Monday, January 30, 2012

Am I Too Old To Love Pro Wrestling?

As I have stated before, I still watch and enjoy pro wrestling. There was a few years that I got out of it, but thanks to Zack Ryder's YouTube show, I really got dedicated to watching Raw every Monday night and watching Smackdown when I remembered. A lot of people think this is sad and pathetic, but trust me, we have not gotten to the sad and pathetic part yet.

So I was watching the Royal Rumble last night, and although it didn't have the greatest matches top to bottom, two matches stood out with the CM Punk/Dolph Ziggler title match, and, of course, the Royal Rumble match.

In the Royal Rumble match, it came down to Sheamus and Chris Jericho. Before the match, I predicted that Sheamus would win the Rumble (worst brag ever?), but Jericho is one of my all-time favorite wrestlers. I have read not one, but both of his books. My brain was with Sheamus since I love being right, but I was definitely more rooting for Jericho, because I feel more of a personal connection to Jericho. Throughout the end of the match, I was on the edge of my seat as each guy was nearly eliminated about a half dozen times. In the end, Sheamus eliminated Jericho and will go on to headline WrestleMania. Good for Sheamus.

Before I go any further, I would just like to say that I know wrestling is all predetermined. I choose to not use the word fake, because wrestlers pull off some pretty legit moves. But yeah, I get it; it's not a real sporting event; it's sports entertainment.

Now the Punk/Ziggler match stood out, because I am a huge Dolph Ziggler fan. I think he's hilarious, and I think he's an extremely entertaining wrestler. Twitter has helped me like him even more as we both have an affinity towards Archer as well as a preference for empty stomach cardio. I thought he would beat Punk, and more importantly, I thought he deserved to beat Punk. The same thing that makes me think my favorite sports teams should win guided me in determining that Dolph Ziggler deserves to win. Even though they put on the best match of the night, I was a disappointed when CM Punk retained his title. I didn't realize it at the time, but after the show was over, I had to ask myself the tough question. At 27 years old, am I too old to be cheering for pro wrestlers?

I was forced to do some self-reflection, and I realized something. Pro wrestling is awesome. I want to remain passionate about for as long as possible. I know it's predetermined, but so are movies and television. Think about how awesome it is to watch something that you love and to just get lost in the storyline. Good movies and television shows aren't that common, so think about how much fun it is when you can get lost in something like that. I get to experience that every Monday night, and I love it. Don't feel sorry for me, because if you don't have anything that you can immerse yourself into and care about, honestly, I feel sorry for you.

I am 27 years old and proud to be a pro wrestling fan. Deal with it.

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