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Jerry Root

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THE MAT POTATO III
Return of the Son of the Bride of the Mat Potato

Stereotypes. They're with us everywhere we look. They're ingrained in us from the time we're able to comprehend what mommy and daddy are saying, or what the nice man on the T.V. is putting out.

When I was a kid I was inundated by cartoons with the message that cats are sneaky, and worthy of our contempt, while mice are harmless little victims of the cruel cats. Dogs are either stupid dolts, or are faithful to the end.

Boxing fans are considered cultured, part of the upper crust of society. Look at the audience at any big title bout? You see people in tuxedoes, paying hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars for the privilege of watching two people dance around a ring and beat the hell out of each other.

Wrestling fans are knuckle dragging, mouth breathers who dress in all sorts of garish get up, work to get free tickets, take signs to draw attention to themselves, and do their best to get the privilege of watching two people dance around a ring and beat the hell out of each other.

It wasn't always so for the wrestling fan. In the very early days (long before even I started watching), and wrestling was considered a real sport, there was no such stigma attached. The results were printed in the paper on the sports page and wrestling was treated on an equal footing with every other sporting event.

Until.

Until a sportswriter got lazy and put in the results of a house show a day early.

Oops.

The genie was out of the bottle then. Wrestling was exposed as "phony". Anybody who would waste their time on this was severely brain damaged. After all, why would anybody go to a "sporting event" where the outcome was pre-determined. Why, that's just plain stupid.

Well, as Steve Martin is fond of saying Excuuuuuuuuse Meeeeeeeeeee!

I happen to like wrestling, or sports entertainment, or whatever you want to call it. I make no bones about it. I don't care who knows it. Through thick and thin, from the "golden age" of the 50's and 60's, through the dark days of the 70's and early 80's. The cartoon days, the rock-and-wrestling age, the "Sports entertainment age", and what have you, I have been there.

Granted, there were times that it was real tough to find a program, but wrestling was always there too.

Barbara Mandrell sang "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool", well I was a wrestling fan when it was totally unfashionable to be one.

Yeah, things have improved somewhat for the wrestling fan, however there seems to be the lingering image of the inbred Southern Geek. The extra chromosome toting Neanderthal.

Isn't it about time we set about to change that image? Most of the people I have met through the net who are wrestling fans are very knowledgeable, articulate, and pleasant.

So much for stereotypes.

Jerry Root
[slash] wrestling

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