So you’re watching a nice pro wrestling match, enjoying the athletics and scientific holds, and suddenly it takes a violent swerve. One of the wrestlers will grab a towel, or a rope, or chain, or bootlace, or microphone cord, or article of clothing and twist it around his opponent’s neck. What is happening here? Suddenly we’re not in Kansas any more. Suddenly we’re in a dark sadistic place where competitors will do whatever it takes, even strangle the opponent, to dominate and win. The fun and games are now deadly serious, and you can’t look away because violence is fascinating and you need to see what happens next to the poor victim. If you like watching pro wrestling, you probably also like it when a match jumps the tracks like this.
This brutality brings to mind several questions: Is he sick and twisted for trying to hurt his opponent like that? Why isn’t someone trying to rescue the choking victim before he passes out? Will the cheater be arrested later for one count of attempted homicide? How can they show this on TV? And why would any wrestler agree to get in the ring with this freak if he always strangles his victims? And why does the crowd seem to enjoy witnessing these blatant acts of violence, and to worship and respect the cheaters who get in the ring with a choke rope stashed in their trunks? If you’re hoping for answers to all these questions, sorry, I don’t know why. It’s part of the magical and mysterious allure of pro wrestling.
Maybe the fans loves them some dirty rasslin’ because man can’t live on clean scientific matches alone, so a wrestler pulling off his belt and violently throttling some pretty boy while everyone watches in horror can be a welcome novelty after a series of run-of-the-mill back and forth competitions. Variety is the spice of life after all, and most people like their wrestling with a heaping portion of spice.
Wrestlers quickly realized how much the fans loved to see a bad guy break the rules and started choking one another all the time. The crazier and more sadistic the wrestlers behaved, the quicker the arenas would sell out. The violence and brutality in the ring soon became surreal, an alternative universe where psychopaths were given free reign to strangle, tie up, and generally punish the popular pretty-boy wrestlers using all sorts of weaponry.
The fans seemed to favor the villains who were totally unrestrained — who would toss out the rule-book and blatantly strangle their competition right in front of the ref and the cameras. They love the villain because he ignores the rules! Maybe people in the modern world are feeling a bit too restrained by laws, policies, taxes, political correctness, etc. so they enjoy seeing a bad boy thumb his nose at The Man. Maybe the violence and nastiness of a dirty pro wrestling match offers society a release of their frustrations and aggression from being constantly restricted. It’s better if they blow off some steam watching a heel throttling his opponent than if they riot.
The rabid fans were so fascinated by the occasional choke-out that the promoters soon created some bizarre specialty matches that guaranteed plenty of strangulation and probably some blood too. They invented Indian Strap Matches, Dog Collar Matches, Cowbell Matches, and Lumberjack Chain Matches. Basically the two wrestlers would be tied together like animals and permitted to use the rope or chain to hurt the other man as much as possible, usually by wrapping it around his throat. And guess what? The fans loved it, turning out in droves whenever a freaky, violent match of this nature was advertised.
There is another aspect to the appeal of graphic images of choking: breath control is a turn-on for some people. Google it if you don’t believe me. There is a whole genre of porn dedicated to scenes of people getting grabbed by the neck, choked, gasping for air, etc. Maybe the wrestlers realize that a good number of people are into watching a helpless victim straining to get some air, so they act out these scenes to entertain and titillate those who are into it.
