We are proud to announce a partnership with Mikey! He is fairly new to the wrestling scene but is full of passion and always ready to offer up his ever evolving opinions. Trust me , you'll be hooked on reading his work as soon as you finish this!
In his debut feature, Mikey takes you through his journey of becoming a fan and what keeps him hyped for all things Pro Wrestling. Proud to have him aboard!
Well hello there y'all. I'll be contributing to The Bright Side of Wrestling under the pen name The Hype Step Bro. You can find me on Twitter at @TheHypeStepBro. You can call me Mikey for short. My friends do.
I'm pretty new to wrestling fandom. Growing up I, of course, heard about Hulk Hogan, The Undertaker, Triple H, the Rock, Sting, Stone Cold, Goldberg. It was pretty impossible not to hear about them. I remember wondering what the difference was between WWF and WCW, especially when each company had its own video games. (Things got even more confusing when the NWO happened and we had WCW vs. NWO as a title. “What's the difference between all these things?!” a young Mikey casually wondered.)
The one main line I heard from people when pro-wrestling was brought up was “Oh you know that stuff's fake, right?” Everyone outside of wrestling fandom seemed to assume that everyone in wrestling fandom didn't know that what they were seeing wasn't a “legit” athletic competition.
I was pretty much your standard nerd. Huge Star Trek/ Star Wars fan. I even got into a heated debate with one of my cousins once about what was more important: Star Trek or baseball. I eventually conceded years later that he was right: the latter was more significant. (Notwithstanding that this was the kind of silly apples-to-oranges fan war that only young kids could pull off.)
So even though wrestling seemed cool, I never got into it. We had only one TV. My Dad, bless his heart, to this day still doesn't know what to make of pro wrestling. Certainly, shelling out $40+ for pay-per-views on a regular basis would never have been in the cards for us. Which, being all grown up now and having to pay bills, I totally get. WWE had a stroke of genius coming up with a $10 a month alternative.
Me being a committed pro-wrestling fan is a very new thing. I just celebrated my two year “anniversary”, in fact. In September of 2014, I was browsing on Hulu, and Monday Night Raw came up.
I thought “Heh, what the hell?”
This was, of course, right after Brock Lesnar suplexed John Cena out of the main title scene at Summerslam 2014 (though of course no one knew yet that Cena wouldn't just get the belt back at Night of Champions; he is John Cena, after all).
I started watching the Monday Night Raw where Cena pleaded with Triple H to give him his rematch at NoC.
This of course, just happened to be when WWE was starting to push the Network pretty hard.
“I was watching the highlights from Summerslam....and you can too, for just $9.99...” we all remember Trips saying.
Well, I was hooked.
If anyone doubts the genius of WWE by lowering the monetary cost to entry, and of the wrestling industry in general of always uber-hyping the next big event, well, they sure got me.
It's definitely helped my fandom that I am a very lucky man: I married a wife who loves pro-wrestling as much as I do.
In fact, we made our second honeymoon a trip out to Dallas for Wrestlemania 32 (and NXT Takeover, of course). One of the greatest experiences of my life; on the personal top 10 list.
What is it about wrestling that keeps us fans hooked?
For men and boys, it's an easy call: wrestling around, breaking stuff, throwing things at each other, that's all in our DNA.
Put a set of Nerf guns in front of a bunch of dudes, any bunch. What do you think is gonna happen next?
I remember seeing some TV blurb about a parenting study years ago. According to the same, mothers when interacting with their young girls would usually sit down and read to them. Fathers interacting with their young boys? Less than five minutes in, they'd be wrestling around.
Us dudes are meant to be running around, getting in the mud, doing active things, not sitting still. Wrestling is about the purest form of that you can get.
(I won't speak for all the gals out there as to why they like wrestling. In my wife's case, she likes that “breaking stuff” element right along with me.)
Also, for a long suffering fan of San Diego sports (and believe me, you suffer), wrestling is the perfect antidote to watching teams that (thus far) have always figured out new ways to let you down.
Yeah, wrestling has its sub-fandoms (Roman Reigns fans are a particularly resilient bunch), but we all pack those arenas because we appreciate what these athletes (yes, athletes) are putting themselves through to bring us this unparalleled type of art.
In a world that is increasingly devoid of entertainment that is pure escapism (I'm talking no nods at all to “serious” current events, no winks and nudges to this interest group or that, no subtle or unsubtle moralizing), wrestling stands tall as perhaps the last bastion. It's the last place you can forget what is often times an awful world, flip on the TV, grab a beer, and watch master storytellers engage you.
I am excited to be a part of Brightside Wrestling. My buddy Matt is perhaps the most passionate fan I know. All of us have great ideas of cool content we want to bring you. Above all we are united in our love of the industry and our desire to have fun writing about it.
Stay hyped!!!!
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