Image via Complex Original
We were lucky enough to be impressionable preteens during the greatest era wrestling's ever known. How many people reading this emulated these pros with totally amateurish and unregulated mayhem in their living rooms or backyards? This "writer" did. Hopefully some of you will be taking mental notes at Summerslam today because you'll learn more in those fews hours than in 18+ years living with your parents. The Attitude Era may be over but the lessons we've learned were everlasting. These are the 20 Things The WWE Taught Us As Kids.
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Don't respect authority.
A constant in pro wrestling is attacking the ref because, unlike every other competition known to man, it doesn't immediately disqualify you and lead to a lifetime suspension. How does this apply to the life of an everday civilian? Say you're celebrating a promotion with your buddies and you've had a few. As you drive home a police officer pulls you over and, instead of blaming the road, he blames you. Now if that cop isn't begging for an F-5 than, really, who is?
Don't trust anyone.
WWE is soap opera, and what's a soap opera without betrayals? The constant stream of backstabbing infused storylines gave us a perfect heads up on what to expect in the working world. Far too many are concerned with doing anything and everything to get ahead. A harmless observation can become office gossip and land you in hot water faster than a blindsided clothesline. Every alliance lasts until the next great offer which is a great reason not to tell a dirty joke to that coworker you just met.
If you think that's preachy you haven't had a job yet, if you say "duh," then you have. Hopefully you weren't going to the bathroom when Triple H kicked Shawn Michaels in the nads because that's a perfect metaphor for the hell that is, or will be, your career.
Don't be afraid to reinvent your image.
Have you ever had that totally straight-laced friend who one day starts wearing Phish shirts, smoking weed daily, and acts like a hippy (45 years late)? You don't have to be the same thing your whole life otherwise all us '90s kids would still be watching Urkel on Friday and Snick on Saturday.
If the Undertaker can reinvent himself as an "American Bad Ass" then you can accept the sudden, and almost certainly artificial, transformation of your friends entire personality. His 'American Bad Ass' phase lived up to its name and he briefly held the title after defeating Hulk Hogan at Judgment Day. The only thing that would've made his new persona even more intimidating would be coming out to this song.
Occassionally take a leap of faith in life.
If Shane McMahon can muscle up the courage to jump from 20+ feet in the air onto another man then you can quit your job and start a new career fresh. Or, you can move to a new town (or ask that chick who's way out of your league out). The point is that the ballsiest moment in Shane's career should inspire you to do something. Otherwise, what were all those nights decked out in face paint watching Raw, Smackdown! or SummerSlam for?
Sometimes you have to turn on family.
The Harts know it. The Hardys too. Even Vince and Shane have gone at it in a multi-generational brawl. Brothers fight (and in bad families so do father and son), it's nature, so it's only natural that the WWE's writers would pen a few bouts of sibling rivalry. Owen and Bret started feuding in 1993 and lasted well into '95. The crescendo was reached at WrestleMania X when Owen pinned Bret (above). Eventually Bret beat him ending the fued but the point still remains: If the only thing standing between you and happiness is putting your brother in a Boston crab then, damnit, that's exactly what you do.
If you want to be a Pro Wrestler join theatre.
WWE is the perfect mix of athleticism and theatre (actually it may be a little too heavy on theatre). But don't for a second tell us it's fake as there's way too many injuries to support this ridiculous myth. That being said, you probably have a way better chance of becoming a real life Randy "The Ram" if you take drama classes and bulk up with training and 'roids in college.
If you absolutely must be a high school wrestler (like Brock Lesnar) then, for the love of everything holy, adopt a persona. Your coach, your teammates and your opponents may think you've fallen off the deep end and be apprehensive around you in the shower but it'll prep you for a career as a flamboyent future backbreaker who talks tough and stars on Raw. Besides you ain't making millions in Greco-Roman wrestling (in fact, you may not be able to even win a medal in it anymore).
Fake tans make you look better.
Before Jersey Shore brought up the aesthetics of major skin damage, the WWE showed us (20 years earlier) how tans can easily help overrate an otherwise average body. WWE, bodybuilders, Matthew McCounaughey, etc. know that an unnatural glow can artificially boost your physique up a notch and make you look like you're not some unhealthy shut-in who's completely forgotten the natural wonder of the outdoors. Just remember a tanning bed never hurt anybody (except thousands of people with melanoma).
Sometimes in life you get "screwed" over.
What better evidence is there (in any industry) that the working world is out to get you than in the "Montreal Screw Job?" Bret Hart lost the title in the infamous match to Shawn Michaels in 1997. Hart was under the false assumption that the match would draw and he'd remain the champ but the WWE powers-that-be had other ideas and Hart gave up the belt (in his home country no less). If nothing else it helped forment Vince McMahon's budding legacy as a prick and was a contentious way to end Michaels' initial WWE run.
"Don't try this at home" doesn't mean anything.
A Royal Rumble on the bed even though the dresser's only six feet away? Nothing wrong with that. It won't make mom and dad second guess leaving you home alone. King of the Bed (like trips to the emergency room) are a staple in WWE watching households. So is the occassional miscalculation (above).
Death isn't permanent.
The Undertaker was a better teacher than Jeff Charbonneau. With his deity-like resurrection he showed all us impressionable young fans that death is nowhere near eternal. So whatever crazy stunt you've always wanted to try, feel free to do it. Hey, we didn't say all of these lessons were good.
Suck It!
It's tough to tell if this oft-repeated phrase we heard throughout our youths had any latent effects on us (all we remember is that the freezer was stacked with popsicles). But it wouldn't be surprising if many a wrestling fan's marriages fell apart because of a collective propensity to visit the town gloryhole. Who the hell could blame you? That saying was used at school, on the TV, and on T-Shirts for crying out loud! A man can only resist for so long.
If you managed to resist the nurturing of constant 'suck it's' and action figures of perfectly sculpted male bodies then you realized the saying also works great for picking up women (although we think we forgot to put "does not" somewhere in that sentence).
Anyway, that video up top contains a piece of WWE history. It's Kane finally unleashing his first words without his voice box. Like a baby with a future alternating from a trailer park, to a jail cell, to death at 21 when the meth house he works in blows up, those first words were "suck it."
Dress flashy.
Wrestlers have always been on the cutting edge of fashion. Look at what dressing like a drag queen does for Ric Flair. You think all those women are part of the script? Well yeah, they are. But he still looks flashier then an LAX runway when Rihanna's private jet touches down. 'Peacocking' will make you stand out and provide a gaudy ice breaker to anyone not too intimidated to approach.
Tights never hurt either. Everyone who wears or wore skinny jeans (is that still a thing?) was really just a wrestling fan who didn't want to prance around in yoga pants. You always thought it was just some emo hipster, but in reality all he wanted to do was talk about Big Boss Man, Ken Shamrock and who he thought was next in line for the Intercontinental Championship.
Fighting dirty > fighting fair.
When pinned down by a bully in the schoolyard it's best to: A. Take the beating like a man and keep your integrity. B. Attempt to fight back but no hits below the belt. If you lose, lose with honor, your classmates will respect that. C. Tag your friend who then uses a folding chair to give the aggressor a brain hemorrhage. It's C. everybody knows that. Getting a reputation as the heel of the playground will deter bullies throughout your academic career. It's more than worth a couple expulsions and a weekend in juvie.
Never enter a room without a theme song.
Get an entourage, get a hype man, do whatever it is you got to do to enter a room like this. If you walk in oiled up, in a banana hammock, looking yolked like The Rock, while some badass tune plays upon your entrance, you're leaving the club/party/whatever with any chick you want. Don't do it and you got to rely on whatever game you may or may not have. Why risk it?
Real women are built like strong safeties.
Have you ever wished, even for a second, that LaRon Landry was born a woman? Of course you have because you grew up watching Chyna the "ninth wonder of the world." And though Chyna could look great when off cycles, those periods were too few and far between. A testorone infused he-lady only gives us mixed messages about femininity at a very important time in a young man's development. Ladies with Adam's apples, where you at?
The boss's kids are turds.
Shane McMahon was representative of a guy on easy street simply because he came out of Vince McMahon's penis. Even when Shane played a wrestler he was an obnoxious jerkoff full of cheap shots. In essence he always fought like a heel. Nepotism's a helluva perk. Tell us when he comes out of retirement to fight Donald Trump's kid.
Steroids are the key to success.
Baseball players make hundreds of millions using them. NFL players heel quickly and don't suffer the same stigma as those in America's pastime. And wrestlers make a living piledriving other behemoths in tights instead of living the mundane life of a desk jockey. The answer to your problems has been slapping you in the face for years. Take as many as you can as fast as you can because life without a functioning liver only sounds hard. By the way, that's a pre-ESPN Jonathon Coachman MCing the whole thing (we forgot he did this).
Beating up your boss will increase your popularity at work.
Steve Austin reached his WWE peak by messing with Vince McMahon. Their Wile E. Coyote/Roadrunner-like confrontations were arguably the greatest thing about the Attitude Era. If you want to be a somebody in the office you'll have to do the same. In the above clip, Austin gets the chairman arrested for assaulting him, then while Vince is handcuffed he pulls off half of a Stone Cold Stunner (assaults him). For whatever reason no additional arrests ensue. We're not sure what type of work you do or what industry you're in but know this: Physically pounding your boss into submission will get you a promotion.
Connections are helpful too.
If you're still sitting there reading this instead of slamming you boss's head in a desk drawer then we realize we didn't properly convince you that assault is the key to the executive bathroom (also it's Sunday). So maybe take a page out of Triple H's career and make the boss's daughter swoon. Triple H has evolved from being a snob as 'The Connecticut Blueblood' to a countercultrue rebel to a company man as the COO. He actually has his own office at the WWE headquarters in Connecticut. It's not hard to network when you house the grandkids of a man worth over a billion dollars.
There's no better way to solve your problems than a bodyslam through a table.
If there's one lesson we took away from years of watching WWE it's that violence solves everything. Sure anybody who followed that advice literally probably couldn't read this because there's no Internet access in the prison they're in. But that just says that the rest of us weren't as dedicated. If you're not rooming with a convicted sex offender in an 8 x 10 cell then you're not a real fan. That or you can make a distinction between reality and entertainment.
