From the Ring to Real Life: How Pro Wrestling Strengthened My Closest Friendships
Professional wrestling has always been the easiest way for me to connect with other people.
My lifelong friendship with my older cousin Marvin is majorly attributed to weekend sleepovers, watching Saturday morning wrestling together, eating cereal in front of the TV. As almost 40 year—olds now, we still reminisce about our childhood memories.
My friendship with my longest-standing friend Blain is also due to wrestling.
Everybody knows what the first day of school feels like, especially when you are starting a new school. This was middle school, 6th grade, first day of class. I knew a few people from elementary, but a lot of us got split to different middle schools due to district zoning. So here is an entirely new group of people for me to meet. I wasn’t very excited about it, due to memories of being “the new kid in school” when I first moved to the suburbs. Being one of only 6 black kids in the entire school definitely made things…interesting. Safe to say I was not looking forward to the first day of middle school.
But then, I walk into my homeroom class, meet my teacher Ms. Anderson (Big Sean’s Mom, fun fact), and take my seat.
I notice however, that there’s a kid in the back row wearing an NWO Wolfpac t-shirt. The all-red one with the giant wolf head on the back. The next day, I made sure to wear my black DX t-shirt with the green spray-painted “X” logo. My next memory is being at his house with a bunch of other kids, watching whatever the next WWF pay-per-view was. Here we are, 27 years later, still talking about wrestling, and still hanging out whenever I go back home.
All of that brings me to today. As an adult, and dare I say as an adult man, it is difficult to form new friendships. I moved to Arizona in 2012 after living in Michigan my entire life. And when you move somewhere that has established friend circles, it is hard to find your clan. Not to say I have no friends that I met along the way, but as an adult with responsibilities, children in most cases, and bills, it’s not the same.
Enter the Sickos.
I found a group of people who are just as passionate about this weird thing I love called pro wrestling, and it’s fun to talk with them about the shows we watch, the storylines we want to see develop and all that fun stuff. But it means much more to me. It’s a group of like-minded individuals who are accepting and welcoming to people of all backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, religions (or lack thereof), and people who genuinely seem to care about each other’s well-being. I can rely on these folks for positive affirmation, a pick-me-up if I’m feeling down, a share on a piece of content, a good news article about the world, and everything else a group of genuine friends would talk about at length.
Safe to say, just like with Marvin and Blain, it might’ve started because of pro wrestling, but it’s growing into something much more fruitful, and I’m thankful to be a part of it. And as always….
GUNS UP TO ALL MY SICKOS CLUB GOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLDDDD MEMBERRRRRRRRRRRRRRSSSS!!!
Art by Neon Ghost
