My article “Not Alone” posted on March 12th stirred up some “me too” responses from readers who felt the same way — intrigued and turned on by pro wrestling from a young age and convinced that nobody else in the world felt the same.
So to reassure other wrestling lovers out there that you are truly not alone, I want to post some of the feedback I’ve received. See if any of these memories sound familiar to your own life. The remarkable thing is how amazingly similar our early life stories all sound…
“Truer words not spoken… When I was a kid back in the 60′s, running up to “My” room, door closed behind me ( and locked ) volume so low on the T.V. so “parents” couldn’t hear. NEVER understanding ( or wanting to ) my so called Odd interest. Watching matches on T.V. and buying magazines, my LifeLine to MY world of Loving wrestling.”
“Trying to “talk” pro wrestling with my buddies ( football & basketball jocks ) who laughed like hell and teased as best they could. ALONE ?? You bet your butts I felt alone. Then enter the age of Technology….I can stand proud as can the millions so much so, like myself…. WRESTLING FAN’s and Not ashamed to say it !!”
Received by e-mail:
“Your ‘Not Alone’ post describe my pre-teen, teen and young adult life. Nobody I knew was into Pro Wrestling like I was and I knew to hide the fact that it was a turn-on for me. I was glued to the TV for Saturday afternoon ‘Studio Wrestling’ in Pittsburgh.”
“I would sneak peaks at the wresting magazines in the drug store but could never, ever buy one. I scheduled my Saturdays around when wrestling was on. I would scour the TV guide to see when it was on late night and then get up and watch it (with the sound very low) in the middle of the night.”
“When VCR’s finally became affordable I bought one and I would set it to record and could finally go out on a Saturday night. Then I discovered people selling compilation VHS tapes on ebay and it opened my world to wrestling from all over the country and the world.”
“And it let me know that I was not alone in my fetish!”
“Everything you said, Wrestling Arsenal! Just, wow. Yes.”
— From the Inner Jobber blogger
“I just wanted to say that Never Alone was probably the most beautiful (and accurate) reflection of what it feels like to have decidedly unconventional taste in a world that mercilessly jams boobs, cars, beers, and football down men’s throats from birth. Bravo!”
Who is that hot stud in the first pic?
My story is slightly different in some respects. However, yours does ring a bell with me.
My father was actually a fan and when I was a kid around 8 or so, we would watch together. My mother was very disdainful and I learned to hide myself behind a wall of apparent disdain as I grew older. In junior high school, back in the 60s, a classmate of mine had an enviable and somewhat precocious gig as a writer for a wrestling magazine, interviewing wrestlers and writing up matches. Wow did I ever envy him (secretly, of course.) For a while, I suppressed my appetite for pro wrestling and wrestling in general. My college demanded as a requirement for graduation that a student had to take either fencing or wrestling as a sport in gym class. I was petrified to take wrestling and reveal my secret desires, so I took fencing which I hated. Later on in graduate school, my next door neighbor turned out to be a big wrestling fan and that was when I temporarily eased up on my uptightness and spent evenings watching the matches on TV with him. But when he got tickets for Madison Square Garden for an event, I chickened out though I was dying to go with him. After that it was not until my 40s and the advent of the internet that my interests emerged from hiding and I found myself “not alone.” I now have buddies around the world who share my interest and with whom I can talk about wrestling openly and freely. You Tube, with its amazing and vast library of matches, has also shown me that there is a huge world of wrestling beyond and much better than the WWE and TNA, both of which leave me with a kind of disgust. It has been a liberating though somewhat bumpy ride.
That guy with the bloody face and his legs wide open. :O
That’s nathan cruz. I was wondering the same thing.
So good to see some testimonials from guys that like wrestling (fetish).
It was a different world before the internet. Now , we can search and find good stuff of every shape and size. No more hunting down paper copies of wrestlers in hold. And gear. That’s a special interest of mine. Nice to see others like the gear too. Nothing beats manly big boots – and heavy/thick socks coming up from inside the boots and often rolled over. Boots…and big socks…give feeling of real power. Thanks. bb’s
male studs were born to suffer !!!