No Wrestling Please, We're British
From BoF 2
We British seem to have a bit of a hard
time enjoying ourselves. Every Friday and Saturday night, millions of people
class a good night out as drinking as much alcohol as humanly possible,
embarrassing yourself in front of complete strangers and then returning home to
vomit, pass out and remember nothing. But this is OK. It’s socially acceptable. Drinking
heavily is ‘part of out culture’. As is football, and picnics, and Jamie
Oliver. Whilst some of these annoy certain groups of people, they are all
deemed socially acceptable pastimes. Wrestling, for some reason, does not –
unfairly in my book. There are other things that escape widespread mocking that
are far more worthy of it. Take Morris Dancing for example. Grown men, with
bells and blocks of wood, dancing around swords in an effeminate manner. Why
haven’t we driven this sorry excuse for a pastime out of our culture? Quite
simply, because it’s our pastime. Even the most hardened cynic will find
it hard to walk past a bell-shaking wood-clonking village green shindig on a
Sunday afternoon without raising a wry smile.
On the subject of Morris Dancing, the following true
account goes to demonstrate just how vehemently we British will defend our daft
traditions in the face of domestic opposition.
One Sunday afternoon in a quiet country village in
Northumberland, local residents and tourists were enjoying the summer fete in
the beer garden of a local pub. The highlight of the event was the Morris
Dancing. As the afternoon progressed, a large group of bikers descended on the
pub to enjoy the festivities. As the alcohol flowed, gentle mocking of the
performers led to heckling, which in turn led to unadulterated abuse. Violence
soon followed and the Morris Dancers were set upon by the group of drunken
bikers. Pause at this point to imagine a battle between bikers and Morris
Dancers. Fantastic. But it gets better. The most sensible thing for the local
residents and tourists to do would be to flee, which I’m sure some of them did
– but not all of them. Some people were not about to see their afternoon ruined
by some leather clad twats with beards and bandanas. And the Morris Dancers weren’t backing down,
why should they? They had blocks of wood at the ready and every time they clubbed a fat biker there was a
satisfying jingle of bells. After only a few minutes it became apparent that
the bikers were in over their heads. With their tales between there legs the jumped
back on their Harley’s and made for the sunset. One in the eye
for leather clad bullies everywhere methinks.
So that jolly tale underlines the fact that we British
can take unusual pastimes to our hearts. However, if I was to mention to
someone, in passing, that I like wrestling it usually (depending on the person)
generates one of three responses.
- Oh
dear
- *Silence*
- You
do realise that its all fake don’t you?!
Having recovered from the initial disgust and
embarrassment of the revelation that a grown man enjoys pro wresting, and with
no feasible means of escape, said person feels the need to engage in small
talk. Small talk in Britain means complaining. Stereotypically about the weather, in actuality about
anything: the price of onions, the length of time it takes to have a new back
door key cut, why aren’t the political candidate for the next general election
presented in alphabetical order. Anyway, in this case the small talk escalates
from the following statement: “Wrestling only used to be good when it was on ITV on a
Saturday afternoon. Its rubbish now” And you would know that to be fact would you? Having not
watched it since 1979 when the main attraction when every other wrestler was
‘Big’ this and ‘Giant’ that (when what theses words actually meant was
‘obese’). Yes, if it’s not emanating from a badly lit bingo hall in Blackpool it’s just not worth watching.
So what am I trying to say? That Britons are xenophobic
and the problem is that the product in question is American? Partially. The
real problem is that it’s not British and it’s silly. Don’t get me
wrong, we like silly things. Take Monty Python or ‘It’s a Knockout’ (a game show held outdoors where contestants do stupid things
whilst dressed as stupid things) both very successful, but they’re ours.
They’re British silly. Can you imagine if America tried to force 'It’s a
Knockout' on us? I can hear it now: “Well this is shit. And I don’t know why he needs the
oversized sumo suit because the hamburger munching sod is probably fat enough
already” It’s the same with wrestling: the inability to suspend
disbelief and see past the facts: My mother offers the prime example. She is
unable to grasp the concept that, at 25 years old, I am aware that wrestling is
not ‘real’. ‘How can you watch that?’ She cries. Yes, they are two oiled up 18
stone men in tights. Yes, one of them is 57. Yes, I KNOW THEY’RE NOT REALLY
TRYING TO KILL EACHOTHER!! Next time someone you knows settles down in front of
the soaps, just keep reminding them, at 30 second intervals, that they’re only
acting: “Why has he left three quarters of his pint? How come
they didn’t pay for that? Why is she wearing so much make up in bed? That’s
blatantly not a newborn baby” You’ll soon produce the kind of reaction that I’ve been
bottling up for years. I could go into more detail with these people. I could
explain that Britain has
independent wrestling circuits of its own; that tens of thousands of people in Britain, a lot
of them over the age of 10, are interested in wrestling; that Hulk Hogan is not
dead; that The Rock did something before The Scorpion King was released. But
what would be the point? I’d be speaking a different language…something that’s
just not British.
