Now that that's out of the way, let's go to the meat of the article. So, what shall we discuss today? I thought I would touch on math. (No story problems, I promise. Just dragging you all back to 6th grade math class for a moment, then we shall move on, I promise you.)

I will only refer to one term from my cobweb infested memory of grammar school math. LCD. Least Common Denominator. Or, sometimes referred to as the Lowest Common Denominator. It is the second term that I shall use as I think it more accurately reflects the point I am trying to make. (Aside from the one that my hat covers.)

If you take a look at any of the big 3 (and to a lesser extent, the indies too), the accent has shifted from wrestling to soap opera. As you look at soap operas, what sells? Sex, betrayal, sex, love triangles, sex, criminal activity and sex.

When I was a lot younger, GI Joe hit the market. It was touted as an "action figure" because lord knows no boy wanted to be seen playing with dolls! Today wrestling is put across as "sports entertainment" because no self-respecting man wants to be accused of watching a **shudder** SOAP!

In my earliest days of watching wrestling, the culture was vastly different than it is today. For better or worse, things were different. (I'm not going to go into the "good old days" mode, so save your flames for later.) Violence was more openly accepted. The popular toys to give boys were cap pistols, swords, army men and other avenues in which we could channel our aggression until such time as we were old enough to join the military and "prove our manhood". Wrestling was another of those outlets where we could cheer the good guy, jeer the bad guy, and live vicariously through our heroes. For one brief moment we could imagine ourselves as being Bruno Sammartino, Pedro Morales, or for those of us with a more twisted bent, Ray Stevens or Freddie Blassie.

Today, the world has evolved from the simple black and white of old to the varying shades of gray and the seeming lack of absolutes that exists today. Stephanie is "drugged" then "married" in a quickie chapel and she's jeered as a "slut", while HHH, the alleged heel, is cheered beyond belief.

Granted, America has always had a soft spot for the flamboyant bad guy (Dillinger, Capone et. al.), but it has gotten to the point that in this Orwellian world of wrestling, being good equates to being a heel, while being an up-front bastard makes you a fan fave. Go figure.

Rebecca pondered why BB is getting over so well with the fans. Once again, LCD. Hey, the audience is mostly adolescent males, or males who still think they're adolescents. And what are young men thinking of? Breasts! American males have a strange attraction to women's breasts (while the thought of man breasts is enough to turn a stomach! Ugh!). I once read that women's breasts were a natural evolution to make man want to have sex in a missionary position thus allowing the optimum position for a woman to conceive. Then again, Freud would say that it's because we were bottle fed and we feel like we missed something. Or as my wife would say "it's a man thing".

Lowest common denominator. To paraphrase Bret Hart, it "the way things were, the way things are, and the way things will always be".