The Art of Pro Wrestling
By: Thomas Davila
It takes years to perfect the art of professional wrestling; I have been a fan of professional wrestling for over 30 years. Dillon Begley from The Observer wrote,
"To be a professional wrestler, one has to be extremely skilled. They have to know how to act similarly to a movie star while, simultaneously, being able to perform their own technically sound wrestling stunts."
I first started watching wrestling because of GLOW (Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling), which was an all female wrestling promotion that put on weekly television shows. That wrestling promotion is no longer around. Now I watch WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment), which used to be called WWF (World Wrestling Federation). They had to change their name because they got sued by the World Wildlife Fund for acronym rights.
I watch other wrestling promotions as well, but only in the states.
Although the acting may be over dramatic at times what goes on in the ring is very real. The excitement that goes on in the ring is very real, and wrestlers have really gotten injured or worse. A wrestler by the name of Mick Foley had his ear ripped off in the ring during a wrestling match. Another incident was when a wrestler received a stiff kick in the throat and had to have emergency surgery to repair his trachea.
Professional wrestling is popular in other countries as well like Mexico and Japan. Professional wrestlers have even died in the squared circle as they call it like Silver King, who was a wrestler from Mexico that died in the ring in London. Another famous wrestler was Owen Hart. He was a wrestler from Canada who died while performing an aerial stunt and fell more than 70 feet into the ring. He died from blunt force trauma in front of a live crowd at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, MO.
Darren Drozdov wrestled a match against D'Lo Brown that resulted in now being quadriplegic as result of a botched wrestling move from his opponent and ended up landing on his head. A fairly recent incident occurred in 2015 in Tijuana, MX when a wrestler by the name of Perro Aguayo Jr. was wrestling in a tag team match and died from cardiac arrest due to having a cervical stroke. This happened when his opponent hit him with a wrestling move called a dropkick in the back and landed on the middle wrestling ring rope and fractured three vertebrae in the process.
Other wrestlers that go by their stage name like Paige, Daniel Bryan, Jason Jordan, Tyson Kidd, Kurt Angle, Steve Austin, and Sting have all suffered serious neck injuries and have either temporarily or permanently retired from active competition. I may not watch wrestling all the time because I am so busy with life but I do know what is going on with current storylines or who is out with an injury.
Most of these wrestlers make a career out of wrestling and do it for 10 to 20 years and sometimes even longer. Wrestlers actually need to train to be a professional wrestler, and sometimes it could take years until someone is ready to make it to a major wrestling promotion or wrestle on the independent circuit (which are smaller wrestling promotions). Everyone that enters the realm of professional wrestling aspires to be in a major wrestling promotion though because they get to perform in front of a much larger crowd and travel around the world.
Just like with any career, professional wrestlers had to go to attend wrestling school. What do they teach you at wrestling school? They teach you how to develop your character, and as I mentioned before wrestlers have gotten seriously injured and/or died from performing these dangerous stunts. Wrestling school is designed to teach how to perform as well as how to protect yourself, so someone does not get hurt or worse.
There is a lot that goes into becoming a professional wrestler, and just like with anything else you have to want it because becoming one is not easy.