4 Reasons (and more) Why I Love This Stuff

I love wrestling. I truly do. I think it’s the greatest thing in the world. It’s emotions. It’s cinema. For the poor. As it was intended for in the early ‘900s.

And the more I spend time on the interwebz the more I sense wrestling fans just hate it. Or maybe they hate themselves for loving it. That’s some Freud shit I ain’t gonna touch no matter what so don’t bother.

But here’s why I love it. Clear and blunt. Ready? Go:

1) It’s affordable. It’s basically free actually. Don’t complain about 12 bucks a month for Netflix. You get movies too! Plus you have YouTube. WWE Vault is the best wrestling YouTube channel out there and it’s hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and… well, you get it… of archives. I used to pay 20 Liras (Italiy’s old currency before the Euro) for a tape from someone who had a satellite dish just to watch Raw back in the day. That would be 10 bucks today. Appreciate what we got.

2) It doesn’t judge you. It really doesn’t. You may find some cringe and some else utterly offensive but it’s there for everyone to enjoy. It’s not some rich fancy stuff only the elite (no, not the Jacksons) can enjoy. It’s dumb. It can also be brilliant. It can also make ya throw the remote at ya TV while yelling “What the fuck am I doing with my life?!”. But it’s there and it will always be there.

3) The stories, man. Here’s a little anecdote…

So here is my grandpa. He’s been my father my entire life. Covid hits. Wouldn’t ya know? He also decides to get cancer again right in the middle of Covid, ya bastard. Ends up in a hospital. Dies a month later. Last thing I told him, when he already basically was in a coma, was “Let it go, pops. I’m alright. I’m at peace. Just go”. He went. And I was the last person he heard. It’s like he just wanted to know we were all good before packing it up and going.

Then Cody comes back to WWE. He starts “the story”. Lotsa promos. Lotsa tears. Lotsa Dusty references and the motherfucker can’t keep a straight face. He cries all the time! And here I am going “Motherfucker… stop crying! Ya makin’ me cry too!”.

And then, one night, he finally wins the damn belt. A toy belt. A wrestling belt people are given by writers .

… And it felt real. And I remember wiping tears away for the last 5min of that match because I, as y’all did, obviously knew what was to come. And when the 3 hit the mat I literally fell on my knees, tears in my eyes, looking up at my roof and went “T voglio bene, nonno. Mi manchi ogni giorno” (“I love you, grandpa. I miss you every day”).

Because of the story. Because someone out there could read the feelings put out and made it their own. Their own past. Their own present. Their own intimacy and personal struggles. No matter how cheap wrestling can be to the common eye.

4) Last but not least, because it’s unity. Now, don’t get it wrong, good ol’ MRC loves some veiled tribalism in there, yo. It’s the history of sports. It’s me vs you and we’re better and ya suck and blablabla, etc. but, at the end of the day, it’s we… THE FANS… still coming together to discuss our love for this stuff. Sadly, it’s degenerating into pure online hate and people saying horrible stuff and that’s sad. We should, in fact, love the fact we “hate” each other over different tastes. And then just smile and be friends because we truly are an elite (once again, not the Jacksons) club for we truly understand this crap nobody else does.

So take that into your heart.

So thank you…

Thank you Randy and Liz for hugging at WrestleMania VII. My favorite moment in wrestling ever… thank you Ric for pinning Vader at Starrcade 1993 and looking you were barely alive by the end… thank you Shawn for “I’m sorry. I love you”… thank you Warrior for the greatest, most adrenaline filled entrance in wrestling ever and fuck star ratings… thank you Tony Khan for caring about this and no matter my dislike of AEW, thank you for still putting out a product some enjoy no matter of I do or not… thank you Hulk Hogan for beating evil Yokozuna at WrestleMania 9 as 13 years old Maurizio yelled “HULK HOGAN HA VINTO! HA VINTO!” (“Hulk Hogan won! He won!”) no matter how silly the internet think that is. I was a kid. Don’t judge a kid’s feeling. Maybe don’t judge at all, uh?… thank you yo Bobby the Weasel for tearing up and going “I wish Monsoon was here” during his Hall of Fame speech…

And thank y’all for reading my little, humble column. Hopefully you’ll give me plenty more reasons why we love this stuff in the comments section.

This is Maurizio.
Hit me back.