Should Wrestlemania be covered as a sport or as entertainment?

When John Cena beat The Rock in Wrestlemania 29 on Sunday night, it was big news for WWE fans. But just where should those fans go when trying to read about that news -- the sports pages or the entertainment section?

Writers from around the Tribune Co. discuss which newspaper section should cover Wrestlemania. Feel free to join the discussion with a comment of your own.

Houston Mitchell, Los Angeles Times

In a perfect world, Wrestlemania would be covered in the entertainment section, but this is far from a perfect world, so let’s put it in the sports section. Most news organizations turn a blind eye to wrestling, despite the fact it draws more fans than such trendy shows as “Mad Men” and draws more average fans to live events per week than the NHL and MLS.

Former UFC champion Brock Lesnar was a headliner of this year’s show, which drew 80,000 fans to MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, and all the guys competing are better athletes than most pro golfers and bowlers. Heck, poker is featured weekly on most sports networks. When did poker become a sport?

And as long as synchronized swimming is in the Olympics, no one has any room to complain about Wrestlemania being in the sports section.

Nick Fierro, Allentown Morning Call

As someone who has covered amateur wrestling forever, I say stick pro wrestling where it belongs: in entertainment or, whenever wrestlers die (sometimes as the result of drug use), in news.

Actually, professional wrestling has devolved over the years into such a vulgar, offensive horror show that it shouldn’t be covered at all. This is coming from somebody who used to like the product – before Vince McMahon obtained absolute power and ruined it absolutely. Even what’s on free TV these days is not suitable for children to watch and not really acceptable for adults either.

Oh yeah, one more thing: You see, it’s well, sort of, uhhh, ya know, kind of fake. There, I said it.

Stephen Ruiz, Orlando Sentinel

What passes for sport these days? Is bouncing on a trampoline a sport? They hand out Olympic medals for it. What about table tennis? Same thing. Are photo galleries of scantily clad cheerleaders on sports websites there for athletic value? Don’t be silly.

What about entertainment? Are “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’’ amusing? To some, they are. What about “Cake Boss’’? There’s not enough icing to get me to watch, but that’s just me.

The point is, who knows where sport ends and entertainment begins? I enjoy wrestling and consider wrestlers athletes for their skill and what they put their bodies through.

Yet I realize wrestling is scripted and exists solely to entertain me and countless others.

Because the line between sports and entertainment is so blurred, I am fine with Wrestlemania results running beside baseball results. As an Astros fan, they might give me more enjoyment.

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