An English Professor Explains the Appeal of WWE Wrestling

Earlier this year I taught T.S. Eliot’s poetry to my college students in the morning and attended WWE’s Monday Night Raw that night. I enjoyed both. I wouldn’t call myself a fan of WWE wrestling, but my 12-year-old daughter loves it, and I have taken her to some of the big WWE events in Los Angeles and San Diego, including Summer Slam and several Monday Night Raw shows. I have also gone with her to meet some many of the WWE superstars, including her favorite wrestler, John Cena, at special access events before the shows.

I am writing not as a fan defending the WWE, but as an interested outsider trying to explain certain aspects of its appeal. I’m writing more for people who don’t like WWE than for people who do. Fans don’t think WWE needs any defense.

The most common criticism of WWE wrestling that I hear from its detractors is that it’s “fake.” The athleticism is certainly not fake. I have watched wrestlers climb high up on enormous ladders and then dive into the air, doing several flips on their way down to the mat to pin an opponent. I have watched them lift 300-pound wrestlers off the mat and toss them out of the ring. There are some fake elements to what they do. The seemingly brutal punches they land on their foes, for instance, are not as violent as they are meant to look. But these are truly gifted athletes who have not only wrestling skills, but also tremendous strength and impressive gymnastic abilities.

WWE is not only about wrestling matches. It’s about stories. Characters are created, and storylines are constructed that can be carried out for months or years. The major wrestlers have their own theme songs to which they strut out from backstage to the ring, wearing familiar costumes and sometimes accompanied by loud fireworks and gigantic video images. Rivalries are stoked for months leading up to big events such as the annual WrestleMania.

Do these created personas mean the wrestlers are not “real”? Fans, I believe, respond to the real person and also to the created character. To me, it is similar to how movie fans think of John Wayne. Was he real, or fake? He wasn’t really a cowboy. He was an actor. But when people compare someone to John Wayne, aren’t they usually talking about a composite of the characters he played rather than the real individual who portrayed them? Wrestling heroes are like that. They are a combination of made-up characters and real people, just as the shows are a mixture of reality and drama.

Events such as Monday Night Raw are dramas as much as sporting events. One twenty-something fan I sat next to called WWE a “soap opera for men.” New rivalries emerge, alliances are formed and broken, wagers are made, threats are delivered. Personas of individual wrestlers can change over the years, from evil to good and back again. Shows end on cliffhangers, and fans can’t wait to see what will  happen next.

Millions of fans tune in to watch WWE each week, and around 60,000 of them fill the stadium for the biggest event of the year, WrestleMania. Although I don’t intend to keep watching if my daughter loses interest, I at least now have a better understanding than I used to about why some people find it appealing.

Comments 9

  1. I confess that I once sat beside Hulk Hogan on a plane and had to ask why people were requesting his autograph (he just laughed.) This sport is something I didn’t understand until, at age 40, I started taking karate on a dare from some black belt ladies (they agreed to study the Bible if I tried karate.) As I studied karate, I discovered numerous parallels between martial arts, writing, and Christian discipleship. I have a new appreciation even for WWE now that I’ve been to the mat a few times myself. (I earned my black belt at age 44!) Funny how our children can open our eyes to previously unexplored worlds.

  2. I loved watching wrestling when I was younger. Some of my happier childhood memories was going to local wrestling cards. Wrestling is a great escape for the young and young at heart.

    1. Have you ver watched REAL wrestling, like high school, collegiate or Olympic? Why settle for a artifice when you can observe the real deal!!??

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  3. Thanks for sharing this mysterious world and explaining! It’s not unlike the fannish community: folks on the outside think it’s about Spock (or Elvish!) ears and nerdy obsessions but that’s a very superficial take. I think it’s very neat that Katie is into this and that you are a supportive and involved father.

  4. As a long time participant in the TRUE sport of wrestling, I am sorry to say that I do not share this enthusiasm for a fake and intentionally violent parade of actors in ridiculous uniforms shouting stupidities to rile up an uneducated crowd. It stings me to have this charade called “wrestling”, thus giving true wrestling a bad name. Wrestling is a demanding noble sport, the oldest in the world and to have it made fun of by WWE charlatans is demeaning and impious, to me at least.

  5. So now I see this site only accepts like-minded views. How lame. Kind of like WWE isn’t it to not allow truth to enter into the picture. WWE is the height of stupidity and hypocrisy, giving a bad name to the true, noble and demanding sport of high school, collegiate and Olympic wrestling. I know you will not allow these words on the site but I take solace in that someone must be reading them in order to reject and ban them like communist panels rejecting the free exchange of ideas.

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