The 2014 WWE Hall of Fame just ended and the 11-year-old wrestling fan that still lives inside me can’t sleep.
The WWE Network aired the ceremony in its entirety and it
was silly, moving, sad, fun, exciting – essentially everything I love about the
professional wrestling business. A business of which I have spent 0 minutes of
my life participating in – unless you count that one terrible evening in
Springdale with Val Venis and Chris Masters, but that’s another story.
I remember the first time I saw wrestling on television. It
was the summer of 1976, right before we moved to Arkansas. This little studio
show out of Houston with a very small audience. Just a ring. Maybe a hundred fans.
And there was a big curtain that the wrestlers and announcers stood in front of
when they did their talking bits. The only wrestler I remember from that show
was a masked dude named The Spoiler. He was tall, mysterious and he beat the
crap out of some schmoe. I was hooked.
Back then, the business also lived behind a giant curtain.
All you saw, all you knew about pro wrestling was what was given to you at the
matches. The magazines at the time stuck with the program and only the true
diehards had access to the insider newsletters.
It hasn’t been that way for decades. But tonight, as I
watched these Hall of Famers tell their stories, relive their glory and pull
the curtain back on their lives to show their gratitude and scars – I felt like
that child sitting on the bedroom floor discovering wrestling for the first
time.
The access wrestling fans of today have to the performers is
unbelievable. From their personal blogs and podcasts to the insane amount of
programing on the network – it truly is a great time to be a pro wrestling fan.
Tomorrow is WrestleMania 30. I won’t bore you with detailed
match and story analysis. And you know I could. Just know for four hours Sunday
night, I’ll be getting reacquainted with my inner 11-year-old.
