Wrestlers: Real Life Super Heroes

Colorful costumes. Muscle bound men and women. Clear cut good guys and bad guys. Team ups and rivalries. When you look at them, comic book super heroes share a lot in common with wrestling stars. I’m embarrassed to admit this but as a child I was quite the fan of both comic books and professional wrestling. While I continued to read comics, developing more mature tastes in reading and appreciation of the medium, for some reason I outgrew wrestling. Which seems odd since the two seem to share tastes that should appeal to the same palate of someone like me.

Part of what inspired this blog entry, as what inspires many entries, is I was flipping through channels on the TV. Without even realizing it, I found myself watching wrestling. Without having any knowledge of the backstory of these two fighters, and having long ago learned that these bouts are choreographed, I never the less found myself enthralled by the story in front. A loud voiced antagonist called out threats to his absent opponent in an attempt to draw him out. Despite the ref’s calls for civility, the clearly dressed bad guy performs a host of “illegal moves”, eventually just knocking the ref unconscious while the commentators narrate an epic battle between these two foes.

Where Spider-Man got his start

This entire format is all too familiar to me. While these events were taking place in a ring, had this fight been moved to a city street it could easily appear like two super powered beings fighting for the fate of the city. The taunts yelled out from the ring to his opponent back stage fit easily into your average super villain monologue. If the ringside commentators remind me of the dialogue boxes in comics that give voice to the characters inner monologue, letting us the audience know their real thoughts and feelings as they do battle.

The most obvious trait that wrestlers and super heroes share is the costume. This is of course no accident. As I said in a previous blog (see here), Superman is the prototypical super hero and the creators of that character modeled him after a circus strong man. Similarly modeled are the outfits of wrestlers. The purpose of such a costume design is to show off the musculature of the wearer. It’s meant to be a part of the showmanship. While most modern wrestlers lost the cape, the classic wrestling fans can remember fighters walking towards the ring with a cape around their neck, which they could flourish before the crowd.

There are also the famed Luchadores, the masked wrestlers of Mexico, who adopt a persona when they enter the ring just as super heroes adopt a secret identity. As I’ve said in two previous entries (see here and here), a recurring theme in super hero comics is the adopting of a persona in order for the character to both fight crime and also protect their family and loved ones. Plus the mask allows the hero to act in a way they normally wouldn’t in civilian life. It is a freedom that comes from anonymity, which is what I believe the Luchadores share with comic super heroes.

Super heroes and wrestlers are two genres of entertainment that have evolved little since their original inception. Many of the classic super heroes are still around and classic wrestlers who can still physically perform are still showing up in arenas around the world. Go to any comic book convention and there are bound to be a few former wrestlers there signing autographs. There is a mutual fanbase shared by these different entertainment platforms. So closely related are the two that a super hero adaptation can not be mentioned in the news without at least a few wrestlers turned actors being rumored as cast.