Are you sure this is wrestlin?

Is there any place you can take your kid that is not completely soaked with vulgarity? When I was a boy, a father could take his son to wrestling. A hot dog, some fake violence, cartoonish entertainment, mostly for the kid..... And for the Dad, the amusement and pleasant recognition that the kid believed this was real just like something he believed was real when he was a boy out with his father. I've known that wrestling has been turned over to the culture pimps for sometime now. The last live match I went to was nearly 20 years ago and it was terrible. It was also not long after the introduction of female managers and sidekicks to the ring. The manager in question, I don't remember who she was, stepped into the ring to argue with the Ref. After the requisite finger pointing and yelling, the opponent picked up this woman and (theatrically) slammed her to the canvas. I was stunned. The two wrestlers resumed fighting out of the ring and the woman lay there still until two guys with an old style hand carry stretcher took her away. A little boy of about 8 or 10 years old 2 seats away from us asked his dad "is she going to be OK?" His father replied "she's not really hurt". The boy seemed to understand it just all was part of the show. A show I no longer wanted a part of.

The picture you see above is of Bobo Brazil, champion professional wrestler. 30 plus years ago I rooted for this man to retain his belt as world champion at Dayton Ohio's Hara Arena. He wrestled the most dangerous and unsavory characters, such as the Wild Man from Borneo and a whole host of villains and ne'er do wells. Bobo was the good guy and he nearly always won. Nobody ever hit or pushed a woman or for that matter even brought a woman near the violence in the ring. This was a place for fake brutality and man to man conflict. There was no disrespect or violence against women, ever. There is a place for "guy only" stuff in this world, but it's only stuff women wouldn't want to participate in anyway. I'm not talking about women who are wrestling fans, don't get me wrong. But this is one of the places where we are taught to kill spiders, even though some of us are as afraid of spiders as you are. This is the place where learn to stand between you and stranger on a city street to protect you from whatever might come. This is one of the places where we learn to behave like men, from our fathers. I'm not suggesting we learn how to behave like men from watching wrestling. I'm saying we learn it from watching the good guy win at a place where our fathers took us. You want to see a man who knows this? Visit Rob's blog. When you wake up at 3 a.m. and hear a noise downstairs, and your husband gets up and finds out where it came from, thank his father and the moments where he learned to be brave and protective. He would gladly stand between you and any danger, because he loves you. He is fighting his fear as much as you are. Understand this, and you understand and further appreciate your man. I know this sounds strange, but also thank Bobo Brazil, the Sheik, Johnny Valentine and the Wild Man from Borneo for all the things your husband does for you. If you want to see what wrestling has become, just watch 10 minutes of a WWE program.