Wrasslin’

Though it’s painful to admit sometimes, I was a huge wrestling fan. I mean, I was very into it. Ask Kerrie — she saw the rise and fall of my wrestling addiction. I was booking my own matches, I was ordering videos of Japanese puroresu wrestlers — it was uncontrollable.

Since then, however, I’ve gotten over it. I’ve realized that I’d do a lot better taking my free time and directing it towards, oh I don’t know, fantasy basketball simulation leagues.

Mark Dursin, a close friend to Bill Simmons (my favorite ESPN.com writer), has put together an article that explains a lot about why I started to become tired and burned out by professional wrestling and it’s xenophobic and lowest-common-denominator angles.

From Gorgeous George to Magnificent Muraco, from “Rowdy” Roddy Piper to “The Unpredictable” Johnny Rodz, one thing is clear: professional wrestlers love adjectives. They’re also fond of alliteration (like Ravishing Rick Rude or Marvelous Marc Mero) and hyperbole (like the Great Kamala or Ultimate Warrior). But they really love adjectives.

And so do the fans. We routinely employ their own adjectives (many of them unprintable), not only for the wrestlers but also for moves, announcers, and especially, storylines (“angles,” in wrestling parlance). For many of these angles, adjectives such as “lame” and “uninspired” work just fine; as an example, I give you Edge and Booker T’s feud over shampoo. Some angles cross the line into “absurd,” “distasteful” and even “vaguely illegal” — like when Earthquake sat on and subsequently killed Jake the Snake’s pet python, or when Brock Lesnar pushed one-legged wrestler Zach Gowen down three flights of stairs.

For a select few angles, only one descriptor fits: “appalling.”

It’s very good — go read it here: Scraping the Bottom in Wrestling.