Wrestling With the Past

Hey all,

Several years ago I use to be big into the pro-wrestling scene. As with aspects of my personality, when I get into something I usually do all I can to find out the most about it. I watched pretty religously for about 6 or 7 years, 1997 to about 2004 or 2005, when my work schedule changed and I had to work Mondays.

Typically I get into something, obsess on it for a period of time, then faze out, such as the case with Star Wars, wrestling, collectable card games, anime, the list is long with the only constant comics. Hell I even figure at some point my vinyl toy fixation will go the same way.

That being said, my assistant manager Edwin is a HUGE wrestling fan, a real mark so to say, and occasionally we talk about wrestling and such as its his passion and I am knowlegable on the subject. Well Monday night WWE Raw was in Phoenix and he gave me his spare ticket to go with him. It's been quite a while since I attended a live show, but I will say that Raw had a great card for us to watch. What got me into wretsling wasn't so much the spectacle or gimmicks, but the athetic ability and skill that went into choreographing a compelling match. During my hey day I had the oppertunity to see pretty much all the big names in action, Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, Mick Foley, The Rock, the Undertaker, Ric Flair, Sting, Triple H, Stone Cold Steve Austin, as well as some of my personal favorites, like Chris Jericho, Scott Hall, and a great independant PPV of the original ECW.

The one guy I never saw wrestle though was my favorite wrestler, Shawn Michaels. Happily I got to rectify that on Monday when he wrestled live, in a one of one match. The undercard was pretty good as Jericho also took on Jeff Hardy, a pretty solid high flyer, in a fun match. Triple H also wrestled in a tag match with some of the WWE's new big talent, like John Cena (who recently starred in the movie The Marine) Randy Orton ,and another neophile Kennedy.

Mostly it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed the oppertunity to reconnect with the old excitment. Any time you attend a live event the crowds are always get me pumped up. It was also cool hanging out with Edwin outside of the grind and to see how infectous his passion was for the event. I had a lot of fun. Who knows, maybe I'll even start setting the DVR back up to record it.

End of Line.
Gerrad!