Don’t you love it when you are having a normal conversation with someone — or listening to the radio or television — and you hear a pro wrestling reference? You’re in a meeting and two co-workers say they’re going to “Tag Team” their presentation. I love when that happens. Or someone says he is so angry, he’s going to “come off the top rope.” Or you’re watching football and the announcer says a player was just “Body-slammed” or “Clotheslined” by his opponent.
Another phrase I love to hear in mainstream conversations or on the news is “Break the back.” For example:
Liberals want to break the back of the Tea Party movement
or
Government forces tried to break the back of the demonstration
An otherwise boring news report or conversation sure becomes more exciting when pro wrestling is brought to mind — and I believe references to “breaking the back” are pro wrestling references. Where else in our society are Back Breakers so common?
Watching pro wrestling is a secret pleasure for most of us — something we do with the curtains drawn but wouldn’t want our boss or minister to necessarily know about.
So when a wrestling reference pops up in polite conversation, it’s as if the speaker is confessing that he enjoys pro wrestling — coming out of the closet. It’s as if wrestling is not shameful, but rather a rich source of colorful (and universally understood) metaphors. It also adds an exciting, violent, savage allure to a conversation, to mention you want to “break a back” like some heel giving a cocky interview.
Many people seem to laugh nervously when you bring up a pro wrestling reference in conversation, perhaps ashamed to admit that they grasp the meaning (and therefore that they actually watch that low-brow fake wrestling).
Or maybe people are nervous that their understanding of the term will reveal the heart-pounding pleasure they feel when viewing a hot wrestling match, so they giggle to imply that they watch wrestling because they find it funny (rather than arousing).
To “break the back” of something is to destroy it once and for all, to render it impotent.
“Back Breaker” implies permanent injury. It is therefore sadistic to invent and use a move called a “Back Breaker,” yet these punishing and crippling maneuvers are common in pro wrestling. A villain sure seems more brutish and frightening if he is deliberately trying to injure somebody’s vertebrae!
So do me a favor: try to work pro wrestling references in your conversations and speeches. If you get a complicated assignment, call it the “Figure Four Leglock” of projects. If a neighbor becomes angry, call him the Mad Dog Sawyer of the block. If anyone cuts you off in traffic, threaten to Piledrive them out on the concrete floor. And never say you’re going to stop something, but rather that you’re going to “break its back.” Hopefully, these phrases will become more and more common and I’ll get to hear wrestling references every day.
