I take pleasure in answering at once and thus prominently this communication below, expressing at the same time my great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Disclaimer: Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of 👉 humorous fabrication 👈 appears every Saturday.
Dear Otus,
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say that professional wrestling is fake. Papa says, "If you see it in the Democrat-Gazette, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is professional wrestling fake?
-- Virginia O'Hanlon,
Vilonia
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age; the cynicism of a cynical era; the irony of an ironical time.
They do not believe what's on TV unless they see it in person. They think that nothing can be real which is not comprehensible by their little minds.
All minds, Virginia -- whether they be men's or women's or children's or Stephanie McMahon's -- are little.
In this great universe of ours, man -- and I mean that in the broadest, nonsexist, unchauvinistic, Homo sapiens way -- is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him as measured by The Authority.
Yes, Virginia, professional wrestling is real -- as real as WWE Main Event, WWE Monday Night Raw and Smackdown! As real as WrestleMania.
It exists as certainly as Nielsen ratings, testosterone and gullibility exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.
Alas! How dreary would be the world if West Memphis had not given us Sid Eudy, aka Sid Vicious, Sid Justice and Sycho Sid?
It would be as dreary as if there were no "Batista Bomb," no "Attitude Adjustment," Roman Reigns' "Superman Punch" or Jimmy Superfly Snuka's "Superfly Splash." There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence.
How dreary the world without The Miz, Kalisto, Triple-H, Zack Ryder and the glory of The New Day (Big E, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods) when they defeated Los Matadores, The Lucha Dragons and The Prime Time Players in a Fatal 4-Way tag team match at last year's SummerSlam.
We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight, and maybe the occasional Ultimate Fighting Championship match with Ronda Rousey.
The external light with which the inspirational John Cena fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in professional wrestling? You might as well not believe that the prodigious personal accomplishments of Charlotte (daughter of Ric Flair) and Asuka aren't real. You might as well believe steroids are bad for you.
You might get your papa to hire men to watch all the pay-per-views until Christmas to see if professional wrestling is real, but even if they did not see WWE Live's WrestleMania Revenge Tour in Britain, what would that prove?
Nobody can prove pro wrestling is real, but that is no sign that it isn't real. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can prove.
Did you ever see the Bella Twins, Brie and Nikki, dancing on your lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that Total Divas is not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders that are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even The League of Nations (even without King Barrett), nor even the united strength of The Social Outcasts or all the wrestlers who ever lived -- even Jesse "The Body" Ventura-- could tear apart.
Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond.
Is wrestling real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No professional wrestling? Thank God! It lives and lives forever. A thousand pay-per-views from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 PPVs from now, it will continue to make glad the heart of man.
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you of the wisdom found in Otus' Collected Maxims and Other Reflections ($10.58 on Amazon.com): "There is no tag-team partner in the Lion's Den Steel Cage Death Match in the squared circle of life."
Disclaimer
Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of
Z humorous fabrication X
appears every Saturday. E-mail:
HomeStyle on 04/23/2016