Tonight's Main Event

<p>Amazing to me that in 25 years I've never written </p><p class=ql-align-justify>poems about pro wrestling. </p><p><br></p><p>I've written fan fiction and other things when I was </p><p>much younger but never poems along these lines. I've broken </p><p>everything down into three sections. One for my memories. </p><p>One for random topics I felt like writing about. The third is a </p><p class=ql-align-justify>shoot interview with a fictional wrestler named Mark Prime. </p><p><br></p><p>When Dan Wright asked me if I was interested in </p><p>doing this book with him a lot of different ideas and anecdotes </p><p>from my past suddenly came rushing to me. I realized as I </p><p>started writing these that I had far more negative associations </p><p>with this weird amazing form of athletic entertainment than </p><p>positive ones. This book doesn't change that but it did go </p><p>a long way towards making me understand why I stopped </p><p class=ql-align-justify>watching to a significant extent a few years ago.</p><p><br></p><p>But I'll always be a fan. It's hard to shake something </p><p>that has been part of my life in some form or fashion for about </p><p>35 years. Like music and film wrestling has been meaningful to </p><p>my influences and dreams and ideas in ways that are hard perhaps </p><p>silly to explain. No matter what I can't seem to quit wrestling </p><p class=ql-align-justify>as a fan entirely.</p><p><br></p><p>Writing these poems reminded me of everything in </p><p>wrestling that depresses me and everything about wrestling that </p><p>tires out my enthusiasm. At the same time this book gave me </p><p>more enthusiasm for what I do love about this sport than I've </p><p>felt in quite possibly a full decade. I've exercised through writing </p><p>some of the things about pro wrestling that annoy or sadden </p><p>me particularly most wrestling fans. What's left is a book I'm </p><p>very proud of about a subject I'm glad has been part of my life. </p><p><br></p><p>Wrestling is surreal heroic ridiculous dangerous and </p><p>ultimately something that never fails to surprise me. It's still real </p><p class=ql-align-justify>to me dammit.</p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p class=ql-align-justify><br></p><p><br></p>