Grappling With a Sport That Thrives on Fakery

I recently escorted four boys to watch an evening of professional wrestling. Although we had purchased our tickets well in advance, we nonetheless waited in line for 45 minutes. The body frisks and metal detectors at the entrances, more than the boisterous sellout crowd, caused the delay.

There is much that is unappealing about wrestling in its current resurgence--enough to induce nostalgia for Gorgeous George and his perfumed coiffure and the more-innocent fakery of the 1950s.

First, there is the racial and ethnic stereotyping. It would be unacceptable in any other public forum. One female wrestler is the Syrian Terrorist, another, in battle fatigues, is Palestina. Mr. Fuji, in black suit and bow tie, is a “sinister Oriental” manager who teaches his proteges dirty tricks. Slick is a frenetic, jive-talking black manager who jitterbugs about the ring inciting the audience to jeering.

Then there are the fans. Many are well-mannered and some are as orderly as if at the opera. But for others, unruly is a generous characterization. On their feet, yelling obscenities, enthralled by the ring violence (though not quite drooling), they are reminiscent of the scary crowds that gathered about our embassies a few years back. Incredibly, many seem to believe that the well-rehearsed, carefully staged ring acrobatics are for real.

Part of wrestling’s appeal, it is said, lies in the continuous reenactment of good triumphing over evil. In that the fans have their favorites, and the favorites typically prevail, this is true. But it is not easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys by their behavior. The wrestling hero is a braggart who, strutting and preening, shows no inclination to follow the rules or obey the referee. As readily as the villain, he will bite, pull hair or deck the official. Such behavior may hold special delight for boys, a delicious antidote to rules of decorum taught at home and school, but it has nothing to do with fair play or sportsmanship. In wrestling, rules really are made to be broken.

The boys I transport know that the combat in the ring is fake. Orchestration is a given. But, regretfully, they do not disdain a thunderous-looking fall simply because it is the product of collaboration, or because fear, pain or rage are simulated. They are attracted to wrestling precisely because they can anticipate the structure of the fight. That the same wrestlers can be depended upon to execute the same duet, follow the same script, and suffer the same “disabling” injuries is part of the appeal. Reality must be suspended, but the boys can do it. Theatrics are scorned only when it is clear that the blow was not struck, an eye not gouged, a leg not mangled--that is, when the acting is not up to par. Then the fantasy is exposed.

For young children, the experience may be different. They may need assurance that the ring violence only looks real, that serious injury is neither sought nor characteristic, that once the matches are over, the wrestlers, fit as ever, will drive off together in their Mercedeses to their next rendezvous.

But the older ones are there for the blood. Linked to the 1980s by its peculiar mixture of violence, vulgarity and fakery, wrestling is no transient novelty or accidental offspring of our culture. We can expect another generation of wrestlers to emerge from the shadows of such performers as Abdullah the Butcher, the Mongolian Stomper, Kamala, the Uganda Headhunter or Dr. Death and take their turn in the ring. And our children will bring their children to watch them perform, reliving their boyhood days in all their lack of innocence.