I have been watching a lot of wrestling (again) lately. There’s something about the Royal Rumble to Wrestlemania run that always brings out the absolute best in the WWE and I always end up really enjoying it. (If you didn’t know that I was into professional wrestling, this should really come as no surprise to you. I mean, do you know anyone who gets more obsessed with TV shows than I do? ((EDIT: I meant to say “Who watches more 90201 reruns than I do?” here. Huge mistake.)) Throw in a light sprinkling of masculinity and it’s a perfect match for me.) I was thinking about how different things are now from when I first got back into it FOURTEEN YEARS AGO when Hogan turned on his fans and joined the nWo. There are tons of reasons you could list as to why it’s not as good now as it used to be, but I am still pretty happy with the product and enjoy watching it. You can only do some of that stuff once. No matter how hard you try.
I got away from wrestling for awhile, but then I came back when I moved home when Jenny got pregnant. I’ve found that’s something I do when I get uncomfortable, almost like wrestling is my comfort food. Anyways, I watched for awhile but then Chris Benoit killed his family which caused me to break up with Jenny (Seriously.) and I stayed away until The Wrestler came out and made me remember why I loved this crazy business in the first place. Now, I’m back again. I just can’t seem to quit it.
Anyways in thinking about this I also got to thinking about what I was like back then. We’ve seen the old notebooks, but I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone exactly how close I was to going to wrestling school in Philadelphia. Honestly, if I never dated Katy I would have. Which is really weird to think about it. Before I started dating her I knew that most of my friends were going to go off to college and I didn’t want to go with them and I definitely didn’t want to stay here (which is funnier now because I can’t bring myself to leave) so I thought of doing this. I was obsessed with ECW at the time and I always saw the commercials for the “House of Hardcore” which at the time was run by Taz (actually, it was between there and Al Snow’s school). I was never stupid enough to think that I could end up being The Rock or Stone Cold (not with my size), but I always thought that I could do it. Looking back it’s somewhat plausible too because in the past ten years there has been a rise of smaller sized guys in the business. Guys like Austin Aries or Evan Bourne are my size and they have careers. Would I have done it? It’s hard to say, but I know that my life would have been a hell of a lot different if I didn’t start dating Katy and move to Tacoma to become a directionless drunk, that’s for sure.
No regrets, but still.. it’s weird to think about what might have been. There was actually a time when I lived in Alabama that I thought about going to a local school again, but those wrestlers just looked like they sucked and if I was going to go I was going to be good. I’ve never thought about it since then. Writing for WWE? Now that’s a different story.
