Professional Wrestling Memories and Me - Why I Love it so Much

Ask the majority of adults in the world whether they like professional wrestling and they will quickly respond with an indignant no. Watch those same people in the quiet of their homes and you will often see them secretly catching an episode of WWE Raw. The stigma that is on professional wrestling these days is deserved thanks to the WWE Raw era and the storylines that would make Larry Flynt blush. There is more to pro wrestling to me than all of that though.

When I was a little boy, the only thing my biological father and I had in common was a love of wrestling. We would attend the live events and most Saturdays we would sit glued to the tube. It was a different time then. Pro wrestling was much more innocent and the cat was not yet out of the bag about it's being fake. I knew it was even at that tender age, and yet I watched because it brought my father and I together. I was lucky to have time with him any other way, so I took what I could get.

Back then, professional wrestling was all about good versus evil. It was not about sex, broken marriages, murder and the other story lines we see on today's product. It was a good guy versus a bad guy. It was Ricky Steamboat coming out and challenging Ric Flair on national television, and Flair cheating his way to a win. Steamboat would eventually overcome the bad guy and order would be restored. The wrestlers truly were larger than life and for all the right reasons back then.

I remember going to the old Greensboro Coliseum and sitting in the upper balcony for the matches with my Dad. It was just him and me, and we talked for that four hours about who we thought would win and so on. He would actually get tickled watching my excitement and I would love that he noticed. Wrestling was a glue for us of sorts and kept us somewhat close. At the matches we were father and son and it felt like it. Other places it did not seem so.

I look around WWE arenas now and see some of that going on even today. It is a generational sport and entertainment show that is almost always passed down from some member of the family. You still see fathers and sons in the audience and that bond that I once loved. That alone is enough to love it.

While the story lines are not ones I would approve of as a Father, they are starting to move towards a more kid friendly environment again. It is a slow move, but someday I hope it returns to its roots in some fashion. The bottom line to me is the history and the passion of the show. Explaining that to a new fan is tough. You kind of had to be there.

Seeing Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat together on that WWE Hall of Fame stage a couple years ago really brought back years of memories. I remember the very beginning and that makes it connected in many ways for me. That connection is the essence of professional wrestling. The industry certainly has its share of issues and problems, and I am not blind to them at all. Still, I am a fan and will be until the day I die.

My father is gone now, and I can never bring him back. But I can still flip on wrestling and pretend he is sitting with me on the couch, patting my back and sharing it with me. That is priceless and worth any cost to me.