A Guy Thing

I like stuff. I like things. I like rock and roll, soul music, guitars played through amplifiers (and sometimes acoustic ones), comic books, bad movies, Sylvester Stallone, and even professional wrestling.  I really like professional wrestling, and my wife tolerates this.

We usually watch wrestling on television- well, I watch it and she kind of reads or does something else while making snide remarks about whatever is happening on the television.  I can’t help it; as I’ve explained before, wrestling is something that I’ve liked since I was a kid and I don’t think that I’ll ever not like it.

In fact, trying to put into words and justify to the rest of you fucking highbrow assholes that don’t like wrestling makes me incredibly self-conscious about something that I love, and I don’t like that.  I know it’s weird to be (almost!) thirty-three years-old and to like something like wrestling, but I can’t help it. It’s been a life-long thing and I’m not going to defend it anymore. Fuck you.

But back to my point: I love and watch professional wrestling and Jessica kind of gets it- until this week, that is.

(more…)

Ric Flair channels Dylan Thomas

There isn’t a lot of poetry in professional wrestling. Sure, people like myself will tell you time and time again why something is meaningful or why casual watchers or non fans should care, but in the end it’s simply play fighting: the outcome is predetermined, the wrestlers help each other out with the moves, yadda yadda.

But after watching Ric Flair’s last match from this past years WrestleMania for the third time, I’m here to tell you that wrestling can be meaningful, it can be poetry, it can make you think.

Ric Flair is such a legend in North Carolina that it’s almost scary. Non fans have stories, jokes, run ins, and even poor imitations of Flair. Since 1983, Ric Flair has been a bleach blonde prince of the Carolinas, on par with other modern day folk heroes like Dale Earnhardt and Richard Petty. But like all good things, Flair’s career had to eventually come to and end.

Retirements in professional wrestling are a strange thing, nobody seems to get out of the business alive, and when they do it is because they are either broken down or have burned every bridge in their professional lives. People stay in the ring way too long and are often remembered as a shadow of their former selves.

For the last few years, Flair had long been a shadow of his in ring self. Simple moves that Flair could do years earlier had become a challenge to his broken down, now 59 year old body. His trademark bleach blonde hair seemed to be thinning away much like his legend. Years before, when Flair was pinned in a match, it was a big deal and helped cement the person who pinned him as a new star. Now Flair was losing matches to preliminary wrestlers.

The end was near. The only real question was how was Flair going to go out, as the regal legend that was a champion for much of the 80s and 90s or as the broken old man who we saw glimpses of during Flair’s recent matches?

On that March day, I sat and watched Flair as he came out to wrestle Shawn Michaels, the man who many felt took up Flair’s reputation as the best wrestler alive. I hoped for the best. The stipulation for the match was that if Flair lost, he had to retire. It was a forgone conclusion, however- we knew that Flair was going to retire. The question was did Flair have enough gas left in his tank to make us believe that for one night he could still pull out all the stops and win a match.

I watched the match that night, and I believed. I believed in Ric Flair.

The match itself was a tribute of sorts to Flair, all of the old move sequences (or “spots” as they are called in wrestling) that Flair made famous were on display, but also on display was a rather emotional story: did Shawn Michaels have it in him to end the career of Flair, a man he had gone on record as saying that he idolized for years prior? There were moments of joy- Flair’s willingness to cheat to get the edge on the younger and quicker Michaels, Flair finally hitting the high cross body off the top rope (a move he tried in every match, but was always prevented from landing due to the other wrestler reviving himself in time), and moments of pure emotion that told the story- Michaels being hesitant to finish the job and pin Flair.

In the end, the match told the story of one man refusing to quietly go off and die, refusing to go softly into the night, refusing to let go of his past, and refusing to just lay down and die. Flair rose to his feet, tears in his eyes and defeat being all but certain, and screamed through the tears and sweat and pain “Come on” with his fists clenched in rage. Wrestling may be fake, but this moment was as real as it gets.

But it was all for nothing. Flair had to lose. Flair had to retire if only to save himself. Nobody, myself included wanted to see a deteriorating Flair stay in the ring for any longer. So that night, in a way that only professional wrestling can, Shawn Michaels put Ric Flair the man to bed, and awoke Ric Flair the legend. And he did it with with 5 words and a gesture. The words were “I’m sorry, I love you” and the gesture, because this is professional wrestling, was a kick to the face.

Following that and a quick pin, Flair’s career was over. Both wrestlers cried in the ring as the audience (over 70,000 people) stood and cheered. This is professional wrestling at it’s best, and this was poetry.

My words probably fail to conjure up exactly why this match and this man meant so much to me. It’s taken me nearly 6 months to write about this match, about this moment. I spend so much of my life writing, reading and talking about heroes and villains. I suppose that’s what Flair is. He was a villain during my youth. Forever defeating whatever heroic good guy that faced him, always getting the last laugh. As I got older, I appreciated the arrogant cool of Flair. I appreciated Flair’s magic in the ring, and I appreciated what Flair meant to so many people. If you don’t watch wrestling, you’ll never understand what it was like to watch this broken down old man raise his fists defiantly and scream out at inevitability. But go home, look at your parents, and watch them.

Do you want to see them quietly give up like my grandmother did, or would you rather see them fight for what they love, fight for one last moment to say “This is who I am and this is what I do” like Flair did? I know my answer.

In the end, Flair walked out of the ring defeated but somehow more triumphant. He hugged and kissed his wife and children at ringside and walked the aisle like he’d told so many of his opponents they had to do to become the best. He said it was a long walk down the aisle, but it’s what makes you “the man”. For one last night, for one last moment, Flair was “the man”.

Until tomorrow, when I have a special entry about anniversaries, be good.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Well you know somethin’ brother…

More details to come about what I was doing in this picture at a later date. But for right now, marvel at how for one night, I was the fucking champ. Also notice the sweet zit on my chin that no scrubbing will take away.