Withthree little boys and a trampoline, I’ve learnt to call an ambulance as soon as I hear the words ‘Watch this, guys!’ Their sweet, innocent games are precious: Kill Me in the Face, Snot Chasey, Hide and Spit, Stab the Entire World and Watch Them Die, and Let’s Drink the Cat’s Blood Because She’s Probably Gay (don’t ask).
Hello, winter. It’s cold outside, the trampoline is empty and instead of belting the crap out of each other for the listening pleasure of the neighbours, they’ve taken to watching WWE Wrestling for their carnage hit. Violence, destructive stereotypes of masculinity and Channel Nine. I know, it’d be more spiritually nourishing to give them a packet of fags and some pornos.
Some people would call me a bad mother. I think of myself as a good mother withlow expectations. ‘Mum, you have to check out how totally awesome and sick-as Geoff Harvey is.’ Geoff Harvey? Nine’s old musical director? Beard, face like a ferret, looks like he’s partial to a drink. Or fifty. Now a wrestler? That’s reinvention. So I pull up a beanbag and watch a couple of large, steroid-fuelled, fake-tanned wrestlers engaged in something that looks like a cross between the world’s worst pantomime and Murder on the Trampoline. No piano to be seen. Geoff Harvey? It’s Jeff Hardy. A wrestler. His theme song is ‘No More Words.’ I assume he just grunts and reads books withpictures now.
I’d never watched wrestling before. The vanity, theatrics, pageantry, cock rock and stadium effects didn’t surprise me. But two things did. The campness, the flowing locks, glistening bodies, make-up, Lycra and bling make Iron Chef ’s Chairman Kaga look like Ron Barassi. King Booker looks quite the queen in a crown, cape, budgie smugglers and spats, and Vito wears a dress and spends the entire time flashing his bits. The other thing I wasn’t expecting was how Jerry Springer it was. There’s always a revenge nutter, jilted lover, lunatic or, in one case, insane leprechaun interrupting the match. And the commentators act like this has never happened before. In the same way people only watch car racing for the prangs, wrestling fans only watch for the drama. And who’d blame them when the only other options for drama are Bed of Roses, Packed to the Rafters and Home and Away?
Is it real? Good question. I asked my seven-year-old. His response? ‘What do you mean, real?’ I said, ‘You know, do you reckon the wrestling is real or fake?’ He looked confused. ‘What do you mean by fake?’ And then he went back to playing withhis wrestler dollies. I mean action figures.
Real? Fake? Hilarious is what it is. The Undertaker who never talks. The Boogey Man who’s ‘coming to get you.’ Rey Mysterio and his Mask of Power. The female wrestlers, called Divas, who perform World-Class Scrag Fights. Some midget called Horny on a motorbike wearing a spike-covered plastic outfit shooting water pistols. They can’t wrestle and they can’t act but it’s the best drama on telly by miles.