Source: Boston Herald
By Al Kooper
Monday, September 4, 2006
When I was a youngster growing up in New York, I used to salivate waiting for Thursday nights. Ray Morgan from the Capitol Arena in Washington, D.C., would navigate two hours of pro wrestling. I loved it! I’d barricade myself in my room with two chocolate ice-cream-covered Hostess cupcakes and begin my journey to future diabetes.
Through the years, I’d stumble onto TV wrestling, get hooked again for a couple of years and then fade back into reality for a couple more.
Well, I’ve been back watching for more than a year now. I went to SummerSlam at the TD Banknorth Garden late last month for a live taste. At age 62, I think I’ve finally got the sociology behind its success figured out: World Wrestling Entertainment is a soap opera for guys. It’s not just a card of matches, like boxing; there’s a running story line that promoter Vince McMahon promulgates each week, even including himself and his family as participants. He’s a maniac – at age 60, he’ll occasionally get in the ring himself.
As most people know, there are bad guys and good guys – and they can change sides at a moment’s notice if it serves the McMahon story line. Whatever. When a good guy is pummeling a bad guy, American males are happy.
I am an American male. I carry a bellyful of anger around on a daily basis. Being more intellectual than bellicose, I keep my anger tucked in. But it’s churning inside me. When the bad guys get slammed with a steel chair, my anger is temporarily relieved – and that’s a good thing in these days of $3-a-gallon gasoline, no carry-ons and bin Laden.
It’s also why Vince McMahon is a self-made billionaire. His never-ending tours fill arenas. They sell merch, monthly TV pay-per-views, magazines, DVDs and CDs. Heck, he’d run brothels if they’d let him.
Now, there are many women at these live shows because there are cute wrestlers and plenty of angry women. There are also WWE divas: women McMahon has trained to wrestle. Some are right out of Playboy, literally; some look as if they just exited the Phil Donahue show. That’s Vince. Something for everyone. If you have kids and you allow them to watch wrestling on TV, you’re going to hear them chanting “You suck!” along with the crowd. What a generation we’re raising. But it’s not just us. WWE sells out arenas all over the world! Paris, London, Rome – they’ve all fallen to Vince, the Nero of the millennium.
So there I was Sunday night at SummerSlam, a worldwide pay-per-view. Tickets to see the likes of WWE champion Edge versus Massachusetts’ own John Cena were going for a top price of $303.
As is common with sports aimed at teenagers, there is an extreme side to McMahon-developed wrestling. Steel chairs and tables are routinely brought into the ring – even baseball bats wound with barbed wire. Bags of carpet tacks are emptied onto the canvas and opponents are slammed down on them. One wrestler started out a bleached blond. At the end of the bout his hair was red – with blood. The crowd loved that match the most.
Which has me wondering when I’m in bed and can’t fall asleep: What’s the next boundary mad genius McMahon will shatter in his quest to entertain the world?
