So you won't watch professional wrestling because its fake? Please tell me more about the Jersey Shore episode from last night.

How can you watch this?

This is sooooooo stupid.

You really like this shit?

Seriously, wrestling is fake Joan. A complete waste of time.

I started watching wrestling when I was 13 years old. To this day people still ask me the same questions. You know its fake right? What's the point? None of what they do is real.

I didn't care. I was fascinated. The athleticism, the story lines, I was hooked from my first episode of Thursday Night Smackdown (Oh how I wish it would go back to Thursday). Like any typical week-night back in my middle school days, after dinner I crossed the living room to climb upstairs to my Gateway computer so I could log onto AIM and gossip with friends. You guys remember Gateway? Do any of you still use instant messenger?

Before heading up, I heard a riff from an unfamiliar song playing from the TV, "You think you know me." Casually I turned my head and a tall, good looking man, with long blonde hair, a bright blue trench coat, and sick sunglasses burst through a cloud of steam. My mother and to this day she will say this, exclaimed "Whooo baby he is hot!" and persuaded me to stick around for his match. Why not? The gossip of AIM could hold off for a few minutes.

Next to make their entrance was Rey Mysterio. Now I'm not talking about the rumbly tumbly, chunky doppelganger wrestling today, but the real, 20 pounds lighter, three knee surgeries less, Rey Mysterio. Now this guy was interesting. I mean the other guy, Edge, he  had some pretty cool music, but this guy, he wears a mask and can fly off the top of the ring. This guy is cool. I thought he was so cool I decided to watch Smackdown the next week just to see Rey wrestle.

The next week as it turns out was the show Brock Lesnar decided to F-5 Mysterio's knee into the ring post thus putting him out of action for six weeks. I was flabbergasted. Nah, I was outraged. How could he do that!? Injury Rey, oh Brock is so screwed when he comes back. Rey is going to 619 his ass back to next century. (Please keep in mind I was not aware wrestling is completely staged and the reason why Mysterio was F-5 into the ring post was because he needed knee surgery.)

So I continued to watch. I counted the six weeks Mysterio was out of action in my info section of AIM. People had no idea what I was talking about, but I didn't care. I could not wait to see Mysterio wrestle again. Surprisingly, my countdown was right on the money because after six weeks he was back in the ring and ready to seek revenge. I was officially hooked and have been ever since.

For 13 years I had maintained the position that wrestling was a waste of time. There's no point in watching something if it isn't real. However, the action in the ring and the story lines of the characters kept me coming back each week to watch. It still does. Wrestling is no different then a reality TV show. They create stories that they believe will get reactions from an audience. They stage certain events to take place that shape the direction of the program. If you are reading this and think any reality TV show is true reality, please proceed to go jump off a cliff. OK, maybe I shouldn't be that extreme, but seriously give yourself a five minute time out or something.

Reality TV does portray real people in real settings. The reality is manipulated by the producers of the show. How many times can the ice cream machine break in Kitchen Stadium during Iron Chef? How many girls really do try to fight Snooki and the rest of the Jersey Shore entourage in Seaside?  Do all parents hate their teenage daughters for getting pregnant? Yet an entire nation eats this stuff up as being "reality" but dismiss professional wrestling for being fake. If anything wrestling is a far greater reality then any of these TV shows because the wrestlers do put their bodies on the line. The injuries they sustain in the ring and over time are real. I'll even be so bold to say that the danger adds an additional thrill to the whole aspect of professional wrestling. Defiantly makes it more "real" then any other show on television.

So if you are not a wrestling fan, don't disrespect people who are. Don't taunt fans because the entertainment they choose to enjoy is "fake". Nearly everything on television is fake. News is so sensationalized. Who can tell the difference between the facts and fluff? Like anything in life, it is what you believe it is. To me, wrestling is real and gives me pure enjoyment when I watch. Can you really ask for much else?