"The ring is surrounded on three sides by multiple tiers of scalloped balconies, blue with gold trim, a prestige-TV color palette. From the vantage point of the TV viewer, the audience looms over the action in ornate concentric circles-Dante's Inferno for people who like a good German suplex. Seated on one of the venue's upper levels, every seat feels close enough to the action for you to fall into the ring if you lean forward far enough."
"That's always been part of the appeal of pro wrestling for me, ever since I got into it as an adult seven or eight years ago. It's a sport for all kinds of people, people who don't like sports among them. It distills athletic competition down to pure spectacle, staging genuinely impressive and difficult feats of athleticism in such a way as to heighten drama and tell stories of the triumph of good over evil."
The Hammerstein Ballroom features scalloped blue-and-gold balconies arrayed in ornate concentric tiers that create an intimate, theatrical setting where audience members loom over the ring. Independent promotions ECW and Ring of Honor established the venue as a wrestling mecca. A 14-year-old named H, winded after climbing to second-balcony seats at All Elite Wrestling's 'Dynamite on 34th Street' holiday show, settles into people-watching and shares familial comfort with an adult companion over mutual physical anxieties. Pro wrestling compresses athletic competition into spectacle, staging difficult feats to heighten drama and present clear narratives of good versus evil, offering an accessible rooting interest for nontraditional sports fans.
Read at Defector
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]