Simmons Unhinged

Bill Simmons--you know him for his ESPN gig on all things basketball, lots of football and a decent amount of baseball stuff--goes completely off the reservation with a blow by blow account of a recent Wrestlemania shindig before 72,000 screaming nitwits in Arizona:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/100330. Disturbing (I think that Bill may be working through some things) but nevertheless, highly entertaining.

Reminds me a little of my misspent youth, part of it at the old Sam Houston Coliseum accompanying my seventy something year old grandmother to pro wrestling shows produced by the legendary Paul Bosch (great guy and a war hero--I met him once when my mother took me to his office after I won a tire (yes, one (1) tire) from the Bill Varley Tire Company during an intermission raffle drawing). Anyway, before going to my first show, the old man took me aside to explain that the matches were fake but that my grandmother intensely regarded them as real--granny was not a rocket scientist. Great entertainment those matches, featuring the likes of "The Iron Claw," himself, Fritz Von Erich, The Spoilers, Baron Von Rashke, Johnny Valentine, Wahoo McDaniel, Ernie Ladd, Gene Kiniski, Mil Mascaras, the odious Gary Hart, referee Johnny McShane, and many more that now escape me. Speaking of refs, before one "World Championship" bout between Von Erich and Kiniski, the Brown Bomber himself, Joe Louis, was introduced as the guest referee for the match. Even as a kid, I couldn't get over how sad Louis looked when he climbed into the ring and wondered why such a great figure in sports history would now be in such a venue as this--learned about Louis' tragic life soon after. Wrestling wasn't so obviously over the top in those days--that generation of grapplers strove much more for realism and the muscles came from lifting real weight or years of bailing hay or what have you and not out of a needle. At least, I'm pretty sure they did and they had that honest look of the kind of muscles that were used to lifting heavy objects and winning world wars.

At the risk of repeating myself (don't recall if I've disclosed this before) one of the most touching things I ever witnessed occurred before one of those Saturday night programs. Everyone rose for the national anthem and a glitch had apparently developed with the recorded music, so the ring announcer (don't remember his name) asked if the crowd would follow him with the pledge of allegiance. Recall that this was at the height of the Vietnam War protests and riots, et al--essentially the nadir of national patriotism with VC and NVA flags being waved at student protests. But not with that crowd of blue collared yokels in a smoke filled Houston arena. They belted it out--loud and proud for every shit head at Berkeley and Amherst and Lansing to hear. The kind of people who showed up at Sam Houston Coliseum every Saturday night were the simple types who were raised to do the job right the first time, respect others, and didn't think everything was about them. You know, the great unwashed who built the goddamn country and didn't expect and wouldn't take a hand out. Not without some faults--they were just a tad backward about one or two items and weren't very good company when discussing books and the theatre and were a little light on some popular social justice issues but they were damn good about stopping to help you change a flat or kicking the living shit out of some son of a bitch who had the gall to burn a flag. They're all gone, now. All gone. Replaced by those who can cry on cue ("weep" for those of you who are NYT regulars) and who receive their daily instructions from Oprah.

I blame it all on goddamn soccer. So, there.