Why I love pro-wrestling, and why I think every fan should too

The feeling of joy when Bryan held up his WWE World Heavyweight Championship in victory was one of the best WrestleMania moments of all time, and it was masterful storytelling.

An amazing payoff for such a magnificent struggle

That is how wrestling is a form of literature, and also drama and inspiration. And when Bryan was stripped of his title due to an injury, we were all heart-broken. Then he came back, won the Intercontinental Championship at WrestleMania 31, and all seemed well again. But then the same thing happened. And this time we don’t know if he’ll ever wrestle again. I really hope that this isn’t the end of Daniel Bryan.

But what I truly love about this sport is its shock value. Take, for example, WrestleMania XXX again.

Everybody in the world expected The Undertaker to win that night. After winning twenty-one times at WrestleMania, who would have thought otherwise? He had defeated Edge, Batista, CM Punk, Triple H, Mark Henry, Kane and even ended Shawn Michaels’ career with the Streak, among many other opponents. But that night I was proven wrong.

One of the greatest matches of all time

The match itself, with Brock Lesnar, was putting me to sleep. After all, Taker was getting old, and the man has given everything to the wrestling industry, truly a legend in every form of the word. But that night he gave back even more than we ever thought he would. I was lying down on my couch watching the match, expecting The Undertaker to eventually hit a Tombstone Piledriver that would put Lesnar away, but WWE made me nearly fall off the couch. After a third F-5, Brock Lesnar pinned Taker, and in my head I counted to two, expecting that to be Taker’s kick-out. But there was a third count which I didn’t count along to.

Like everyone in the crowd, after yelling “What?”, I was as silent as a lamb. All I did was glue my eyes to the television screen and try to process in my head if what I saw actually happened. After realising I wasn’t dreaming, the shock inside me turned to anger towards WWE for letting a part-timer end the seemingly immortal Streak, but after a few days I understood that it was the right thing to do. Nobody expected it, making it one of the best moments ever, and Brock Lesnar was elevated to a level of domination like no other. Even though he was barely around, every time he was, it was always deadly, and still is.

Nobody expected to see this image

And that, in my opinion, is what makes wrestling. It’s the moments. Good, bad, scary, funny, it’s all in the moments.