrestling that just so happens to take place in a backyard. Secondly, we kept things as light as possible to avoid injury. While in retrospect it may not have been the smartest thing, the bottom line is nobody really hit any big time impact moves it was more about selling it to the people not in the match. For instance, most (not all) of our matches were 100% planned but it would be worked out between the "wrestlers". For instance if I was wrestling only me and my opponent would know who was going to win, and we'd both work to come up with something. In the rare instances where that wouldn't work, the finish would be a legit pinfall or submission.
The characters I had established from wrestling my "wrestling buddies" were now carried over into this federation with my friends. I guess you could say my Indy guys finally made it to the big leagues. Right away my Second Blood character was partnered up with the youngest brother who we deemed his character, First Blood and formed the Blood Brothers. He was the small agile guy who was supposed to be able to play up the "face in peril" role, while I was the big brother who would come in and clean house. Being a submission wrestling I practiced a finishing move for my character in which I simply called the SBLL or "Second Blood Leg Lock"...yeah I oozed creativity. The move would consist of me placing my knee cap into the back of their knee into the tendons, then I'd hook the leg and pull back. It was a simple as hell move but a bitch to get out of once locked in. One of my favorite matches was when I got to wrestle the oldest brother (the one who had called me) and I locked him in the SBLL for a solid 10 minutes but he simply refused to give up, nor could he escape. The match was eventually stopped and called a draw.
We'd eventually have a rematch to settle the score, and this time it was anything goes. What made this match so crazy was the fact that they were in the process of building a new house on their property but hadn't finished the inside, so we took it upon ourselves to brawl through the house. We bounced each other off the wood frames of the house, used a broom, used shoes, and even broke a plastic water jug. Give it's not as hardcore as busting panes of glass on each other, being 12 and busting a plastic water jug in a "wrestling" match was pretty damn awesome. Eventually, just as the last bout unable to get a finish we eventually beat down the ref getting the match thrown out.
As the trend goes, one day I called up my buddy seeing if he wanted to get together and have the next ppv (Summer Blaze I think it was called), the answer I got was "eh, we decided that wrestling just isn't fun anymore." I was crushed, but understandably they were 15 and I was 12 so for them to grow out of it sooner wasn't a shock. Still it sucked to stop doing that as that year was one of the funniest years I remember as a kid. After the collapse of our federation my full interest turned back to the wrestling product on TV.
One thing I always knew growing up was that wrestling was "fake", even when I first became a fan I was aware of this. The strange thing is, it's like people just wanted to remind me how fake it was just to turn me off the product. To me though, I've always compared the art of wrestling to a movie. While I know that all the explosions and special effects in a big budget action movie are fake as hell, I still feel compelled to watch. It's the same way with wrestling. Sure the matches are predetermined, but I can't help but feel compelled by the storylines. I can't help but feel drawn in by the effort put into making the matches seem as legit as possible. Most of all though, I can't help but be drawn in by the lengths they would go just to make us buy into their train of thought. Much like a big budget action movie, in order to get the full enjoyment out of the product you have to suspend your grasp on reality. The storylines of wrestling must exist within their own realm and be appreciated as such. To be able to trully engulf yourself in their product you must be willing to become a believer.
Finding the Presents
May 1996
On this night, Scott Hall would walk to the ring in the middle of a match on WCW Nitro and immediately draw the attention of the crowd. Now keep in mind that this was long before the IWC and you couldn't just jump online and that Scott Hall had left the WWF. So for extensive purposes, when Hall seemed hostile towards the members of WCW and declared "we're taking over" you had to assume that WWF was fixing to raid the competition. Likewise with Kevin Nash, for weeks you had to assume that Hall and Nash were still Diesel and Razor Ramon and were set to face WCW in some sort of WCW/WWF talent trade off.
This is one of the reasons that this angle worked so well, it was able to blur the line and turn the imaginary world of wrestling upside down in your head. At the same time this angle would lead me down a path of no return. While I knew wrestling was fake, I still bought into the things they told me. Obviously I knew the Repo Man was just a character just as I knew the Terminator wasn't really a machine. However, when something was presented to me in a certain aspect I took the presenter's word for it. What I mean is, if Vince McMahon told me that Shawn Michaels had hurt his knee and needed to take time off, well I believed it. So when it was implied that Hall and Nash were invaders, well I believed it. Not to the extent that WCW didn't know about it, but to the extent that I still thought they had ties to the WWF.
The turning point would come in October of 1996 when WWF announcer Jim Ross announced that Razor Ramon and Diesel were coming back to the WWF. Figuring this would be the tie in connecting the angle from WCW to WWF officially, the end result was disappointing. What we got was some guy named Rick Bogner doing the worst Razor Ramon impersonation ever and Glen Jacobs (Kane) portraying Big Daddy Cool Diesel. Where most gimmicks consisting of poor impressions only last one night, they somehow stretched this out all the way until January 1997.
It was at this moment that I really started to question the truthfulness behind certain things in wrestling. While I was still intrigued very much by the N.W.O., seeing this as nothing more than a stable took some of the luster out of the group. I was still very much into the angle but it was impossible to now be a little disappointed. It took me back to a time when I found the Christmas presents in my parents hiding spot. While Christmas was and still is a fun holiday, things were never the same.
Of course with the birth of the IWC, the temptation to dive head first into the news and rumors became too much. I now had my perception tainted as I started to let certain things settle into the back of my mind. It was hard to watch the product without thinking in the back of your mind "I wonder if he's jumping ship" "So that's the guy who played Max Moon?" "I wonder who isn't liked backstage."
It was like knowing the end of the movie before you saw it. Not to say that the film won't still be good, but it's hard to get the full effect when you already know all the twist and turns. Sure wrestling has always been pre-determined, but previously I was out of the loop. That's the problem though, over time you begin to read these news and headlines and believe that you actually are "in the loop." Instead of watching wrestling for the product, you let things like "which guy is an asshole" determine how you rate his wrestling ability. Hell, Jake Roberts has struggled with drugs for years, cheated on his significant others, and just in general been an asshole. None of that mattered though, because the guy could wrestle his ass off. That's where the line started to disappear and personal behavior started to dictate our opinions. Look at Edge, the guy is one of the best heels in the business right now. In real life the guy is obviously not going to win man of the year. Who cares, his personal life should be just that, personal. All we should care about is his ability to get the job done in the ring.
The Understanding
Having kids of my own I finally understand. While some may look at the idea of creating a false identity to get your kids to believe in to be a lie, I think it's something better. Much like wrestling you are giving them a world to live in, a world where anything is possible. While you do the work involved with getting the kids those gifts you take zero credit. Something magical happens when you do something so simple as let them believe that those gifts are from Santa. A gift from the parent is exciting as is any gift, but nothing can ever compare to the gleam a child gets in their eye when they see gifts from Santa. If you give your child a bike, they are going to be ecstatic. However, only Santa Claus gets the reaction you'll get at 2 in the morning when they see that ol' Saint Nick brought a bike.
The same can be said with wrestling. As a child that thought that bought into the reality of the wrestling world, and who suspended his belief for the product, nothing was better than seeing your favorite wrestler get the win. When Shawn Michaels defeated Davey Boy Smith for his first ever singles title on Saturday Night Main Event, nothing could have made me happier. I knew that the product was fake, but for the extent of time that the show lasted I was a citizen of their world. You think I ever thought about whether or not HBK was a cocky asshole backstage? Not even once.
When you get to the point where you are over analyzing every critical moment of a match and tearing it apart it comes time to look inside yourself. Think about it, does talking about how fake a product that actually is fake is really make any sense? I implore you, view the product as it is, not how it's reality based counterpart should be. That's the best part about the WWE aiming for the child demographic, it allows them to capture the imagination of children all over again. Capture their imagination much like ours was captured so many years ago, before we stopped believing. If you take anything from this column today let it be this; the wrestling world needs your faith again. Surrender, and suspend your belief once more. It is time to let yourself into that fake world, it is time for us all to once again become believers.
As always I am Dr. Monkey, and you've just seen the world through my eyes.
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