I am a professional wrestling fan. Due to the stigma surrounding the WWE, admitting that seems akin to admitting that you're an alcoholic or that you listen to Coldplay; people just seem to treat you differently after acquiring this knowledge. I became a fan when I was ten years old. Watching the Rock connecting boots to asses, Stone Cold stomping mudholes in people, and the Hardy Boys jumping off of any structure more than eight feet off the ground kept ten year old Jacob glued to the television. One of my best friends and I would spend countless hours in his basement performing the moves we saw on television on his little brother (hindsight being 20/20, we're lucky we didn't kill him). Once I reached high school and started talking to girls, I realized that wrestling probably wouldn't help my chances much. I slowly drifted away from the WWE and did not watch it again until this winter when the Rock returned. The Rock is my favorite wrestler of all time and his return pulled me back into the WWE universe. On Monday, I ventured down to the Garden to witness the Rock's return to Boston firsthand for my first ever live show.
What excited me most about going to a live event wasn't so much the event itself but being in that atmosphere. Crowd participation is a huge element of any broadcast.
I was also excited to experience the people. I am not a die hard wrestling fan by any means; I usually fast-forward through most of Raw and generally only care about the headliners so seeing how the die-hards experienced a live event piqued my interest as well. Our seats were located in the very top row so we were surrounded by a pretty passionate fan base. Wearing a CM Punk t-shirt does not make you one of the devoted fans but a large majority of the faithful WWE fans wear CM Punk t-shirts. These two guys in front of us were the most knowledgeable WWE fans I have ever met.
CM Punk struck a chord within the dyed in the wool wrestling fan as he rose to prominence by criticizing the WWE on camera multiple times for its movement towards a more PG broadcast and away from the old days where wrestling was more hardcore and the good guys didn't win every match. His most infamous rant came when the WWE was trying to get him over as a heel (heel is a wrestling term for a bad guy) while he was embroiled in a real-life contract dispute (they wrote this dispute into the story-line as well, Punk has since claimed that he still didn't know if he was going to sign with the WWE going into the Pay Per View that was supposed to be the climax of this arc; which makes this rant all the more fascinating).
This rant pushed the boundaries of reality like no other worked shoot before. When CM Punk's microphone was cut off, no one had a clue as to whether or not that was supposed to happen due to the vitriol that Punk had spewed towards the McMahon family. It was at this moment that CM Punk won me over. He's a loud-mouthed prick and I can identify with that. So on Monday when he interrupted Michael Cole (the play by play announcer of the WWE who makes a living antagonizing the fans), we got our first big pop of the night (wrestling term for loud ovation).
Next up was a surprise visit from one of the other heros from my childhood, Mick Foley.
Foley is probably most famous for doing more damage to his body in the ring than any wrestler of all time. Check out this brutal video of Foley falling through a Hell in a Cell and through the ring (he was supposed to fall through the cage, the ring was accidental and nearly ended Foley's career).
Foley came out to try and settle the brewing feud between the Rock and John Cena. He opened with his classic bit "This is Your Life" where he would confront different wrestlers and bring out real people from their lives. Foley began by bringing out Cena's little league coach and then his dad who scolded the Cena haters in the crowd and came off like one of those overbearing tennis fathers. This bit dragged on a bit too long and the Rock decided that this was a good time to intervene.
The Rock came out, planted Foley with a Rock Bottom (damn straight it deserves to be capitalized), then turned around and walked back up the ramp. The Garden had gotten their first taste of the Rock in over seven years and 15 seconds later he was gone. The crowd wanted more and was distracted for the rest of the show since we knew that the Rock was going to come back. The next hour and a half consisted of the part of the show that I usually fast forward through so I had to get most of my enjoyment from the two guys in front of us who kept doing the Randy Orton pose every 10 minutes.
Kudos to the aforementioned kid in the black CM Punk t-shirt for the joke of the night. Just as these guys went to strike the pose again he shouted "How big was the dick you ate last night?" Just as we were done making fun of these guys who liked Randy Orton just a little too much, the Rock reappeared and everyone shut their mouths. It was a pretty amazing atmosphere to be in; the Rock had complete and total control over everyone in that building.
After talking some smack to Cena (his Wrestlemania opponent) and R-Truth and the Miz (his and Cena's opponents at Survivor Series on Sunday), the Rock decided that enough talking had been done and it was time to connect some boots to asses. He Rock bottomed R-Truth then just as Cena was lifting the Miz up on his shoulders to give him his finishing move (called the Attitude Adjustment, which is ironic since it used to be called the F-U), the Rock grabbed Miz from Cena's shoulders and Rock Bottomed him then stormed out of the building. This is how the Raw broadcast ended but for the fans in the Garden, there was still one more match.
The Miz, R-Truth, and Mark Henry (a giant behemoth of a man who has been in the WWE for what seems like forever) were defeated by Cena, Orton, Punk, and Zack Ryder to cap off the night. I am a big fan of Zack Ryder because he turned himself into a headliner while getting no help from the company he worked for; a few months ago he wasn't even on the broadcast. He started a YouTube show called "Z! True Long Island Story" and used his Twitter page to connect with fans. If the WWE wasn't going to make him a star, he was going to go outside the normal channels to promote himself and it worked. Ryder is proof that an aggressive social media campaign can help out anyone who is genuine and charismatic.
My overall assessment of the night was good. Being in the belly of the beast was an enlightening experience and I would recommend that any wrestling fan attend a live show at least once in their lives. To all the people who still dismiss the WWE as infantile and mock the fans for watching a "fake" product; get off your high horse for a second and give it a chance. Yes, the story-lines are scripted as well as the matches, but when you watch House you don't actually think they're operating on someone do you? CM Punk alluded to this earlier, but the Fourth Wall is pretty much a no-fly zone for most fictional TV shows. Their job is to take you to a different world for a short while and never acknowledge that they did. They jump right in to the story without any warning.
Wrestling does not follow that same format. Because everyone knows that the fights are not real as well as the outcomes, there is a silent acknowledgment on everyone's part that there is a willful suspension of disbelief. The universal knowledge of this fact gives the characters the freedom to operate in two separate worlds and presents multiple avenues for character development (the WWE has not taken advantage of this, instead using more rigid characters, especially their heels, but Punk seems to be pushing them in this direction). Ultimately, wrestling succeeds because there is nothing else like it on the planet. Can you name another entertainment show that remotely resembles professional wrestling? Vince McMahon has created a product that essentially gets men interested in soap operas. A pretty impressive feat if you ask me.
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