In Love With Pro Wrestling Again

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Here is a bit of an embarrassing confession: I used to be a Hulkamaniac. This was back in the 1980's. Ronald Reagan was president, I was in fifth grade, and my family lived near an American navy base in Bermuda. My best friend, at the time, was a hardcore wrestling fan. My family had just moved to the island from the UK, and I was a shy boy that didn't make friends very easily. Growing up as an American foreigner in other people's countries can do that to you. So, if my new best friend was into pro wrestling, I was going to get into pro wrestling, too. So, every Saturday afternoon, I went over his house, we would watch a bunch of matches, and then we would tie towels around our necks like capes, go into his yard, and make up our wrestling personalities and then play fight. Mine was "Gerhardt Heckler, the German Super Fist." (Although I am a natural born American citizen, I have some German ancestry, and I was born on a US air force base in what used to be West Germany during the Cold War.)

I have had an on again, off again relationship ever since. I maintained my love of wrestling into high school, where I ended up competing in a 189 pound junior heavyweight class. I really didn't take the non sports entertainment version seriously as an athlete -- after all, my father required that I play two sports in high school. If I had to do something athletic, I figured it would be wrestling. Because real wrestlers (and now some MMA fans, too) like to scream "Pro Wrestling is fake" all the time, my not caring attitude pissed some of my competitors off. Back then, I used to play mind games and would hulk out before each of my matches, much to the eye rolls of many. Despite that bit of tomfoolery, I managed to place sixth in all of Europe my senior year -- I should qualify that, I placed sixth in all of Europe, and second in my region, when it comes to American International and Department of Defense Schools. 

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Then, I entered college as a political science major, and then switched to English to study poetry and writing. I tried watching the then WWF like twice, and I found it eye gougingly childish and stupid and stopped caring. So, I totally missed out on the heyday of WCW and the NWO because of this. I really didn't watch for many years. It wasn't until the late 1990s and ECW that I started to watch again. I became addicted to watching The Rock, Chris Jericho, and Steve Austin cutting hilarious promos. Since then, I have been tuning in and out of WWE, for various reasons, missing several years at a time. The last time I  watched, it was the height of CM Punk before he quit. I stopped watching, back in the beginning of 2014, for one huge reason: I moved to China. 

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About a month ago, I was wandering around Youtube and somehow I ended up on a highlight reel of Chris Jericho calling people "stupid idiots" and documenting their status as such on a list and clipboard he carried around with him. A few of those made beer come out my nose. Then, I started searching out other more recent WWE clips. Then, I started watching New Japan and female Stardom matches on Youtube. Then, I said "What the hell, why not?" and bought a WWE Network subscription. 

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Oh, how times change. I am in love with The New Era that's going on. I love how wrestling has gotten back to stressing athleticism and telling stories inside the ring. I like how the Vince Russo nonsense that killed WCW and TNA is totally gone and cut out of the industry as a whole. Right now, it seems like less soap opera -- it's still there, but not as bad as it used to be -- and more fighting. I love how there are now real woman wrestlers and not poorly trained models acting like wrestlers. Good riddance diva division! What can I say, I am actually a mark / fanboy for Asuka in NXT now and can't wait to see her elevated to the main roster. A match between her and Charlotte Flair would be awesome. So would her and the recent Japanese signee Kairi Sane. Which of new, younger guys do I like? I would have to say Kevin Owens. 

I would say about 95% of everything I have written about on Steemit has been about living in China and learning its language, history, and culture. But, as a friend told me, I can write about anything here that I am passionate about. He's got a fair point. I have other blogs that focus of specific places in China. So, I guess I am going to start writing about pro wrestling here since Steemit offers that flexibility and my other China blogs don't. Apparently, I think I need an outlet on my thoughts about the industry. It's the curse of a writer and somebody with a very long history of writing reviews. Does this mean that I am going to stop posting pictures and stories about China? No. I'm still going to do that. But, I think I have to add wrestling as one of my more consistent topics. 

[I claim no copyright on the images, use them under fair use, and have linked to sources where I have found them online]