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Conflict can be collaboration and friends can be foes
By the time I got to know my granny, she was a little old lady who wore aprons with pockets full to the brim with bits and pieces. She had short, grey permed hair and glasses that hung from a cord — sometimes so full of crumbs that birds would perch for a feed. She was also, quite surprisingly, an enthusiastic wrestling fan. Nothing could interrupt the wrestling on TV on a Saturday. It was her seam of rebellion in an otherwise sedate retired life.
Wrestling is an odd one. On the surface it appears wrestlers are mortal foes. Squeezed into the ring, moods soured by tight lycra, their only goal to annihilate each other. Yet, in reality, they are in cahoots.
KrackerJak is a Professional Wrestler and journalist (a lovely combination, don’t you think? I picture him bodydiving at politicians when they won’t answer the question). KrackerJak has combined his talents in this article, by peeling away the mask from Professional Wrestling.
“So you’re saying pro wrestling is fake?” he asks himself a rhetorical question. “No, I’m saying it’s scripted. But wrestling did spend 100 years pouring energy into extending the illusion of legitimate competition… to the point that rivals were forbidden from travelling together between shows.” It would be embarrassing then if opponents were found hanging out with each other…