We received an e-mail today from a fan of professional wrestling. In effect, he called Evening News Sports Editor Ron Montri a dinosaur because he criticized WrestleMania 23 in his Sunday column.
Actually, the writer didn’t say Ron is still living in prehistoric times. But he came close. The exact phrase was: “Clearly your people need to adapt and modernize into pop culture. That article felt like it was right out of 1982.”
Anyone who knows Ron would agree: When it comes to basic values, he’s living in pre-modern times. He still holds to old-fashioned concepts like truth, honor, valor, fair play, hard work. As he said in his column: “The whole essence of sports is competing to determine a winner. The whole premise of sports is finding a way to outcoach, outwork, outsmart or outhustle an opponent.”
Like a lot of traditional sports guys, Ron is troubled by the fact that professional wrestling, while calling itself a sport, is more focused on entertainment than competition. The winners are chosen ahead of time; the action orchestrated. It doesn’t pay much attention to the values Ron cherishes. Playing fair seems to be against the rules.
But that doesn’t mean coverage of pro wrestling doesn’t belong in the newspaper. We understand how many people are crazy about the “sport.”
Wrestlemania was a Page 1 story in Friday’s Evening News. We gave our readers all the information they needed to enjoy the big event in Detroit over the weekend. And there was a story in today’s paper with the results – Donald Trump got to cut Vince McMahon’s hair.
That, clearly, is entertainment. Millions enjoyed the spectacle.
And I don’t question whether the participants are athletes. They’re big and strong and talented, whether they’re competing on the up-and-up or not.
That e-mailer, by the way, chastised us for publishing Ron’s column. “I can’t believe this ‘sham’ of an article was allowed to not only be written, but published.”
If the truth be known, Ron and our other columnists often write columns that make me nervous. That’s one of the goals of columns – to express an opinion, challenge our thinking, start a conversation.
You may disagree with Ron. But one thing you can count on – his opinion is going to be heartfelt. That’s another one of those old-fashioned values he believes in.
And let’s not forget Ron’s old-fashioned and heartfelt appreciation for Giada De Laurentiis’s rack.
Ron is a light in a very dark world. The post modern world of “there’s no such thing as a Hero” is routinely played out in the WWF. I don’t quallify this as a sport. The sport of wrestling is nothing at all like what is portrayed on television in arenas. These “drama’s” are nothing more than violent acts that glorify the baseness of humanity. People will always be entertained by this nonsense and pay good money for it. The problem is that some of the people who love this stuff, are so consumed by it that they view anyone with any amount of moral outcry as being out of touch with reality. In this “modern” society we have truly devolved to a new low of embracing that which does little to improve the human condition and line the pockets of people who gladly rake in the money of the masses who would stupidly hand it over.
Race, truth be told (and I do have permission to tell this!), my wife says that anytime I appreciate someone like Giada like that it adds 15 minutes to my life … and that between my wife and Giada, I’m going to live forever!
Although I agree with Ron that Wrestlemania isn’t true sport, it raises the larger question of how we define “sport.” Are the so-called “toughmen” or ultimate fighting contests sport? And, if so, are they more preferable to Wrestlemania because they are more “sport-like?”
Frankly, if I had to choose between a “sport” like toughman fighting or a “sport” like professional wrestling, I think I’ll stick with professional wrestling and I’m guessing Ron would too!
Mixed Martial Arts events — such as those promoted by Ultimate Fighting Championship, the International Fight League, etc — are regulated in states such as Nevada and California by the same comissions that handle boxing, using the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts established by the New Jersey Athletic Board.
While UFC was initially branded [back in 1993] as a “no holds barred” fighting event, even the very first event had rules to help maintain the safety of the fighters, and those rules have evolved greatly over the years. If you saw UFC highlights from before 2000 and are using that to judge today’s UFC, you are sorely out of date. Professional sanctioned mixed martial arts is absolutely a sport, one that requires a high level of skill and dedication: it is not two beefed up guys having a bar-room brawl.
Mixed Martial Arts is a sport — it has clearly defined rules, trained officials, sanctioning bodies — just like boxing, judo, olympic wrestling, and many other one-on-one combat competitions. To claim otherwise would be woefully ignorant of the current state of the art.
[...] CCed this message to Dan Shaw, who commented on your story on the News Notes blog — his defense of your column may accurately reflect your opinions, but I’m not swayed: [...]
This was very informative, my experience in weapons is very limited, to the Jo and the Bokken and even less in Iaido. To me this was very interesting and exciting! I love to see all different things martial arts!
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