Wrestling Night

Professional wrestling has been on television since television became popular in the 50's. It was not like it is now.

For one thing wrestling was regional. There were a small few wrestlers who were nationally known. Gorgeous George comes top mind. He strutted down to the wrestling ring in gold lame and beautiful capes. His golden locks were held in place by Georgie pins. No common bobby pins for him. He was in large demand and visited all the regions.

Most wrestlers wrestled in one region only. There were the good guys and the bad guys. They hated each other and battled it out every week for all of us to watch.

I was a little girl.in the early 50's. I did not care much for wrestling. All those old fat men grappling with each other held no interest for me. The moves consisted of full Nelsons, half Nelsons, headlocks, and the like.

One wrestler would put another in a sleeper hold and they would remain in that hold for what seemed like hours. It was so boring.

My grandparents lived on a farm that had no electricity yet. We had a television and we got wrestling. Each week when they came to town to do their shopping my grandparents would stop at our house when they were finished and watch wrestling.

If the weather was decent the kids went outside to play. Wrestling just was not something we wanted to see.

It was dark when we went out. There were still things to do. We could catch lightning bugs and keep them in a jar. We often played hide-and-seek-in-the-dark. It was easier to hide when there were all those nice shadows to cover you. It was harder to find them if you were it. That was one of our favorite games.

Often we would just go to the garden. We would lie between the rows of vegetables and watch the stars. As we looked for the various constellations and pointed them out to each other we learned a lot about the stars. Sometimes we even spotted a shooting star.

If you spy a shooting star and make your wish before it shoots out of sight It is supposed to come true. I wish I could remember what I wished for. I would like to know if it worked.

Even though we lived in town it was quiet at night. As we were lying there in the fresh smelling dirt between vegetable rows we sometimes told stories. We took turns making them up. It was great fun.

I doubt that there were any scary stories. I do not recall knowing about ghosts or goblins at that age. In that time children were to be protected from ugly things in life. The only mean characters I knew about were the eveil witches in fairy tales. We all know what happened to them.

So we liked wrestling night but not for the wrestling. It was slow moving and really boring.

Now wrestling is a faster moving thing. The wrestlers jump off ropes, have high kick moves, and fancy submission moves. It is seldom that you see a half Nelson in hold for minutes. The wrestlers are far more athletic in their moves.

They no longer try to pretend that the outcomes of the matches were not predetermined. It is called sports entertainment instead of a sport like Olympic wrestling is. They rely on personalities and story lines to keep viewers tunig in next week.

Even so most wrestlers have small fan bases. A few are well known and their names will be remembered in the future.

I have fond memories of wrestling night when I was little. None of them include watching a wrestling match.