It's time for me to come out of the closet. I'm a wrestling fan. That isn't news to most of my friends, but is to new people I meet, which I find amusing. I've given up trying to explain it, it's just in my DNA. My wrestling DVD collection is obscene, the whole basis for my first trip to New York was a wrestling show and I've spent more hours than I'd care to admit talking about it.
There's a stigma attached to being a female wrestling fan. When the UK indie scene was stronger and I was running around going to shows, I lost count of the amount of times I'd have to politely, or not so politely, point out I wasn't there to fuck the wrestlers. It gets boring, fast. Since then my position on such things, as with much else in my life, has been that if people want to talk shit, then let them. It's nice to bring a little excitement into what must be very dreary lives if that's all they have to talk about. Besides, my friends get it way worse than I do. Benefits of living across the ocean!
Anyway. For my 26th birthday I was bought tickets and travel to the UK Pro Wrestling NOAH shows in Broxbourne and Nottingham. The shows themselves were excellent and I highly recommend ordering the DVDs of the shows, but one of the things that stuck with me were the two little kids at the Broxbourne show. They were fully clad in John Cena gear and I doubt they really knew much about the wrestlers they were watching, but they cheered, they booed, they had a fantastic time and I'm betting they came away from that show bigger fans of wrestling than they had been.
Kids like that are why I never really see the point in hating John Cena. Aside from the inhuman amount of charity work he does (seriously, the man is a machine) one of the most important things he does is get kids interested in this crazy sport-entertainment hybrid we all love. Didn't we all start out like those kids? Cheering our favourites even if they weren't the best workers? And look at how long we've stuck with it since then. If we want this business to carry on, we need people like Cena who kids adore. They go to a show to see him, sure, but they'll also end up seeing Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Evan Bourne and Alberto Del Rio. They'll get exposed to a whole bunch of other wrestlers and, as they grow up, they'll start branching out, finding other promotions they enjoy, places they can see wrestling in person more than the once or twice a year WWE comes to their area.
Do I enjoy Cena? Eh, not so much. I respect the amount of work he puts in, but I cannot take a man who wrestles in trainers seriously. That's alright though, he's not aimed at me. I have other wrestlers on that show I can watch. I also have Ring of Honor, Evolve, PWG, Dragon Gate and various other promotions that I can watch when I want some actual wrestling. Those kids at WWE shows in Cena gear don't have that yet. I have faith that one day they will, and if their love of Cena gets them there, I'm good with that.
Don't ask me to explain the grown men who cheer him, though. On that, I got nothing.
xo
