You are here /wrestling
/guests
/Mixdorf
Guest Columns

Gregg Mixdorf

Main

BLAH

The Ramblings of an Insane Wrestling Fan

I was going to try and slap out a column about wrestling today, but more serious things have begun to fester in my brain. The main question that has been bugging me is how I can spend so much time watching, reading and writing about the interesting world of professional wrestling when other things in life are passing me by. Here I sit in front of my word processor typing watching an old Cactus Jack promo (after he turned on Tommy Dreamer) and thinking why does wrestling do this to me. Why do I feel obsessed and slightly feverish during the day at work on Monday? I seriously can't wait to go home and cuddle up next to my fiancé’ and watch a night of wrestling. It is my favorite night of the week. I wait in glorious anticipation all week, I think about where the story lines could go. I have conversations with my roommate on the topic (probably more than he would like). I am in general obsessed with professional wrestling.

Why?

I think it is because it combines two of my favorite things, athleticism and story telling. There is no 'real' sport that can come close to this. No sport can ever come close to the ability of two good wrestlers to tell a story. I don't care how good Michael Jordan was he never told a good story with his skills like say Malenko and Benoit have. He never put his life and livelihood on the line to tell a story for the fans like wrestlers do. There is a reason why people put the word fucking in the middle of Chris Benoit's name. Michael Jordan never once cut an interview as intense or as entertaining as that of Cactus Jack. Not even the extremely loquacious Charles Barkley can cut a promo like Cactus can. 'Real' athletes don't jump off the top of cages to the amazement of how many people chose to view them that evening. 'Real' athletes don't let themselves lose matches to continue a story line.

But I digress from my main philosophical ramblings. How does a TV show do this to me? Am I that callous towards the rest of the world that I don't care about the pain and suffering that goes on in the world? Is my own pleasure that important to me that I spend most of my time thinking about wrestling? Well that isn't exactly true, the time I'm not spending with my beautiful wife to be I spend thinking about wrestling.

Maybe I just think to damn much. Maybe I have opened up a can of worms for myself and I will never be able to watch and enjoy wrestling again with the same reckless joy that I did just as recently as last night. Although right now I know that will not happen. I will always enjoy wrestling. Always have since I saw Rick Flair wrestle the Junkyard Dog for the NWA world title. I may not have become obsessed at such a young age but the seed was planted for my future enjoyment of the great spectacle that it is.

Maybe I just won't ever be able to escape this moral dilemma. Wrestling seems to have infected me permanently. I even write fiction stories that contain wrestling. I don't know if I will ever be able to escape wrestling, then again I don't know if I ever want to. Maybe I just need to be a better person. Not Maybe, I do need to be a better person. It isn't wrestling that does this to me. I do this to me. And it isn't too late to change my ways to do good things and watch wrestling. Wow what a fucking concept. Or maybe I'm just fucking insane. Or maybe I just wrote this column in a moment of depression and I'm not that bad. Or maybe I'm just sick of the hate that I see everyday. I think I just realized that I am too selfish for my own good.

Have a Nice Day.

Gregg Mixdorf
freelance

Mail the Author

BLAH

Main

Design copyright (C) 1999, 2000 Christopher Robin Zimmerman & KZiM Communications
Guest column text copyright (C) 2000 by the individual author and used with permission