Y'know, I love sports. Seriously. It's a love affair that really started back in high school and it's not something I've ever turned my back upon. Which is weird because I was so un-jock like in school. Like really not jock like. You have no idea how not jock like I was. Sports in general were one of those things that I avoided like the plague when I was a kid. I would mutter darkly when I'd discover that something I'd like to watch was pre-empted by a sporting event. Any sporting event. I have vivid memories of wanting to curl up and watch cartoons on a Saturday afternoon (y'know, something like He-Man or She-Ra or Thundercats or whatever) and discover, to my horror, that the local cable station would air something like an Ontario Hockey League game (that's junior hockey for those who don't know) instead. I can't express how irritated that would make me.

I had the same feelings for school sports. My high school (hell, even my junior high school) had a variety of sports teams and I avoided all of them as much as possible. Never watched, never bothered to try out, not interested at all. Now to be fair, school was, in general, one of those "things" that I tried to keep as non-intrusive in my life as possible. I'd certainly never volunteer for anything extra-curricular. And sports was a big no-no on my list. Call me anti-social, but I much preferred scooting home and sticking my nose in a book. Or a comic. Or watching TV.

What's interesting in all of this is that it was really pro wrestling that turned me around to sports. I think it was partially because it was just so theatrical, especially in the 1980s, that it was easy to think of it as not a sport. Ok, sounds odd, sure. But for a "sports-a-phobe" like I was at the time, that illusion was fairly important. I realized that the wrestlers were athletes, of course. It's hard not to realize that when one is a big fat kid ("oh, so that's what a pectoral muscle looks like. Not like my flabby chest at all. Gotcha..."). But it didn't feel like a sport to my young mind. I think, looking back on it, that it was the very spectacle of the good guy/bad guy dynamic that attracted me to it in the first place. Wrestling in the 80s wasn't that far off from a typical super hero comic of the time and that tickled the same part of my brain. Maybe sad commentary, but it was good escapism. And, particularly at that time, that was an extremely positive thing for me.

Now, I was always a weird wrestling fan. I loved the tag teams and not the single wrestlers all that much. The singles were interesting to a point, but seeing guys working together and doing double-teaming type moves was really quite cool. I doubt I can explain my passion for a well-executed double dropkick and if you don't get it, you don't get it. It tickled me then and it still tickles me now. What I didn't realize was that tag team wrestling reached a high watermark in the 80s and it's never really hit that plateau since. That twenty years as past since those days says, right there, how little I like about what wrestling has become. You take away tag teams, you take away wrestling's heartbeat. Some argue that it's the loss of kayfabe (that peculiar circus mentality of rusing the viewing audience, whether they are "in person" or viewing matches on TV) that really did wrestling in. I actually disagree. Kayfabe couldn't last in this networked world of ours and there's certainly no way to roll back the clock. No one needs to wait to see what happened last week when you can just log on to the internet to find out for yourself minutes after the wrestling card was over. On top of it, we'll never see fake villains (be they evil Soviets, Nazis, or, in this day and age, Taliban or Terrorists) battling over the top good guy wrestlers ever again. The viewing audience is far too wise for that kind of trick. Besides, when it's so easy to discover who somebody is, the illusion doesn't work ("That crazy Taliban guy? Naw, that's just Bulldog Bob using a new gimmick to get over").

No, it's not the lack of kayfabe that's the problem. It's the lack of really good tag teams. And if I had my druthers, I'd go further and say it's the lack of really good Southern-style tag teams. This is hard to convey to those who've never seen it, but tag team wrestling, Southern-style, brought a magic to the squared circle that no singles event can ever match. You want edge on your seat action with guys bouncing around, causing mayhem? Southern-style tag team wrestling is where it's at. You want to see the crowd get into the psychology of a match? Watch top notch Southern-style tag team wrestling. When it's done right, it sucks you right in. Part of the wonder of it all is seeing a guy (or girl) get isolated in the enemy "corner" of the ring. That wrestler gets worked over, possible for quite some time, by the opposing tag team. The opposition tags in and out, constantly double-teaming, while the partner can only stand and watch from the other side. Every now and then the isolated wrestler almost makes a tag only to get dragged back to enemy territory (Ricky Morton, for those who don't know, was the absolute master of this). On top of it, a sneaky tag team will work a body part (say a leg or an arm) to make escape that much harder. And submission that much more of a possiblity. Tension builds in the crowd while they wait, breathless, to see if the tag can be made. If it does, the tension releases in an explosion of energy. Usually the partner, super fresh, erupts over the opposition when the tag is finally made. And there's so many ways, narrative ways, to go from there. Does the fresh partner dominate? Does the opposing tag team regroup? What about the poor beaten partner lying there, out of gas, on the ring apron? And on and on. Sounds simple, but there's an art to this. And that's an art that's pretty much been lost now.

This is what's wrong with wrestling today. No one gets sucked in. Ego gets put over in-ring work ethic. Single wrestlers are pushed over tag teams and no one keeps long-lasting partnerships anymore. There's nothing like the Rock 'n Roll Express, the Minnesota Wrecking Crew, or the Midnight Express anymore. Most tag teams don't even have nifty nick names anymore. That's how fleeting the partnerships are. What a loss. For those who wonder why the road to god knows... has such a wrestling current in the narrative, this is my answer. Not to celebrate what wrestling is. But to give a sad wave goodbye for what it was. And how important that era was to me.

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