You all have heard by now that Mickey Rourke is cool again with his amazing performance in The Wrestler. It’s nice to see him back, even though he looks like he’s been dragged 1000 kilometres over gravel and straight through a hair dresser’s apprentice convention.

Back in the 90s my sister had moved and based herself out in Calgary and her visits back to Ontario were sporadic but when she did return, the visits were packed with dense conversation. Until one visit. We were talking about secret shames and she revealed that she loved professional wrestling.

Like the Olympics?

No. The WWF.

Pause. Blink. Pause.

Here’s a woman who is university educated, highly intelligent and articulate who admits to enjoying watching men manhandle each other in clumsy, yet painful choreography. Okay I get the (homo/hetero) erotic aspect of it: oiled musclemen in shorts, the coiffed hair, the buxom wives cheering from the side. I admit that as I write this I have a Stone Cold Steve Austin and Bill Goldberg action figures sitting over my computer but I couldn’t make the connection between my sister’s obvious upwardly mobile class and this “sport’s” base common denominator appeal.

Then I started to pay attention a little more closely. Behind the moves, behind the sweat and “folded chair to the head” bloodbaths, there was a drama being played out. The backstage drama was just as important as the physicality in the ring. And that action in the dressing rooms was utterly camp: adultery, career machinations, homoerotic longing, smack talk… Perfect for the gay world. I’m actually baffled as to why more gay men don’t enjoy wrestling. Well maybe they do and don’t admit it.

I’m kind of jazzed to see this movie. A few years back while camping in Southern Ontario, SharkBoy and a few friends went off to Ingersol for their annual summer fair. We discovered that the midway had a wrestling ring and bleachers set up and we stayed to watch a few rounds. We were entertained by some real “grass roots” wrestlers: a feisty woman who knocked the crap out of some skinny kid by actually throwing him off the top of the bleachers, an “evil” manager in a cheap suit and luchador mask and the crowd-pleasing hunk with the standard long shoulder length hair. It was entertaining, to say the least, especially to see SharkBoy start screaming when the wrestlers broke the “fourth wall” and jumped into the stands to tear each other apart. I get a sense that the “comeback” Rourke achieves lifts him from similar rings and into a shot at the big time.

I certainly hope so. The stain of those awful slew of movies during the 90s need to be washed from his hair.