WATCHING WWE OR AEW IS JUST LIKE WATCHING AN ACTION MOVIE—BUT BETTER
Renae Townsend| Opinion Editor
The first time I saw a group of best friends implode because of someone hitting another with a steel chair, I was five years old and sitting cross-legged on a carpet, a bowl of macaroni and cheese going cold in my lap. The group? The Shield: Roman Reigns, Seth Rollins, Dean Ambrose. Seth Rollins brutally betrays and beats his brother-in-arms Roman Reigns with a steel chair for a chance at glory and fame. My evening was ruined and my trust issues strained. The crack of metal against flesh echoed through the room, followed by the screams of protest and agony from my mother.
That was the moment. My origin story, I suppose.
Every Monday, Friday and Saturday night, the living room transformed into a shrine to WWE. We never called these performances “fake.” We knew better. What wrestlers do in the ring is choreographic chaos; theatre with sweat and blood. Every body slammed tells a story. Every smirk, every spit of brutal trash talk in the mic, is a balanced performance between myth and muscle. You want to talk about acting? What about screaming in pain while remembering camera cues, mic timing, and a twenty-minute match sequence–all while making both yourself and your opponent look good.
“I don’t get it,” a classmate told me once as she wrinkled her nose, judging my guilty pleasure. “Why watch if it’s all scripted?”
I couldn’t argue. What’s the point of explaining magic to someone who can’t see past mirrors? But let me try.
There are heroes– ‘faces’–that make you believe in righteousness even when they’re bleeding from the mouth. And villians– ‘heels’ –who grin as they cheat, who make you hate them so ruthlessly it makes you feel good. Their brutality is poetry, trust in every fall. You don’t throw yourself off a twenty-foot ladder unless you know the other person will catch you.
That’s not fake. It’s faith.
Roman Reigns–the man who was betrayed by his brother-in-arms, Seth Rollins, grew to become one of the most prominent figures in the current era of wrestling. From victim, to bloodthirsty powerhouse, he started one of the most dominant stables in WWE history: The Bloodline.
That’s the thing. Wrestling doesn’t just entertain–it remembers. Characters evolve, arcs loop back years later, grudges are buried and then resurrected like ghosts. It is mythmaking in real time. A never-ending opera where the music is boots hitting canvas and the stakes will forever be personal.
I carry that with me.
When life feels too sanitized, too choreographed in the wrong ways–when everyone’s wearing a mask but pretending not to–I think about the ring. About people who choose to wear their mask openly. Who lean into it. Who embrace it wholeheartedly. Who turn pain into performance, not to lie, but to make something true.
It’s not tacky. Not mindless. It’s a love letter to storytelling, to body and soul. And when I hear the sound of a crowd erupting, when the lights go down and a wrestler’s theme music hits, something in me still stirs like it did when I was five.
A kind of recognition. Home.
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