professional wrestling

Having only recently caught the movie The Wrestler on DVD, I was thinking about the relationship between television and pro wrestling. Since the inception of the boob tube, professional wrestling has appeared on television. At first it was an inexpensive way to fill the hours, usually for several hours per week. Then, it became much bigger than that and is now one of the biggest ratings draws on cable television. So, why doesn't the television media or blogs such as ours cover it more (except for when it intersects with other television shows such as The View)?

First, wrestling has its own cult following with a myriad of websites and news sources that cover it exclusively. Anything done on a television website would seem redundant. Secondly, despite the ratings, mainstream television has never taken wrestling seriously. Wrestling is a carnival atmosphere that blurs the line between fantasy and reality and is difficult to treat with dignity and respect for those who don't understand it.

So, I ask of you: do you think more television websites should cover wrestling?

I went through a brief professional wrestling phase in junior high. This was when Hulk Hogan was in his prime and you could also see the likes of Rowdy Roddy Piper, the Iron Sheik, and Hillbilly Jim, among others. Eventually I got over watching men in tiny pants strutting around the ring and gesticulating, but professional wrestling kept going on without me, turning into a huge phenomenon and becoming, as one friend of mine put it, "a male soap opera."

He's right. The storylines have become more complex, and sometimes downright silly. This time, however, Vince McMahon may have topped himself. On April 30, during the WWE pay-per-view special "Backlash," Mr. McMahon will wrestle God. Wrestling fans already know that this is the culmination of an ongoing storyline which involved the sinister McMahon getting beat by Shawn Michaels, a born again Christian. I don't have pay-per-view, so I won't be able to watch, but here's what God had to say: