How I'm Enjoying Pro Wrestling

A horse and rider are pounding through town, clanging a brass bell and shouting at the top of his lungs. Lanterns alight in the windows of each house and shop. The priest sends a caretaker up the steeple to chime the great bell. Somewhere, a horn blasts; three bone-rattling notes deafen those nearest. Word spreads. Before long all have heard the day’s most important news. I Have A New Thing That I’m Interested In.

In February, I started watching All Elite Wrestling’s weekly television show Dynamite. It’s something my wife and I have talked about doing for a while. She’s been a massive wrestling head for her entire life (she was actually a backyard wrestler herself when she was 18) but by the 2020s she had long since fallen away from following any promotions except through social media. Watching two hours of television every Wednesday night is a low barrier to entry. Lower still, in fact, given that we were watching the 90-minute Survivor on Wednesdays at the same time, so we mostly just tuned in to the last match or two of Dynamite. I felt no obligation to engage with the wider world of AEW material, and I did not expect that I would choose to do so. It was just a fun little thing to do with a small amount of our free time.

That was six months ago. Now, wrestling has become a major fixture in our home life. In addition to watching Dynamite every Wednesday, we watch the promotion’s B-show Collision on Saturdays. Their semi-monthly pay-per-view events have gone from something we might pirate a few days later for the matches that sounded the most interesting to something we watch live every single time. I’ve been watching older matches too, from other promotions in other countries, learning as much as I can about wrestling’s history and stylistic nuances. I turned 32 last month. I thought that I had more or less settled on the Interests I’d have for the rest of my life. I was surprised by the enthusiasm I felt for exploring a new medium. The last time I felt the same thrill of discovery and hunger to consume was as a child, when cinema was brand new to me.