What? Professional Wrestling is Fake??

Tonight at 7:00 pm eastern standard time I will stand by a time honored tradition and tune in to the biggest extravaganza in sports entertainment history. I along with millions of others will watch Wretlemania. I have been a fan of professional wrestling since I was a little boy and have followed the the characters from the days of Bruno Samartino to present day John Cena.

Watching wrestling reminds me of my grandfather, we would sit in his apartment in the Bronx and watch Bruno take on “The Crusher” or “Mad Dog Vachon” on a black and white television with very bad reception. My grandfather loved Bruno Samartino, an Italian immigrant who just happened to be the world champion. I can remember him becoming enraged when the Grand Wizard, Mad Dogs manager would get himself involved in a match as the referee was looking away. The Grand Wizard always managed to pull some sort of shenanigans during one of their matches (my favorite was slipping Mad Dog brass knuckles that he would then hide in his trunks) but like all great champions Bruno would prevail and go one to wrestle again and again and again.

I hope most of you are sitting down now because there is something you need to know. It's not going to be easy to hear but after 30 years of watching I have to tell you. Wrestling is fake. I'm sorry but better you hear it from me than someone else. I know, it will be ok, be strong my friends.

You see, in our lives we all have friends, family and acquaintances who believe that we are complete morons. During the course of most of my adult life I have often at some point during a conversation interjected that I am a fan of professional wrestling....and then I wait. I know it's coming, I can see it in the persons eyes, their bottom lip begins to quiver, little beads of sweat begin to form on the brow, their eyes begin to twitch and they actually take half a step back before they speak the words “you know wrestling is fake, right?”

My answer is always the same, “No, I didn't know that.”

“Well yeah” the will respond with a look of utter disbelief. “You know those guys always have blood pills in their mouths, and they pull their punches, and no one really ever gets hurt, yeah it's so fake.” Funny how much they know about the fake sport. Could there be a DVD of Summer Slam 2003 hidden somewhere in a dresser drawer, hmmmmmm?

Depending on my relationship with the person I will either play along and have them believe that they have just shattered all of my beliefs about the sport, “you mean the night Hulk Hogan escaped the camel clutch from the dreaded Iron Shiek and then dropped the big leg on him to win the title was fake, oh god, you must think me a fool???????” or simply let them know that I am not as big an idiot as they must have thought I was when they needed to tell me that PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING IS FAKE!

Professional wrestling is good versus evil, David against Goliath, a harlequin romance novel and the longest running soap opera in history. The televised wedding of Macho Man Randy Savage to Miss Elizabeth was every bit as big an event as “who shot J.R.” Spoiler alert, it was Bing Crosby's daughter.

Watching professional wrestling has nothing to do with believing if it is real or not, that's what most people don't understand. It's an event, it's something I shared with my grandfather, for many years with my godson, and I've had a 40 year friendship that has revolved around the word “Putski.”

Professional wrestling is fake, I know that, just ask everyone who has ever told me. The memories of the people I have enjoyed it with are not.

Apologies Not Accepted...

Throughout time people of all kinds have devised many different ways to humiliate someone who they believed have done something wrong. People have been burned at the stake, drowned in dunking pools, stretched on the rack and stoned in public squares. I am thankful that we have abandoned those methods and for the most part and saddened that we have substituted them with THE PUBLIC APOLOGY.

Last week I was listening to a sports radio station. The two hosts entered into a discussion about the comments a local baseball player made about a member of the teams management staff. One host was so upset by the comments that he demanded the player make a public apology. Why? What good do public apologies do? I don't know of one person who can look me in the eye and tell me that a public apology has made them feel better after they have heard one. The reason for that?

We, in most cases do not believe the public apology. Oh, we'll watch them, listen to them even take time to read them but in the end we roll our eyes, shake our heads in disbelief and talk about them at work the next day. (Which by the way takes up way to much time out of the workday, back to work you slackers).

Former President Bill Clinton once said, "Indeed I did have a relationship with Miss Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong ... I misled people, including even my wife. I deeply regret that."

OK, show of hands, how many of us believed it? Uh huh, just what I thought. Mr. Clinton would have been much better off investing in a bottle of stain remover a good dry cleaner!

Former President George W. Bush told us, "After my presidency I have come to the belief that the Iraq War, although well intentioned, was unnecessary and too costly to justify. I deeply apologize to the American people and to our soldiers and veterans in particular for engaging them in such a conflict. "I may have made a mistake - but I think all Americans know that I pride myself on being able to admit my failures."

Well thank you Mr. President I feel much better now. Phew, mission accomplished. Glad you can admit your failures. Have another pretzel.

Entertaining as they are public apologies do me no good. I don't take any great joy seeing a grown man or woman standing in front of a podium begging forgiveness for something they said or did. I actually have more sympathy for the dutiful wife or husband that stands beside them during the apology. Nine times out of ten the wrong that was done was done to them and now they must endure the public flogging of their spouse while reporters ask “exactly what type of sex did you have the prostitute?”

Public apologies are meaningless. Do we think that because a person has apologized that they have magically changed? That they think or will act differently now? Do you really think Alex Rodriguez was sorry in 2009 when he apologized for using steroids? Oh, and then again in 2015 with an open letter to the world? Nope, I don't think he is.

We don't need people to publicly apologize. We just need them to stop doing the really stupid things they do that puts them in a position to have to apologize in the first place.