the adult wrestling cult

‘you’re breaking the fourth wall!’

Wrestling is massive again, and I’m not quite sure how that happened.

Every casual conversation I have with a group of lads seems to inevitably turn to how John Cena recently turned heel. Having not tuned in at 5 in the morning, my immense powers of deduction tell me that his character arc has probably gone from good to bad.

I’m 30, my daughter is up at the crack of dawn, and I NEED my sleep. Barring Conor McGregor making a surprise return to the UFC, I can’t foresee any circumstances that would make me sacrifice a night’s sleep for a sporting event – certainly not WrestleMania.

I personally haven’t watched WWE since the days of Kane, the Big Show, Stone Cold, Bautista, and Triple H in his long-haired pomp. Like most young boys, I went through the phase of paper champion belts, weird jelly action figures, and suplexing siblings on the trampoline. I just fell out of love with it around high-school.

Once I clocked that these glistening gladiators weren’t in-fact hitting each other in the face with sledgehammers and steel chairs, my interest tailed off and veered towards authentic combat sports like boxing and MMA. I’m fully aware, however, that this isn’t a sticking point for wrestling fans.

The theatre is what people love. Each wrestler has their own dramatic and constantly evolving storyline involving greed, or love, or betrayal (that normally culminates in someone being put through a table while commentators scream ‘Oh my God!’).

It’s this topsy turvy character development that adds an element of jeopardy to what are ultimately scripted bouts. There are millions of people who feel genuine adoration or hatred towards these athletes based on what script has been written for them. Triple H switching on Shawn Micheals in 2002 still keeps me up at night.

In all seriousness, I 100% get why grown people still enjoy watching wrestling and more power to them. It’s an amazing spectacle, the athletes are genuinely brilliant, and the drama is guaranteed.

What I do take quarrel with, is fans who, for some bizarre reason, refuse to accept that they’re watching fiction. The amount of grown fellas I’ve overheard in pubs or on trains saying things like, ‘Coady Rhoades was absolutely seething at The Rock,’ or ‘No one can beat Roman Reigns,’ is insane.

I didn’t get the response I’d hoped for when scowling: ‘He will bloody lose if writer John Swikata wants him to. You sausage!’

Being in awe of a developing story is one thing, but some fans are genuinely left heartbroken by the actions or sporting shortcomings of their favourite wrestler on any given night – like everything wasn’t written into a script and rehearsed 50 times before they watched it on Netflix.

After the recent Royal Rumble event, I saw a clip of Logan Paul on his podcast talking about how he was ‘devastated’ and ‘angry’ to have been eliminated. He claimed that he had to hold himself back from physically harming the onlooking Kai Cenat, who had been jeering him ringside.

Excluding the possibility Logan Paul was still winding down from method acting his character, you’d say the YouTuber was doing his duty to keep people engaged in the wrestling while it was such a hot topic. Props to him.

The comment section, however, was just plain weird.

People were genuinely getting pressed and arguing about whether Kai Cenat was out of order to verbally chastise Paul at such an emotionally heightened moment, like Paul had actually failed in his ambitions to throw the rest of the roster over the ropes.

I fully respect that people want to immerse themselves in the excitement of it all, but the postulating and dissecting of events we know are pre-determined is, well… mental.

You might be of the opinion that consuming wrestling in this way is no different to backing fictional characters of a film or television series, but it’s the cross section between entertainment and sport that makes elements of the fandom feel cultish to me.

It’s soul destroying to be in a room with people animatedly throwing out predictions about a WWE bout as though it’s a boxing match or something. Ain’t no chance someone is going off-script and the loser will ultimately end up covered in ketchup.

I’m fun at parties.

Anyway, if another person mentions John Cena to me again this week, I’m going to say he was shit in Suicide Squad. Fin.