Tom Campbell: Mehind The Bike "Gobowen-Bound For Pete Cohen"

Wrestling With Bandwagons...inside a CAGE!

So Wrestlemania 25 was on last night...

Two years ago, somebody asked me if my carer lets me stay up after nine o' clock, this preceded my statement that I watch wrestling - insinuating, of course, that I must be some sort of retard to watch such a thing! Fast forward, that same person messaged me this morning, telling me how Shawn Michaels versus The Undertaker was the greatest wrestling match ever.

Sadly, this isn't an isolated case. It seems that grown men pretending to hit each other is coming back into vogue...and I must confess, I don't like it that much! For the past ten years I have been - most of the time - very, very isolated in my fandom of professional wrestling, a pastime I have found myself very interested in on an artistic standpoint. For this, I have been routinely mocked and given weird looks to the stage where I've pushed my inner-wrestling fan as far down as it can possibly go as to not offend the normality of those around me. So much so, that when wrestling is brought up with me in public I genuinely feel extremely uncomfortable and try to skirt the issue. But in the last three months or so, something very strange has happened. More and more people are coming to me seeking my opinions on happenings in the squared circle...people who had previously raised eyebrows whenever I had made mention of my dirty, DIRTY fanboy love. Some may say "must be cool for you, everybody watching WWE again." But to be honest...I really, really hate it, for the most part!

Some people, I'm glad have gotten back into wrestling...my brothers taking an interest is brilliant! But so many people who normally wouldn't give me the time of day, and people I've had no discourse with for the longest of time, are coming up talking to me about how brilliant WWE is! People who have only recently decided this, and therefore people who don't view wrestling the same way I do. Yes, it means wrestling conversations can be had...but they are very, very boring! People talk about how Vladamir Kozlov is one of the best up and comers in wrestling for years - the same people who were too busy turning their nose up at "that stupid wrestling thing" when Brock Lesnar was tearing a hole through the WWE roster and making the Heavyweight Championship interesting for the first time in years. People talk about how ECW has really let itself go as a company and how it should have more "Hardcore Matches", blissfully ignorant to the journey ECW has taken from being its own independant entity to the C-List wrestling show it is today. And I swear, if anybody else says Triple H versus The Undertaker will be a brilliant match if they ever get chance to face one another, I will cry my eyes off in rage, remembering the last seventeen matches they've had in the past ten years when nobody was looking.

Thanks to Rich at work I understand where all this has come from...eighties kids are looking for nostalgia, and wrestling is one of those things that we all had in our childhood that we want to revisit, much like Transformers or Star Wars or the Moors Murders. This is where, I think, I am one of many other wrestling fans who are left cold by this thought. The best way I can describe how I view wrestling is how a football fan views his favourite team. You stick with them through thick and thin. The match may have been rubbish on Saturday, the weather terrible, the pies stale and the goal difference shocking...but you'll be back on Saturday even if the weather is worse and the pies are just as stale!

Wrestling has had a tough ten years since its peak and hasn't really got back on its feet until now. This sudden rush of wrestling love may just push it back into the main spotlight again, and that's great for the industry, but makes me feel a bit sad as well. Something that I (as well as many other people I know) feel is something very individual to myself is about to become a global thing. Remember that episode of Doug when Dylan Farnham turned up on Teenheart Street wearing the same clothes as Doug? And the next day at school everybody was wearing the same clothes as Doug, and nobody believed Doug had been wearing that outfit for ages? No? Well, I feel like that and classic Doug is the only analogy available to me at this time.

To close out, I say to those who are "back" into it, then welcome back. But take time to fill in on what you've missed before telling me Triple H "is the best wrestler ever and the fact that he's champ says it all", or Chris Benoit "is just a cold hearted killer and didn't do anything for wrestling anyway" (Are you a recent wrestling fan?  Did you look at this blog, see the picture and say "God, why's he put that murderer on this blog?" if so, chances this whole rant is aimed at you...sorry). And if anybody else lectures me on why The New Age Outlaws should come back, why Kane needs to put his mask back on and why WWE should "just go back to calling itself WWF" I may be likely to hit you with an F-5.

Don't know what one of those is? Go check out what you missed in the last ten years whilst you were calling me a retard.