I grew up in the '80s with a stepdad who was a big wrestling fan (that is, the theatrical WWE kind), which meant that I grew up with a bit of wrestling knowledge trough osmosis. Once I grew up, though, I had no interest in keeping up with it. Why would I? The outcomes are pre-determined. People who follow wrestling are dimwitted. That was my take, anyway, even though my stepdad certainly was not dimwitted and neither are any of the wrestling fans I actually know.
Now, at age 48, I found myself with the opportunity to go to a wrestling show in person, something I've never done before. Why not? I'm always up to new experiences.
The name of the wrestling promotion is called SOAR, and they do shows throughout the Dallas area. Even though we bought the cheapest level of tickets, we somehow ended up with great seats, at the bar, mere feet from the ring. Have you ever heard of that movie trope where even in the busiest parts of NYC, the protagonists have no problem finding parking right in front of the building they need to go into? It felt like that.
So, to cut to the chase, it was a blast. I had an absolute ball and I was not expecting to.
The denizens of SOAR made a point to involve the audience as much as possible (and the audience was near capacity, I will add); doing out-of-ring shenanigans on every side of the ring that included fans.
On my side of the ring, I got up close and personal with a face named Dontae vs. a heel whose name I forget, but he played a cowboy from Tennessee who insulted Texas as much as he could.
As Dontae and the cowboy character spilled out of the ring, the cowboy grabbed the beer out of the hands of a fan near me, and said to Dontae, "wait ... I want to drink first before we fight some more." Dontae turned to me and said, "Do you see what I have to deal with, man?" Then the cowboy spit beer on Dontae, and a little bit got on my arm. I know that a lot of people would consider this a mark against SOAR wrestling, but again, I appreciated how willing they were to mix it up right in the audience.
Speaking of being up close, yes, you can easily see they are not actually hurting each other. That almost seems besides the point, though. I don't think anyone there thought "wrestling is real," or whatever.
What is the point is the pageantry and showmanship of it all. The costumes were all incredible — we had characters based on the devil, a cat, a voodoo tag-team that carried around a skull, and even an academia nerd whose intro music was Pomp & Circumstance.
The headliner, though, was a wrestler whose stage name is Daniel Alexandro. He didn't have much of a gimmick, and didn't need one. I think back to the biggest "face" wrestlers of my childhood, and I think of Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. They didn't have much of a gimmick either, did they? Instead, they simply exuded charisma with a touch of everyman relatability and humility (well, Hulk anyway) rather than a deep character with lavish costumes. So it is with Alexandro.
He won his match against a heel with a Satanic hook, and the crowd chanted "Dan-IEL! Dan-IEL! Dan-IEL!" when he did. That's when I understood that we weren't simply having fun, but a lot of the crowd really knows and follows these guys and their stories. And that's really impressive, because SOAR wrestling is small; it's not even listed on Wikipedia among the over 90 active independent wrestling promotions of the U.S.
One thing wrestling proponents point out is how much strength, athleticism, agility, and so on it takes to wrestle, and that they are equal to many if not most professional athletes whose sports are not looked down upon. That's undoubtedly true, but there was something about the wrestlers that impressed me even more than that.
I've been in a number of sketch comedy and improv shows and comedy troupes over the years, performing on stages from Dallas to, uhh ... other parts of Dallas. I went through the comedy programs of multiple comedy schools. One of the most important rules of performing these types of comedy is: you have commit to the bit. You can't half-ass it; you have to go all the way.
You may be afraid of looking silly or stupid turning a ridiculous character up to 11. But the irony is, you actually look silly or stupid by failing to do that.
If you hold back and try to maintain a sort of "ha, this is stupid so I'm not gonna fully do it, you guys know I'm cool and realize how ridiculous this is, right?" you ruin the bit.
All of these wrestlers (and there were dozens in this show) understood this completely. Everyone embraced their character to the fullest. Everyone committed to the bit. Everyone played their part and played to the audience. I say again this is absolutely crucial, but it's also not easy. As such this is what impressed me the most, more than their wrestling acumen (which was formidable).
If you are a pro basketball player or pro golfer or pro any-other-sport, you can be shy. You can do the bare minimum with respect to your obligations to the press and fans. In wrestling, you can't. Wrestling stands alone in this regard, and the fans are the beneficiaries. This is why I say if you have a chance to go to a wrestling show, you should do it.
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