Wrestling community is due an apology
I READ your article by Rob Batiste on the 125 years page about wrestling. It was an interesting read but I was unamused and angered at his comment about wrestling, saying ‘the sport, if you can call it that’. Wrestling is a sport, as the definition of a sport is physical exertion for the entertainment of others.
I am myself a wrestler and it is very physical. Yes it is scripted but the bodies are still taking those impacts. I had to explain it to a co-worker once. If I push you over and you fall on the ground, then you get back up and we repeat that process again and again and again. You get tired. Then you think of instead of a push it’s a body-slam, a press slam or alternate moves, then you have guys jumping off things or being thrown off higher heights. Yes you learn to fall to lessen the impacts but they are still there.
Guys and girls are doing this for between 5 and 20 minutes. It’s not fake.
After all that, I would like Mr Batiste to write an apology to the wrestling community and I hope to see him at the LDN show in July at the Princess Royal Centre, where he can see first hand how gruelling it is.
MR R BOUGOURD