From a Girl to a Grrrl's Point of View

by hardygrrrl

I’m Tanya from http://slashwrestling.com. I write a column there called A Grrl’s Point of View. I’m also known as hardygrrl on the Straight Dope Message Board. I am a member in good standing of the IWC - the Internet Wrestling Community. It’s a fun world, filled with more cliques than the SDMB could ever dream of. The Hyatte fans hate the Keith fans. The old school fans look down on anyone who can’t name all the titles Lou Thesz held. Everyone mocks the Official Sites. Names are called and secrets revealed. Dopers have nothing on these guys.

I wasn’t always a proud fan. I used to be in the closet. I would change the channel if anyone walked in the room. I never admitted I watched not only the then WWF, but also WCW and ECW. I pled ignorance when someone asked who Mick Foley was. I was a girl after all. Girls don’t watch wrestling. They don’t know the difference between the Van Daminator and the Van Terminator. I had a few guy friends I’d discuss rasslin' with, but otherwise I kept quiet.

I might have remained quiet but a small purchase changed that. I wanted to go online but couldn’t afford a computer. I bought a WebTv unit and went surfing. Through the power of Google, I found quite a few sites and message boards. I started speaking out. About the same time I started on the SDMB. I met a fellow fan there by the name of blur. He emailed me one night and we started talking Sports Entertainment. He gave me links to other sites and names of writers to follow. One night he noticed a site was looking for a female writer and suggested I try out. After about two hours of sweating and endless rewrites/edits, I had a sample piece.

Sure I’d never hear anything back, I sent the piece in. Fifteen minutes later I had a response. “Welcome to the Shooters.net!” I was a writer. People were reading my opinions and agreeing with me. I had an audience. Sure, some of the emails I received were more along the lines of “A girl, eh? So what do you look like?” but thankfully those were in the minority. A few months down the road, Shooters closed up . I sent a link to my archives to Slash and found myself a new home.

Why do I love wrestling? Part of it is the men, I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for a handsome man with long hair and a great body. There’s also the athleticism. Sure, the endings of the matches are scripted but I’d love to see any naysayer do half the moves. When you can pull off a Shooting Star Press - a blind backflip off the ringpost onto your supine opponent - without hurting them or yourself, feel free to judge. The tables, ladders and chairs are real. Ask Steve Austin or Chris Benoit if it’s fake. They can show you the scars from having broken vertebra fixed. Or ask Darren Drozdov, who was paralyzed from the chest down from a botched move. It’s not just men in tights throwing fake punches and kicks. Several wrestlers are former football players. Two are celebrated amateur wrestlers - Kurt Angle, who won an Olympic Gold medal in 1996, and Brock Lesnar - a former NCAA champion.

Finally, there’s the drama. Sometimes it’s cheesy, like a soap opera. A friend once called it “General Hospital for men” and in terms of storylines, that’s a pretty apt description. There’s also the human drama behind the matches which is not always obvious. One example is the classic match between Undertaker vs. Mankind, Hell in the Cell. The Undertaker was the bad guy and Mankind the good guy. They were fighting in a steel cage with a roof, ergo the Cell. Taker was wrestling with a broken foot, yet climbed up the cage to slug it out on the roof. Mankind was thrown off the roof and landed on the announcer’s table, breaking it. He climbed back up and was driven through the roof. He pulled himself up in the corner, wearing a crimson mask of blood, a tooth lodged in his nose. He still continued the match. That, ladies and gentleman, is testicular fortitude.

And not all wrestling fans are poor and uneducated. I happen to be a fraud analyst at a major credit card issuer. My friend Chris, who also writes a column? He writes amazing fiction. We come from all walks of life, all education levels. Don’t expect all of us at the next monster truck show or to have Raw blaring in our trailer. Remember that wrestling’s roots lie in the early days of Ancient Greece and Rome. The gladiators of Rome entered the Coliseum to trumpet fanfare, the WWE performers to pyro effects. Both have participants in elaborate costumes. Both can have the outcome of their match determined by crowd response. The only real difference is no one dies on Raw or Smackdown. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover or a person for their love of Sports Entertainment.