WWE wrestlers still athletes
(In response to Jack Fitzpatrick’s March 30 column, “Wrestlemania: good for economy, but not a sport.”)
One thing that Fitzpatrick fails to realize in his column about Wrestlemania 26 is that the majority of people don’t contend that WWE wrestling is a real sport. That’s like saying that there is an argument raging over whether or not Santa Claus is real (or the Easter Bunny, or Donald Trump’s hair for that matter). The column isn’t addressing a group of misguided 6-year-old boys. Isn’t it? Look at the name of the company that produces the spectacle … World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). I think it’s pretty safe to assume that we’re in the majority if we understand that wrestling isn’t real.
Also, Fitzpatrick contends “a wrestler like Triple H, The Undertaker or anyone else with a meaningless nickname is no more of an athlete than Jackie Chan — they’re all just pretending to fight.” While it may be true that they aren’t really smashing each other with chairs and such, calling these wrestlers anything but athletes is simply demeaning and just plain wrong.
Take, for example, two of the biggest wrestlers in the history of the sport: The Rock and Brock Lesnar. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was a star on the football field, and he would have played in the NFL if not for an injury while at the University of Miami. He played ahead of a future NFL superstar by the name of Warren Sapp (heard of him?), and won a National Championship in 1991 while at Miami. Brock Lesnar’s collegiate history is also remarkable. In his four years of collegiate wrestling (the real stuff) at Bismark State College and later at the University of Minnesota, Lesnar finished with an astounding 106-5 overall record on the mat. He finished college as a two time NCAA All-American, a two-time Big Ten conference champion, and he finished his senior year by winning the NCAA heavyweight championship. He currently holds the title of UFC Heavyweight Champion.
Just because the product we see on television and at live events like Wrestlemania isn’t real doesn’t mean that the athletes that partake in the “sport” aren’t real either. Most of these guys come from illustrious athletic backgrounds and to demean them with a cheap slam (a choke-slam perhaps?) is to discount what it really means to be an athlete. I think it’s time they deserve a tag-out.
Justin Beatty Undergraduate
