Wrestling Guilty Pleasures

Dreamer when he's not blubbering on camera
Photo Credit: TNAWrestling.com

Jason Mann starts a lot of interesting wrestling-related topics on Twitter. The other day, he had an interesting one, wrestling guilty pleasures. Wrestling, like any other entertainment media, has a lot of subjectivity as to who is "good" and who's not. Even given that variety in opinion, there are people who are considered bad almost universally, people that are known as guilty pleasures, in that people are ashamed to admit they like them.

I don't believe in the term "guilty pleasure". I think that if you like something or someone, you should be out and proud about that. I will never hide the fact that I like Creed's first album or Adam Sandler comedies post-The Wedding Singer (excepting Little Nicky and I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry... those ones were terrible). Similarly, I will never shy away from proclaiming my admiration for wrestlers who other people on the Internet hate or think are terrible. Let's pretend for a second that I do. If I felt shame for the guys that I liked, here's a list of what my guilty pleasures might look like:

Tommy Dreamer - Dreamer is a hardcore icon, but among those who feel the backlash against ECW that seemingly is sweeping the Internet right now, he's the one who probably feels it hardest. Every other week, he's on Impact, crying and cutting pandering, saccharine promos. Be that as it may, I still love the Innovator of Violence, even if I don't love those aforementioned pandering, saccharine promos. The guy can still go in the ring. Is he going to give you tope con hilos out the ass, or ZOMG WORKRATE? No, not at all, and if you expect that from him, you're highly delusional since he was NEVER about that. What he is about is producing a good brawl, making other people look good, and yeah, I'll admit it, unmitigated nostalgia. Whether it's in TNA or on the indie circuit, I'm glad Tommy Dreamer is still in the ring.

Mark Henry - This isn't the first time I professed a fandom for the World's Strongest Kool-Aid Man, and it won't be the last. Henry is criminally underrated by the Internet at large, a community that for the most part sees a fat guy and automatically thinks he's a slug. Get real. Henry moves around better than some guys half his size, but where I enjoy him most is when he's in there with smaller guys, like REALLY smaller guys. I love seeing him throw wrestlers like Evan Bourne and Zack Ryder around like lawn darts, and even now that he's teaming with Bourne, I love the potential for high spots combining their two body sets and abilities. They teased a SSP from Bourne off Henry's shoulders at Night of Champions. Let me go on record right now in saying that if they pull that spot off for realsies, I will probably mark harder than I have ever marked before.

Chris Masters - It's no surprise that I've pumped up Masters before too. I was first taken by Masters in a tag match against DX, where he was the best worker in the ring, but I really started to notice him when he did his boob-dance on the otherwise forgettable Osbourne talent search segment. After that, I noticed that, hey, Masters isn't that bad a wrestler, and in fact, he's one of the best on the Smackdown roster. Scoff at it all you want, but Masters has yet to have a bad match since coming back to the WWE.

Josh Matthews - I used to hate Matthews in the booth, so much so that I derisively called him "Mr. Dead Air". However, for awesome as heel Michael Cole has been on NXT, the show itself wouldn't have the same feel to it if Matthews wasn't there playing off Cole and riffing with him. All he needed was a venue to be himself on camera, and it works. It works bigtime.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!