There are two types of wrestlers. Okay, there’s a lot of types, but there’s two for what I want to talk about.
One kind is the old vets, guys that can’t hack it in the real world. They became wrestlers because they had no other good options in the straight world. They drink a case of beer in the car on the drive to the show. They have sex with a hooker when they get there. They work their match and then go out after drinking and getting in fights. Then another hooker.
They do this until they drop dead of heart failure/drug overdose or get shot by one of their ex-wives, illegitimate children, or parties unknown.
The other kind is not what I expected to find in wrestling. Athletic nerds. When I started on the road these people took me off guard. I didn’t expect mega-ripped roided out young bros to be into Japanese cartoons and video games and Star Wars. They grew up watching the first kind of wrestlers. They love wrestling, they do it willingly and enthusiastically when they could be part of real society selling insurance and being normal.
Most of all these type 2 guys like comics books and superhero stuff. On one side of the locker-room you have a broke-ass looking old dude looking at a porn magazine because he doesn’t “believe” in the internet and on the other side you have a kid that could be a back-up NFL linebacker reading Spider-Man and His Spectacular Friends.
I don’t like superhero stuff. I read one comic someone left backstage when I was bored. It was called Nightfist. He’s a guy who hits people with his fist. At night.
The origin story of Nightfist is that decides that he wants to be a hero so he goes and beats up a drug dealer. He does this a few times and learns that heroing doesn’t pay good. So he decides that it’s okay for him to take the drug dealer’s money after he beats them up so he can use that money to be more heroic instead of wasting time with a job.
As time goes on he decides that after he beats up the drug dealers he should take the drugs too so he can sell those drugs and use that money to be even more heroic. People are going to get drugs somehow so why not use that money for good? Eventually Nightfist tells the drug dealers, hey, just pay me protection money and we can cut out the part where I beat your ass. For justice.
Then Bat-Lad has to arrest him and Nightfist is vert confused, he doesn’t understand what’s happening because he’s a good guy not a crime boss.
If you missed it the very subtle message of Nightfist is that you can’t get clean by doing dirt.
One of my first posts on this blog was about how I’m not a criminal. That was important to me at the time. Royale and Obaluaiye both told me that an important rule of magic is “don’t be a criminal”.
I don’t feel bad about ripping off Gary.
Fuck you Gary.
