Abundance

I know I’ve commented on this before — you may even be tired of me bringing it up — but I am often pleasantly shocked over how much great pro wrestling content we are blessed with in this modern age.   Sometimes I just smile, shake my head, and think:  What did I ever do to deserve this abundance of exciting, enticing, arousing, entertaining wrestling?!

So please indulge me as I mark the holiday today by rambling on about how lucky I feel to have so much fantastic pro wrestling to enjoy.  If you don’t like to read a lot, don’t worry — I included lots of pictures from my archives for you to gawk at.

 

Maybe you are not familiar with the wealth of pro wrestling content that I’m referring to, or you’re not sure where to find it.  If so, here are a few places I go when I need a hot wrestling fix:

YouTube, Tumblr, FaceBook, BlogSpot, SmugMug, Flickr, DeviantArt, WWE, Twitter, and Vimeo to name a few.  There are also websites with wrestling content available by subscription, download, and streaming — including private Underground federations, and the Indy leagues.  Whew — it’s a lot to see, and I love that.

Oh yeah, there are also rasslin’ shows on television,  I get about 8 to 10 hours of content per week plus Pay-per-Views — check your local listings and set your DVR so you don’t miss a minute of it.

 

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Remember when television was our only source for pro wrestling?  Before cable TV, we were lucky to have an aerial antenna above the house to receive programming beyond the four basic channels.

If you pointed the antenna at just the right angle (there was a control box that rotated the antenna), you could pick up a local channel in some far-away city that broadcasted a weekly wrestling show.  That grainy image of male bodies, colorful costumes, and campy violence was a glimpse into paradise.

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Then we got cable television and our wrestling horizons suddenly exploded.  We gained access to wrestlers from around the continent — the Von Erichs in Dallas, the Four Horsemen in Atlanta,  the Harts in Calgary, the Hennigs and Gagnes in Las Vegas.

These were exotic specimens that we had heard of, read about in magazines, and fantasized about, but never had seen in action.

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Once you had cable TV, you had to get a VCR and the wrestling lover’s life got even better.

Now if you had to miss one of your shows, you could record it. (You had to learn how to set the VCR timer, which was very complex but any true wrestling lover would figure it out — the pay-off was just too great.)  And our stacks of VHS tapes hidden under our beds quietly grew.

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Once you recorded a great match on VHS, you could play it back and enjoy it again any time, pausing and repeating the most exciting moments.  It was free porn — imagine that!

 

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Then someone way smarter than me invented the Internet and wrestling fans could post their own content worldwide (such as the Wrestling Arsenal Blog, established 9/3/2000.)

Now we became a community and could find each other, and share between us our favorite wrestlers, most exciting memories, and hottest photos.  We began copying and trading those old video tapes under our beds (“You send me your 80’s Jobbers tape and I’ll send you my Best of Brad Armstrong.”).  What a rush to receive that box full of VHS tapes — we could not wait to rip that box open and start viewing the wrestling!

The federations and the performers themselves could be found on-line, sharing their own photos, and eventually, videos and you could interact with them!   YouTube was born in 2005 and we achieved blessed abundance.

VICE Sports recently posted a long article about the Young Bucks tag team (who I love) and how they’ve managed to earn good money despite spurning the Big Leagues and staying on the Indy scene.  The article makes reference to our current abundance:

“Now there are more promotions than there have been in years—and, with the rise of YouTube and internet pay-per-view, more ways than ever to watch wrestling.”  

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They say that some people who lived through the Great Depression later hoarded their money, even if they became wealthy, because they had grown up so needy.

The same may be true of wrestling lovers who grew up with little access to the sport suddenly faced with this ridiculous abundance.  Now we want to see all the great videos and all the best wrestlers.  We want to connect with other wrestling fans and talk about it, because we had no way to share our thoughts and feelings — to say “Me Too!” — during our formative years.

This must be why I sustain this blog year after year — because I used to have a little, now I have a lot, and I’m thankful for this abundance.