As far back as I can remember from this distance—some 40 years—wrestling always had a psycho-sexual effect on me. Whether fake or not, wrestling's body contact and the images of dominance and submission stimulated me on a visceral level. To see a wrestler working over an opponent with some controlling hold excited me. Sometimes a wrestler would keep returning to the same hold over and over again until the other was slapping the mat in frustration or even begging to be released. I feel stirrings even thinking about it.

Of course, wrestling in those days—the '60s and '70s—was so different from what it is now. Today's wrestlers make no pretense about "the show." And they run their matches on high speed, filling them with high-flying moves and constant motions. Holds seem rarely held for longer than a few seconds. Wrestling has always thrived on its sense of story and drama, but since our attention span has all but wasted away and our perception has become overwhelmed by our MTV sound byte culture, the dramatic tension is gone and all is slapstick melodrama of the most ridiculous sort.

I don't watch it.

But 30 or 40 years ago the fans had patience with the matches they watched. Matches had time limits of 30 minutes or an hour, during which the wrestlers took time to feel each other out before deciding on a plan of attack. Certainly wrestling matches have most often pitted a good guy (a "face") against a bad guy (a "heel"), but once upon a time fans believed enough in wrestling—or were willing to suspend their disbelief enough—to enjoy what seemed to be real wrestling between two skilled ("scientific") wrestlers. No rule-breaking or streetfighting in these latter matches, just hold after hold. In matches of any kind in those days and earlier (40s and '50s), a wrestler might even secure a hold and work it for several minutes, almost an entire match sometimes.

This was good for me.