I love professional wrestling. I'm sure many people on this site do too. Wrestling for me isn't about watching something when I'm bored or while going through No-Entourage-for-the-summer-syndrome.
To me, wrestling is an escape. It's an escape from the tough times I went through in school. It's an escape from the struggles my family had and being able to live vicariously through superstars of the squared circle.
I started watching wrestling in late 1997. My two heroes growing up were Goldberg and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin. I had just moved from Elmwood Park, New Jersey to the blue collar town of Freehold. I was new in school as a third grader, and didn't know my left from my right.
Friends were hard to come by then and still are today. Back then, it was conflicts over stupid stuff like Pokémon cards. Luckily, I had my good friend Goldberg keep my mind off of idiots that tried to mess with me.
- B/R Ticket Guide
In fact, my friends and I would spear kids that messed with us in the playground! Goldberg was definitely a good influence...
As years progressed, I found life's obstacles harder to overcome. Middle school was alright, but high school just wasn't for me. Many of the teachers and I were never on the same page and quite frankly, I'd feel like I was in jail.
Fights with the family and mediocre grades followed, with Eddie Guerrero's WWE title helping me stay sane.
His win showed me that anything was possible, no matter what anybody said. For years, I didn't know what my purpose in life was, until I discovered a talent for writing, humor, and an unconditional love for music.
When times were rough and I felt like giving up was an option, guys like Eddie Guerrero, Steve Austin, Diamond Dallas Page, Booker T, and Mick Foley (just to name a few) showed me that the only person that needs to believe in you is yourself.
Wrestlers like them, coming from obscurity to reach the top of the mountain in their profession, inspired me greatly.
Hell, even just watching Stone Cold hit Vince McMahon with a bedpan on my Best of RAW DVD made me laugh and forget about all of life's stress and hardships. Rey Mysterio with his death-defying moves suspended my belief and made me say "How the heck did he do that?!"
Triple H came back from two quad injuries to reach the top of his game and once again had me and millions of fans living vicariously through his incredible journey.
There were bad times too. The Katie Vick angle comes to mind, as does the exploitation of Eddie Guerrero's death—but I guess nothing in life is perfect.
I wasn't either. The point I am trying to make is that professional wrestling saved my life in a sense, that it kept my mind of problems and stress. Rather than be miserable for a week, that feeling would last only a few days until RAW or Smackdown! came on.
How about The Rock's promos? I'd think about those hilarious quotes for days.
Wrestling is like a disease, both good and bad. Sometimes I love it so much, other times I kind of get annoyed by it. But like an incurable illness, you learn to live with it. I may never do anything wrestling related outside of writing, but that doesn't mean I'm not a part of it.
Wrestling will always be one of the more positive things in my life, despite the odd booking and angles at times. Without wrestling, though, I sure would have been a lot more miserable during the bad days of my life.
Thank you, wrestling, for letting this young man get through some of his toughest obstacles via the greatest athletes in the world.
Whether it's good times or bad, I will stick by professional wrestling just like it did for me all those years. Actually, it still does today.
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