Wacky Wrestling Theory 11.06.08: Why Wrestling Fans Shouldn’t Believe in God

Raise your hand if you thought ‘God’ was really going to appear at Backlash 2006 to be Shawn Michaels’ tag team partner against Vince and Shane McMahon. Nobody right, because that would be ridiculous. Now, raise your hand if you think Chris Jericho legitimately beat Batista for the World Heavyweight Championship. Again, no one is that naive to believe that the Cage Match on RAW’s 800th Anniversary Special was a real contest. Yes, I’m going to make the comparison: understanding that pro-wrestling is fake proves that there is no ‘god.’

Pro-wrestling was once thought of as a real sport. I’m not joking. These days when you see the rosters and champions out there, it’s kind of hard to see how anyone could have ever bought that small dudes like Chris Jericho and CM Punk could be winners in a universe where The Big Show and Great Khali compete, but yup, it was once a pretty realistic pursuit. Sure there was a time when Frank Gotch, Lou Thesz, Bruno Sammartino, and maybe even Hulk Hogan, looked like they could legitimately beat anyone on the roster and made the matches as realistic as possible (given their era), but not even Kurt Angle or Brock Lesnar, the two most qualified real wrestlers in pro-wrestling history, could make anyone doubt the predetermined nature of pro-wrestling today. The ‘business’ has been exposed. Maybe eighty years ago the world didn’t have the technology to examine pro-wrestling closely enough to recognize that the moves and blows, in comparison to boxing, were staged, but now we can see all. To appreciate pro-wrestling is to value the craftsmanship of the wrestlers as great dramatists and gymnasts but not as real combatants. Well, I believe that the exposure of pro-wrestling as a phony sport is an excellent comparison to religion and faith, and how believing in an almighty deity, or supernatural force that is responsible for human existence, these days is just as ridiculous as thinking that pro-wrestling is a real sport. Pro-wrestling fans should be considered some of the most enlightened and sophisticated facets of the fandom cultural landscape because they can appreciate wrestling in spite of obvious predetermination. Therefore, it would be ridiculous for any pro-wrestling fan to still believe in something so obviously fake as ‘god.’

Let me write up a quick history lesson for you. Thousands of years ago, there was no way to communicate with the people on the other side of the hill, let alone on another continent. As the evolving humans strived for more communication, and thus more knowledge, they had to invent technology to accommodate these desires and make a better life for their children. Accumulated experience and genetics helped to push men and women away from hovels and into the houses. All along though, there were scary things like lightning and sneezes, which just couldn’t be explained by ‘our’ eyes. People created magic stories to satisfy their visual confusion based on a lack of factual information. Those oldies can’t be faulted for explaining away their fears like this (I mean, most of us today still probably doubt the existence of multiple dimensions, although the mysterious shutting down of the Cern reactor has got to be scaring you at this point, but that’s another story…) but thankfully now we can happily elucidate all of the once supernatural things of the world with science or logic, and no longer does anybody have to ‘die’ because they stubbed a toe and pissed off some ‘god.’ Smart people, although a minority, saw that hocus pocus religious beliefs were both cute and phony, or could be used to manipulate the remaining stupid people. Now pro-wrestling, on the other hand, was once a spectacle that improved on the failings/boringness of wrestling and boxing by taking the art of the combat and stretching it out into a profitable narrative. The intelligently gullible audience believed in it because it looked real and that visual information was a satisfying enough explanation. As television brought the eye of the audience closer, it was only a matter of time before the enlightenment of the audience began. As more people caught on to the fakeness, more bells and whistles had to be added to try and distract people, but again, either smart people appreciated the art of pro-wrestling or the stupid were truly fooled. Organized religion had to take up this same policy of exaggerated distraction, and as pro-wrestling fans we should be able to see right through it all. Instead of futility trying to just scare people into believing something super silly, religions increased all the superficial bullshit to try and distract followers from the reality that there is no ‘god’ and make it more difficult for halfway intelligent people to succumb to the idea that a magic man created the universe. What was once a bunch of trustworthy and peaceful, poor people in robes praying for nice things to happen, not coincidently turned into the gaudy Vatican, televangelism and Christian rock. There is a whole lot of flash, and yet not a single quantifiable fact that proves prayers can be answered.

Pro-wrestling is fake; that is a fact. I know there are a lot of people who still take offense to that statement in some kind of odd defensive posturing, but those are probably the same type of sad and conflicted people who are still clinging to the faith that a magic ‘god’ exists. Well, I implore all present wrestling fans to accept that ‘god’ is a work. The intention of pro-wrestling is to engross the audience with an artistic narrative: good vs. evil, justice, pathos, overcoming the odds, heroism, freedom, you could list the parallels to religious mythology all night. And of course they exist, because religion, just like wrestling, is a story meant to inspire people to do great things or feel good about the world. That’s it though; it’s all just a story. We know that Stone Cold Steve Austin, no matter how profitable an employee he might be, would never be able to do all that shit to his boss and still keep his job, let alone keep his ass out of jail, in the real world. Yet, the story of Stone Cold inspires us to take back a little of our self-respect against the corruption that irrationally controls the godless real world. There is no irony in the fact the Vince McMahon is the one who beat Shawn Michaels and ‘God’ at Backlash that year. Truly Vince McMahon is the closest thing a pro-wrestling fan has to a ‘god.’ The man’s every human decision controls our actions and moods. When he does something terrible, like fire Matt Hardy, we go crazy with misery and chant as loud as we can, hoping with all our might, that he might hear our one collective voice and give us our heart’s desire. Unlike ‘god,’ Vince McMahon may really hear you and actually change something, like when he rehired Matt Hardy. Thankfully, we all know this isn’t magic. Some (and even many online critics themselves) may like to think of wrestling fans as stupid, but I would argue the opposite. Pro-wrestling fans are at the top of the food chain. We can appreciate pro-wrestling because we readily accept the facts, understand the narrative, are knowledgeable about business and swaying trends, and we don’t care when non-fans try to tell us that it’s ‘fake’ because unlike religious people we are secure with the knowledge that what we love is not real. Therefore, we should be on the atheist frontlines of the battle for intelligentsia vs. ignorance, don’t you think? Thank you, now worship me!