Why would a grown man, with a job, and children purchase and wear a gigantic sparkly belt and wear it over one shoulder like a barbarian wearing a wolf’s pelt?

Because he is attending a professional wrestling event in Baltimore. And because I am standing behind him with my two sons and cousin. I am way too sober and sunburned from a weekend of lacrosse and baseball tournaments.

My sons are inches away from complete freakouts.

The ring, where all real men – and women – are measured.

IT BEGINS

Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore is a fucking shitpit. It’s old and hot and breaking down faster than David Pitta’s hip. My loathing for this pile of rocks is offset by the fact that I saw Springsteen there last year and it was a high point of my life – oh wait, that was my wedding day.

Walking in to the place, my oldest son started a conversation with some dude behind us. His knowledge of professional wrestling was epic. My cousin says to me, “Hey, I just texted you.” His text said: “This guy is very cool . . .not.” Professional wrestling fans are dedicated, too dedicated, some of them are ‘living in mom’s basement’ dedicated. They also have extensive collections of dead sorority girls in their houses.

As we go through the gates a man in front of us has an epileptic fit. My children will ask me 120 questions about this event before the night is over. We reach our seats (and I paid more than $500 for four seats because it was my son’s 13^th birthday and I didn’t see the motherfucking $150 service charge from StubHub. Fuck you in the face, Stubhub, you are worse than a dish of cancer with a side order of AIDS and bubonic plague.)

Yes, there were people there with wrestling belts, although they were not real wrestlers.

The seats were great. About 100 feet from where the goons come out. We are surrounded by wrestling fans and I have to say that the fans at these events are incredibly nice, they are talkative and knowledgeable. There are no stupid rivalries, except people who love Roman Reigns and people who hate him. I saw no one out of control, drunk, or wanting to kill another person.

LET’S GET TO WRASSLIN’
I have no idea what is going on, the arena is dark and the dudes next to me are going apeshit. Explosions, fog machines, music that would crack the walls of Jericho, and cheering. First up is a short dude wrestling a tall dude, and they are just whaling on one another, flipping, spinning, crashing down, getting back up. Amazing shit.

Let’s be clear about these wrestlers, they are athletes. They don’t wrestle, they perform acrobatic stunts while wearing ball huggers – and most of them are built like linebackers. That’s the amazing part of this sport.

Several matches went by, one of them featured a dude from Baltimore and he did not associate himself with steamed crabs, Old Bay, crab cakes, or looting and rioting. Apparently he won, that motherfucker moved faster than oil on a hot griddle.

CHICKS

The main event for the lady wrestlers was between Brittany Blake and Alexa Bliss. In their last match, Alexa hit Brittany across the back with a kendo stick. We were shown the evidence before the match, which prompted howls of outrage a fog of testosterone that wafted across the arena. It smelled like burnt corn chips and blood.

A kendo stick was put on a pole and the idea was for the two “ladies” to get the stick first and bash the other one. The stick fell early in the match – my new expert friends told me that this should NOT have happened – and Alexa beat holy hell out of Brittany again. For the record, Brittany has an ass that would last for days.

WALKING AROUND

Of course my sons needed to hit the head and wow, what a safari . Again, lots of nice people of every color and background. My middle son was terrified, this is the same kid they call Monster Mike on the football field. We’re doing our business and this Latino guy comes stumbling into the bathroom and begins pissing, while yelling at me in a mix of Spanish and English.

I screamed back, “Yo no se! Vaya a la biblioteca con Juan!” That’s my seven years of taking Spanish kicking in.

We also saw a dude wearing a winter coal – on an 85 degree night – with a woman wearing jeans and a halter top. Both looked like meth heads. Which was weird because they were meth heads.

BACK TO THE SEATS

So more people wrestled, got thrown all over the ring. Here’s a cool thing, when something really cool happens, half the crowed will chant “That was awesome” and the other half will chant “Holy shit”. My sons were in pig heaven

We got to witness a cage match featuring two old timers – Hardy Boyz – and this gigantic, pale as milk Irishman – Seaumus, and Cesaro. This shit went on forever, and it got boring until all four of these guys starting slamming each other into the chain – one dude got the door slammed right on his melon. Apparently Seamus and Cesaro won, and that was the first time I saw an Irish guy get into a fight completely sober.

In case you couldn’t tell, the gigantic Irish madman is the ghost on the left. 

Finally, the main event. At this point in time the crowd was a heaving mass of cellulite, testosterone, body odor, spilled beer, and general funk. Nah, just kidding. Well, maybe a little bit.

The entire match featured four different wrestlers: Roman Reigns (bad guy and I know hate him); Samoa Joe (just bought his shirt from Amazon); Dean Ambrose (greasiest looking guy ever); Bray Wyatt (fucking scary ass redneck but wears a fedora so he’s a neckbeard); and Finn Balor (I don’t know, muscular and hairy.)

In the middle is Samoa Joe. He is my new hero.

Shit went sideways during this match, that’s all I can say. Bodies flying, chairs flying, they all smashed the living shit out of a bunch of talbes. And at one point Samoa Joe got thrown right the fuck through a barrier – and that shit was real. The entire crowd was going rat shit crazy.

Then we left.

And that’s when I saw the most glorious t-shirt I’ve ever seen. Truly the masses are ready for the mighty rule of Fozz.

A quick note, there was a special needs child behind us with his father. That guy should get a gold fucking medal and a million dollars. He stood with that child the entire time, covered his ears when it got loud, and was genuinely enjoying his time together. I was amazed and humbled and realized how goddamn lucky I am.