Wrestling explained first-hand
“What’s wrestling?” When my 10-year-old son asked that, my heart sank. I told him we were heading to Pure Power Wrestling’s “Danger Zone” show on June 24 at the Fritz Sick Centre and that is how he replied.
When I was a kid, Stampede Wrestling was king. You’d see an exhibition at school in the afternoon, then head down to the hockey rink or back to the gym for the ring-a-ding-dong-dandy of a show.
The wrestlers, also featured weekly on television, were larger than life in every way. Davey Boy Smith, Archie Gouldie, Chris Benoit, Bad News Allan, Jim Neidhart, Steve DiSalvo, the Cuban Assassin, Great Gama and of course, Owen Hart.
But my son? He knows Dwayne Johnson from a string of family movies, not his exploits in the squared circle. My children never gathered around the tube on a Saturday afternoon to watch Ed Whalen broadcast from the Ogden Legion or parts known only to people from Calgary.
So off we went to Gym 2 at the Fritz Sick Centre, the 10-year-old was worried one of the Pure Power stars would fly over the top rope onto his lap. As it turned out, his older sister almost got belted by a shoe.
Today’s kids don’t jump feet-first like we did. They’re eye-rollers. Sarcasm and restraint rule their emotions.
But not at Pure Power Wrestling. Scared energy transformed with the first missile drop kick. By the time Vinnie Valentine strolled into the gym with his evil minion Cyanide trailing behind him, my three kids were booing and shouting with abandon. The 10-year-old was ready to jump into the ring when Cyanide starting beating Sydney Steele with a ladder.
It doesn’t happen enough, those unrestrained moments. Even at a hockey game, there are few real bad guys outside of those darned Tigers.
At wrestling, however, the bad guys are bad and the good guys are good.
We’ll be there again on Saturday, me and my kids. We’ll cheer for the high-flying heroism of Travis “Heat” Copeland and Bulldog McBain. We’ll be hoping for a comeuppance for Vinnie Valentine and his drooling idiot of a bodyguard, Cyanide.
The action starts at 6:30 p.m. At the Fritz Sick Gym and if you let go, leave your cynical self at home, you’ll love it. *** Some people have jobs, others have vocations. For Lethbridge Police Service Cst. Braylon Hyggen and retired Staff Sergeant Zealand Leavitt, being a cop is not a paycheque, it’s a calling. I know there are issues right now facing Lethbridge police but take a moment to celebrate the work these folks do as they coached a group of local athletes to gold in basketball at the Special Olympics Alberta Summer Games in Medicine Hat this weekend. Also big congratulations to fellow coach Leslie Prenoslo.
I saw Zealand on Monday, congratulated him and he said simply “The kids really came through, we had a couple of down moments but they were great when they needed to be.”
Way to go!