Against The Grain 01.04.09: Detroit…It Ain’t So Bad

Welcome everyone to Against The Grain, my (bi-weekly) take on some of the most unconventional and not-often talked about subjects in the wrestling world. At the end of my last column I stated that I wanted to cover the topic of “Being A TNA Fan”, but I’m going to switch gears here and talk about the place I currently call home: Detroit, Michigan. What made me want to suddenly talk about the Motor City is with the newly earned dismal record of the town’s once-respected Detroit Lions team. This past Sunday, they broke the record for most losses in NFL history with their 0-16 final tally for the season. Along with this and the various other negative things that have happened to the city in the last year, I just wanted to briefly covered why Detroit isn’t so bad and why the art of pro wrestling is one of the most positive things about my hometown. In a horribly bad and already outdated cliché, “Here…we…go”.

Detroit, Michigan. Known for the city that makes cars or known for the state that’s shaped like an oven mitt, I’ve been calling the place my home for most of my life. For those who live outside of it, they’ve probably seen a lot of things in the news of this past year that has probably given Detroit a pretty bad name. On top of having the worst losing teams in football history, you may also heard about a little scandal we had with our Mayor (Kwame Kilpatrick) being kicked out of office for a raunchy text message affair and also with a itty bitty tiny government bailout that was recently given to our major Big 3 (Ford, GM, Chrysler) auto companies. But on the other end of this negativity, we Detroiters have a lot of other positive things going on…mainly wrestling related. Metro “Detroit” (by this I mean all cities in close proximity to Detroit) is chockfull of both die-hard wrestling fans and wrestling history. I’ve been an avid fan since the age of 5 and slowly, but surely I discovered that my town was extremely into wrestling.

First of all, I never knew that so many damn wrestlers were from Michigan. I have read throughout the years in magazines and on the Net about which wrestlers were from this good ol’ state and my friends and family members in the know would brag about this fact all the time when prompt, but I never fully realized this myself until I started to have it stare me straight in the face. In the last five years, I’ve ran into Rhino during some Christmas shopping at my local Southland shopping mall, coincidentally sat next to Chris Sabin and his “lady friend” at a local wrestling event in Belleville, took a picture with “one-legged wonder” Zach Gowen at a nearby bar, and discovered that Kevin Nash attended my old high school, Aquinas High. On top of these casual occurrences, it’s so crazy to me that a good number of well-known grapplers have come from the state of the Motor City: Kevin Nash, the Sheik, Rhino, George “The Animal” Steele, Rob Van Dam, Sabu, Zach Gowen, the Steiner Brothers, and always city-repping Motor City Machine Guns (Chris Sabin & Alex Shelley) are just some whom are included in this exclusive group.

Secondly, this town has some of the craziest wrestling fans in the world. From what I’ve seen at the tons and tons of different events that I’ve been to, Michigan fans aren’t the usual ones to just stand around and just watch the action. We are the ones who tend to really get into it; you know: being very vocal about which wrestlers we like and dislike, heckling “wrestling insider” jokes during so-so matches, showing up in droves for every type of wrestling event thrown in the state. It may come off a little as bragging, but you’ll see what I mean if you attend just one single wrestling show here to experience it. Just to show how much others have taken notice of this, examples can be shown from the number of very unique and major events that wrestling companies have brought over here in the last couple of decades. Local promotions have thrown events like the lucha-libre based “Revolucha” in locally-known popular music theaters, Ring of Honor (ROH) have had a good number of their live events, including their latest PPV “New Horizons” here on our Michigan State Fairgrounds, TNA Wrestling has one of their first “outside of Florida” live events here, along with their second annual Bound for Glory PPV (which at the time was Jeff Jarrett’s last major wrestling match), and the big dog WWE has had a grand number of significant live events and moments happen in Detroit, including crazy Monday Night Raw moments (i.e. Stone Cold driving a hockey-related zamboni to the ring) and some very memorable PPVs (Wrestlemania 3 at the Pontiac Silverdome, in which Hulk Hogan bodyslammed Andre The Giant, and the most recent Wrestlemania 23 at Ford Field [also the Detroit Lions’ place of losing], where the Undertaker and Batista arguably put on one of the best matches in Wrestlemania history and Vince McMahon battled famed millionaire Donald Trump).

I’m very proud to be a part of my hometown, Detroit, Michigan. This little ode to my city wasn’t a knock on all of the other great wrestling cities that exist out there (ex. Toronto, Philadelphia, etc.), but instead a positive outline of why I’m proud to be a wrestling fan living here. In spite of all of the negative press Detroit seemingly gets all of the time, I just want it to be known that the wrestling aspect of this city and this state is one of the many underappreciated positive lights that are constantly beaming. So when you see one of the Motor City Machine Guns pointing to their hands and stating a promo involving a Detroit-related metaphor, know that it’s not just a gimmick they are spewing…it’s the hardcore feeling from the heart of being from the true-blue wrestling destination known as Detroit, Michigan.

For Your Viewing Pleasure
Shooting The Breeze with The Motor City Machine Guns

Next Time On….Against The Grain
Okay, back to business. As stated in the last column, I would like to cover what’s it like to spend a night on the couch as an avid TNA fan (i.e. myself) and what I and many others are thinking with TNA’s often criticized “up and down” way of booking, while at the same time remaining loyal fans. Happy first week of the year, y’all. See you in 2.