About once or twice a year, my son and I take in a live wrestling show at our local venue, the Nassau Coliseum.
We did exactly that last night, being live and in person for a taping of the weekly "Smackdown" show that is presented every Friday on the SyFy Network.
As an extra bonus, we also saw a taping of the weekly Wednesday night "Main Event" show on the Ion network too.
And as an extra extra bonus, we saw a taping of a match that will be part of the new WWE Divas show that premiers on A and E next month.
We saw all the current stars of the world of WWE wrestling, from Ryback and Daniel Bryan to Kane and (not Abel) to Sheamus.
It was a fun show, nothing that we haven't seen before, but the WWE puts on a fine show, in the best tradition of Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey's Circus.
Let's be honest about it, a WWE show is really the equivalent of a modern-day circus, but with one ring.
They have invented their own universe, and people buy into it in droves.
And in plenty of cash too.
They have their conflicts, and that is where the fun sets in.
There are a lot of high-flying, dazzling moves--just about all choreographed--and yes, wrestlers do get hurt.
But the athleticism is there, let there be no doubt about that.
When I was a kid, I used to go with my friends to Madison Square Garden to witness that generation's biggest stars, like Bruno Sammartino and Chief Jay Strongbow.
But it was different, on a much smaller scale, but just as exciting.
Today, wrestling is on a mammoth, worldwide scale, and it is very, very popular.
You just look around, and you see numerous families taking their kids--and I mean, very young kids--to these shows. Probably two-thirds of the audience at these shows are kids from the ages of five or six to about 12.
And there are a lot of girls and women who attend these shows, which is greatly different than when I went as a kid, when the audience was about 90 percent male.
Today, it is probably 60 percent males and 40 percent females.
And yes, we had fun last night.
As usual, our seats weren't the top of the line, but we had a clear path to everything that was going on in the ring.
If the action spilled (literally) outside the ring, there was a giant screen that we could see the action from.
We were too high up to be on television, but the rows directly below us got lots of TV coverage.
All in all, it was a fun night, and the best thing was that getting home was a breeze.
It took us about 20 minutes to get back home, and we were in bed in no time.
And that may have been the best part of it all.
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