Tenderness is a thing to be beaten into.
— Ocean Vuong
So basically,
professional wrestling is the last bastion of American theater
still accessible to the working class. Even my father,
who pulled all-nighters snaking a hundred feet of phone cables
every few months or so when our boss moved meeting rooms,
could make a nosebleeder happen. I was a Jeff Hardy boy,
and my sign was made of black Sharpie and a styrofoam
insulator. I botched the Hardy Boyz logo on one side,
so I wrote on the other and waved that instead. I don’t remember
what it said. But this was 2009 and he was pushing for a title run.
CM Punk just a few weeks before had torn him limb from limb,
on the mic, for his painkiller addiction. So it had to be something gentle,
like, “I love you Jeff.” Anyway, he lost his fight that night.
The pyros were being set and the runway was quiet for the next match
when he pointed in my direction. From his view, I must’ve been as small
as a thumbtack, another blurry pin of a child in a stadium
full of “Let’s Go Cena” kids. I don’t really know if he saw me,
but I choose to think so. You see, wrestling is actually a love tragedy.
Part of a wrestler’s job is to bear the aggression of families
that can’t fight back, who on some level know the ring is arranged
like a rage room, callused in both body and soul because a Swanton Bomb
couldn’t heal it. That isn’t fake. Tenderness is a contusion. And somehow,
we doubt their sincerity.