Soap Operas. Most people have either an open or a sneaky love of some form of Soap Opera. Soap Opera's are like dramas except without any of the quiet bits and like real life except for all the dull bits where nothing happens as you wait for a bus. Whether it is the amnesia riddled plots of US hospital soaps or the pervading sense of misery and doom in Eastenders (still only on its first series, but episode 4216 airs this week) there's something for everyone. Even wrestling.
Wrestling in the mid nineties (and probably today) is like a hyper soap. It has the intricate plot lines of sex, violence, criminality and despair but instead of things being resolved through normal everyday actions problems are resolved with power bombs and fists; piledrivers and tables; chair shots and cheating. And me and my friends loved it.
We were around 15/16 when Wrestlemania XIII aired in 1997. In our last year of secondary school wrestling was this fantastic big, dumb, wonderful spectacle that created a counterpoint to the madly dull daily business of fractions and gerunds and the Amish.We would also imitate the wrestlers.
You have to understand this was in the days before Jackass made everything on TV dangerous. There even exists video footage of us somewhere embroiled in a fake 10 man brawl outside our comprehensive's science labs. Including weapons, environmental moves (swinging off posts etc) and culminating in Burroughs hurling himself off the science lab roof, connecting with Gilbert mid air and both of them crashing to the floor. Nobody was hurt and thinking about it now it is probably surprising nobody was seriously injured.
And i had completely forgotten about it until today.
Wrestlemania 13 marked a point of transition for WWE. There were still one or two old school wrestlers still on the roster, with their sleeper holds and a very dry sort of technical proficiency. In the Austin vs Bret Hart match Steve Austin is severely lacerated, an incident that has become far more common since, which marked a step up in what wrestlers were willing to do to themselves for the audience.
Footage of wrestling from that era is very nostalgic for me, not just because of the matches but because it reminds about the same period of my own life. For me Wrestlemania 13 is as much a part of the teenage me as What's the Story Morning Glory or The Wall.
Is wrestling fixed? Yes. Are the participants athletic rather than athletes? Yes. Can it be corny and overblown like any soap opera or gornography film? Yes.
Does it still have a special little place in my heart? Oh Hell Yeah.
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