Let’s get ready to rumble

WWE Live comes to Kingston

Image by: Jenna Zucker

Despite entering the K-Rock Centre unsure of just what we were in for at a night of WWE Live, we found ourselves unable to look away for the entirety of the show. If you’re interested in a night of over the top, edge of your seat drama, wrestling may be for you.

WWE Live’s Kingston event on Nov. 21, part of the WWE’s Survivor Series tour, brought the big names of the wrestling world to Kingston, including the new and former WWE world champions, AJ Styles and Dean Ambrose. Other wrestlers included Bray Wyatt, Dolph Ziggler and the new SmackDown women’s champion Becky Lynch.

The lights were dimmed on the half-full K-Rock Centre as we rushed to our seats midway through the first match. We sat down just in time to witness what would be the first of many “biel throws.” It was so dramatic and so perfectly graceful that the element of disbelief we’d decided to suspend ourselves in was instantly shattered.

Neither of us had any wrestling fan gear — although we share a love for John Cena — so we settled on alternative band t-shirts to fit into the crowd. While we didn’t end up taking off our coats, we were quite pleased to feel like we fit the scene. The crowd was filled with people of all ages, including families.

When we thought of wrestling before that night, we felt like it was where a macho attitude truly belonged. We weren’t wrong.

Each match began with a highly dramatic introduction, while the audience seemed to be in agreement with who to cheer for and who to boo. Every wrestler, accompanied by a personalized theme song and graphics on the projected screen, walked up to the ring oozing over confidence without a trace of shyness.

The men who wrestled at the WWE Live event entered the arena donned in everything from thigh-high tasseled boots to sparkly speedos. Much like being a peacock, it seems that the key to being a WWE wrestler is to grab the audience’s attention with your looks, and ditching the traditional gender boundaries of clothing made these men anything but self-conscious.

The theatrical nature of what happened in the ring gave the event a curious quality.

One of the first fights we saw was between two men of vastly different stature. One was an exceptionally large, muscular man dressed in dark clothes. Baron Corbin, or as his fans refer to him, “The Big Breakfast” or “The Lone Wolf”. The second was a much smaller man in a Luchador mask and a tight, bright green bodysuit.

The smaller man was consistently beaten with little contest, obviously not able to overpower the giant, however, the audience continually cheered for the underdog.

It didn’t matter so much who was the ‘best’, but, somewhat like the Roman circus, who the audience thought deserved to win. As the small man was thrown around the ring like a feisty ragdoll, one could argue in another sport setting he would be humiliated. Here, the audience cheered him, even as he dramatically limped off the stage in defeat.

Our takeaway from the night: might doesn’t equal right in WWE wrestling. The hero in the ring isn’t always the biggest or the strongest.

Tags

Kingston events, Lifestyle, WWE

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