I'm not sure how it happened, but at some point in my life, I watched professional wrestling and ended up on the side of those grown-up dudes who still think it is awesome.
Two years ago, I watched Wrestlemania 24 at Billy Joe's Pitcher Show in Des Moines. The theater was filled with screaming kids, old men in WWE shirts, and countless tables of people downing pitchers of beer and emptying pack after pack of cigarettes. We sat in the very front corner and had a hard time seeing. In the final match that year, HBK sweet chin music-ed Ric Flair and pinned him to end Flair's career in the WWE (he has now joined TNA, from what I understand).
This year, HBK finally got what was coming to him.
In an amazing match where Undertaker put his 17-0 Wrestlemania record on the line against HBK's career in the WWE, the tables turned on Shawn Michaels, and the Heartbreak Kid was ultimately broken, and forced to say goodbye to the sport (okay, entertainment franchise) that held him in such high regard for so many years. He walked that entrance ramp for the last time as a professional wrestler, and the white-walled living room of a small house in Boone where I watched this year's event saw a few adult eyes well up with tears. I was happy to see him go, but many of the people I was watching this year's Wrestlemania with had been nearly lifelong HBK fans and one even stated that "If HBK loses, that's like my entire childhood is gone".
Despite how laughable professional wrestling can be, it is quotes like that and the professional wrestling experiences I have had in the past few years that keep me hooked. For me, it is just as interesting to watch the 30-year-old lifelong fans as it is to watch the wrestlers themselves.
I don't know where I will be for Wrestlemania 27. I may not even get the chance to watch it, but no matter what happens, I will know that living rooms and movie theaters alike across the country will be filled both adults and kids that can watch and believe that every move is real, every injury is serious, and every match is determined by the best man, not the most profitable.
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