draft Chauncey DeVega's World of Ghetto Nerds: The Wrestler Reviewed by a Smart Mark--There is No Old Timer's Day for Professional Wrestlers

We live through them.

We admire them.

We worship them.

They worship themselves.

They bleed for us.

They bleed for themselves.

There is redemption through violence.

We give them forgiveness.

They seek glory.

We give it to them.

They love us.

We love them.

They fade into anonymity.

We allow them to.

There is no old timer's day in professional wrestling.

Mickey Rourke's movie, The Wrestler is a movie about professional wrestling that ironically has nothing to do about professional wrestling. The Wrestler is a human drama about love, loss, pain, redemption and destiny. The Wrestler is also an existential drama. What do you do when to do you, to be yourself, to follow through on all that you are, to truly inhabit and exemplify oneself--your ultimate personhood--means to die? Is this the ultimate act of humanity and triumph? Or, is it the ultimate tragedy?

The Wrestler follows the twilight of professional wrestler, Randy "The Ram" Robinson's, career. As metaphors for his fall from grace, rather than Madison Square Garden, the Philadelphia Spectrum, or my very own New Haven Colosseum (never underestimate the Connecticut-WWE connection), it is now Bingo halls, high school gyms, bingo halls, VFW posts, and little attended fan conventions, that are now the Ram's stage. Played brilliantly by the now resurrected character actor Mickey Rourke, the Ram is a shadow of himself, but for those dozens as opposed to thousands of his glory days (or tens of thousands) the Ram still bleeds, cries, works, takes bumps for, and sells. For the Ram, a man who is a real worker and old hand, he yearns for "the pop" and believes in a sacred obligation to entertain and amaze the audience. The Ram is their hero for the night. He makes worries disappear. He entertains and amazes. He is a living superhero that little boys and girls dream to be as they enjoy one night with dad (and maybe mom as well) where they escape the rigors, pain, disappointment and monotony of "the real world." Ultimately, professional wrestling, when done right and well, is epic story telling that we smart marks live and breath. Thus, we admire the desire and dedication of our favorite pros:



The Wrestler is also a multi-layered narrative where the in-ring action is coincidental and complimentary to the action outside of the squared circle. Professional wrestlers live a life on the road. They travel some hundreds of days a year and their "road family,"--the other professional wrestlers--become kin. The blood family, the kids, wives, mothers, and fathers, are often neglected. Traditional relationships often fail. Consequently, wrestlers become addicted to the road because those temporary moments of stolen bliss with groupies, drugs, or the bottle (and yes drugs and alcohol addiction are "relationships") become substitutes for the often more difficult obligations of wife and children. If wrestling is about the "pop" or the "rush," the road is a means to this end:



Accordingly, Mickey Rourke's character has difficulty...and difficulty is a polite phrasing..with maintaining a relationship with his daughter. Evan Rachel Wood (played by Stepanie Robinson), has distanced herself from her father. The Ram is a bogeyman, a shadow over her id and greater psyche, a dark father to avoid and run away from. The Ram desires a relationship with a local stripper played by Marisa Tomei. Like a professional wrestler, she too is judged by her physicality. Like a professional wrestler, time is her enemy. Like a professional wrestler, there is no old timer's day for exotic dancers. The irony of the Wrestler's father-daughter relationship is that as many working class folks and others can relate to, is that dad was often away from home, hustling and working, but just wasn't there as a physical presence in the morning at the breakfast table or in the evening for dinner. As we presumably grow older wiser, we come to understand that sometimes dad was there when those checks were coming in the mail keeping a roof over our head and food in our stomach...this is one of the universal narratives which makes the Wrestler so powerful:



The Wrestler is an accomplishment of film making and storytelling that is compelling and oddly beautiful. As a smart mark, a label which describes those of us who know that wrestling is "fake," but also understand how "real" it is, the Wrestler is sound, smart, and laden with moments that "real" fans will mark out for. When the Ram "blades" (he should have mentioned taking extra aspirin to thin one's blood to get that real crimson tide a la Rick Flair) you feel part of kayfabe. When the Ram walks down the aisle to work in the deli section of a Supermarket, you will understand how utterly devastating this juxtaposition is: from walking through that tunnel to the applause of tens of thousands, to now doing "the walk" as an anonymous functionary, we can imagine that pain. The old school, "Texas catch can," chain wrestling era, smart marks will watch with fascination and disgust at the "New School" of extreme wrestling depicted in the film where ring work and craft are cast into the dustbin in exchange for cheap pops, high spots, staple guns, "hardcore," and less than creative, innovative blood sport. Mick Foley shared this frustration, how too much is often asked by fans of their heroes:



We are a brotherhood of sorts. Yes, I used brotherhood universally irrespective of race, class, gender, or those other categories of identities that often divide us. I smile when some talk about professional wrestling as the domain of poor or working class white folk. Those who makes those claims don't understand the range of our shared popular culture--"our" being a broad cross-section of humanity. In fact, there was and is something radically democratic about professional wrestling. Sure, it isn't perfect. Of course, it is a stage for spectacular, exaggerated, and ridiculous, racial caricatures. But us, we ghetto nerds, are still in the audience cheering, dreaming, smiling, and clapping with folk, black, brown, red, yellow, and other. Me and my fellow ghetto nerds, a generation of us, all wanted to be Hulk Hogan. We saw red and yellow, not Black or White. Me and my dad and my uncle screamed for Rick Flair and bowed in respect. Me and my dad jumped up and down at the New Haven Civic Center when via closed circuit television Hulk Hogan body slammed Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania. These are the stuff from which memories are made and why we smart marks follow our chosen "sport" almost as a religion, even as we simultaneously praise, criticize, and bemoan its current state of affairs.

Professional wrestling is a story of tragedy and triumph. At the end of the film this tension is made painfully and mortally clear. Do we die as we lived? Is this triumph? Or do we die as something else, something less than how we imagine ourselves to be? I think you can guess my answer. In short, see the Wrestler.

Questions:

1. Who is to blame for the current state of professional wrestling? Is it a function of monopoly where the WWE has no incentive to maintain excellence? Is it the fault of fans for lowering their standards? Is it the fault of professional wrestlers for teaching the audience to demand a more extreme, high spot style as opposed to a more demanding, and in my opinion, fulfilling traditional style of wrestling?

2. Should their be a union for professional wrestlers? Should their be an off season?

3. How many wrestlers have died before age 65? Should we panic? Be worried? Is this an anomoly in the world of sports? Is professional wrestling being unfairly singled out?

4. Greatest era and greatest territory? I vote either 1970s WCCW or 1970s and1980s AWA/NWA. Your vote? Could it be the 1990s WCW-WWE-ECW era?

5. Two people: Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit. Is the Wrestler also their story?

6. ECW in its hayday, can it ever be topped?

7. For those who have seen the Wrestler, is the Ram's character channeling Sean Michaels, Terry Funk, Jake Roberts, all three, or some other combination of individuals?

8. If you could fix three things about the WWE to get it back on track, what would they be? What is your favorite WWE storyline now? TNA storyline? Why? For me, Sean Michaels and JBL is brilliant in its simplicity. Will they ruin it?

9. Will the great grandchildren of we ghetto nerds be watching professional wrestling? Will it be something we can recognize? Will we still be watching it?

10. Which is the sadder scene in the film? The legends convention where the old timers are selling videotapes in a DVD/digital era or the Ram playing Nintendo with his young neighbor? Could the movie have ended any other way?

11. My smart marks, why do you still love pro wrestling, our addiction, its physical story telling mixed with soap opera melodrama for men?