Wrestling with a Modern Day Hercules

"Do you remember when you thought your dad was Superman? Then, one day, you realized he was just another old guy in spandex and a cape?" - Ray Romano

In the summer of 1997 I headed up to Minneapolis, Minnesota for the first time in my life - to see a good friend's new home. Four of us - three fresh off graduating high school - made the trip in Brad Pierce's Honda Accord. Up0n arriving in the newly landscaped subdivision on the southside of Minneapolis, we were smacked with the reality that suburban life is pretty boring every where. In fact, aside from the promise of lakes within a twenty minute drive in any direction, Minneapolis truly seemed a reinvention of what already bored me about Indianapolis. Still there was one thing in Minneapolis which I could not refuse; I had been given a tantalizing invitation to see a spectacle I long admired.

No, it was not Prince. It was professional wrestling.

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Minneapolis - as I came to discover - has long been something of an Ur of Chaldeans in wrestling - a type of patriarchal birthplace. I don't know why this is exactly. I got some idea after reading this on the American Wrestling Association. But I think the more complete answer is best shrouded in American folklore ... and even deeper in the mysteries of ancients.

I like to imagine wrestling (and wrestlers) were originally part of the mysterious Nephilim that wandered the earth - humiliating themselves by trespassing upon the daughters of humans only to find themselves forever tangled into the folklore of mere mortals. At one time they towered over all other humans, but their hulking frames could not restrain their lust. So, they became inconsistencies, spectacles to be feared, mocked and - worst of all - targeted as a the ultimate victory ... as Goliath came to discover. But, then again, what space can a son of god occupy? Where does Hercules go at the end of the day - back to Mount Olympus where he cannot get away from his father's mightier hand or back to earth where his power will never be understood?

It seems only reasonable then to look for a place of relative solitude, which is what I imagine they found in the upper lands of Europe. That land - absent of any prodding civilization - gave ample room to stack stones or parade around as frothing Grendels - disbursing punishment for the ridicule they long suffered.

Thankfully, for us, these god-men became tamer over time - settling for the benefits of a limited life-span and some good ale. Norsemen - towering like the trees of a Russian winterland - carried with them the ancient genes of the early chaos when men and God were not yet properly defined or barred from one another. Then they moved to Minnesota.

Sure, rumors still persisted. Paul Bunyan trounced around with his ax the size of an Amish windmill - seeking to generate some good will amongst the public. Why he was even willing to serve as a tourist attraction.

But somewhere in the barrel-chests of these once proud men, there would arise a strong urge to turn over the hourglass of time to the forgotten age - to let the world quake beneath the clashing of their hefty limbs and to send the world ooohing and aaahing over their immense girth. So, professional wrestling was born. Or something like that.

Seriously, how else could such a thing happen? What man in his right mind would agree to grapple with a human bear in a confined space (in tights!) if it were not something archaic and primal - something beyond the reasoning of our modern sensitivities.

And we (okay, only boys and men who find the masculine drama of professional wrestling much more safe than daytime soap operas) happily give ourselves over to their caricature dramas of evil and good. I was certainly willing to abandon reason and restraint if I could but meet one of these sons of god - these professional wrestlers. And, in truth, that was precisely the guarantee I had been given from one of my co-travelers as we headed northwest towards Minneapolis.

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"Minnesota's Joe Laurinaitis is a family man," or so one journalist determined after sneaking a peek into the life of The Animal - one of the famed duo of The Road Warriors. That was generally the impression I also got when I was treated to an afternoon at the home of The Animal. But everything about this man's house and life bespoke a realm I would never enter as a result of my more pedestrian DNA.

His house was HUGE - a type of immensity I had only known one doctor in Zionsville to achieve. And everything inside of it and around the house seemed to have fallen from a beanstalk that had once grown in his backyard. His furniture was custom made - tailored to fit his enormous frame and making my average stature into a comedy. His ottoman was a bed. His recliner was a loveseat.

While The Animal was not around the day I toured his abode (which, of course, only added to the forbidding sense that I was but one careless move away from awaking a behemoth and suffering the fate of shredded skin and torn sockets), I did have the chance to swim in his pool through the generosity of his wife, sinching the useless elastic of Joe's swimsuit around my waist by pulling the chord as tight as it would go and still fearing the suit would be around my ankles in moments.

I left his house awed by the possibilities awakened within me. Oh, I never dared dream I would be a towering mass of muscle - constructed upon a frame gifted from Hercelus' line. But just witnessing the remnants and exoskeleton of The Animal's over-sized life drew me in as though I had seen the foot of a Yeti leading into the underbrush, and I wanted to follow.

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Today news was released that Chris Benoit - the Canadian Crippler, the Rabbid Wolverine - had killed his wife and son and then turned his remaining fury and fire upon his own life - strangling himself to death with a exercise machine chord. Benoit was never a hulking figure in professional wrestling - nothing like Andre the Giant or the Big Show. Standing a mere 5' 10'', his position in the pantheon of professional wrestlers would not be secured by birthright alone. So, like others who longed to be a new-age Nephilim but would never see the sky, he focused his monstrosity within him - cooking up his frame with the aid of relentless body-building and steroids - the elixir of the gods.

Like any modern hero, Benoit's successes were easily choreographed through paper-thin drama plots, glistening bodies and bright-as-stars lights. Then again, his failures could have been just as easily diagnosed if you took the time to stare long enough into the places beyond the television crews and thunderous rock music. Surrounded by and enmeshed in a culture of misogyny and rage, Benoit found it impossible to turn off his character. His wife sought a divorce shortly after the marriage began - citing irreconcilable differences and harsh treatment.

He is, unfortunately but not surprisingly, not alone in the realm of modern day athletes - especially within professional sports where so much emphasis is placed upon the might of men who can do in reality what Greek legend pawned off to mythic figures.

Chris Benoit stands - yet again - as the ancient/modern parable of a man who let the fury of his humanity boil over into the wrath of a primordial force - tapping into strength he surely wished to forget as soon as it was unleashed upon his family. And unable to roam the earth or complete twelve labours in penance for his sin, he took his life - felling the great Niphilim to minus one more.

Wes