Some families bond over football, hobbies, and generation old traditions. Kaitlan and Troy Buhler and Katie and Darren Murren have another way to stay connected; every week they cook dinner and spend the night watching people throw themselves around, tallying a point every time someone gets smothered in the face! This might sound gruesome, but this group watch
es pro-wrestling the same way your dad watches Monday Night Football, and your grandma tunes into her favorite heart-swelling soap opera.
Around 15 years ago when Mr. Buhler started working with the Murrens at Ball High School, he immediately roped them into his wrestling frenzy, and once Mrs. Buhler joined the queue, the group was complete, and a new favorite pastime born. The craze started with seeing WrestleMania in New Orleans, with matching T-shirts and wrestling paraphernalia, and devolved into getting together once a week, creating delicious dishes and investing in their own version of Fantasy Football.
How the game works is just as the same as Fantasy Football, “drafting” wrestlers at the beginning of the season to create a team, then every round the tally up points based on who wins, what the players do, and what techniques are used. At the end of the season, points are used to bet on a player in the spring for WrestleMania, and whoever wins will be commissioner for the next year. The commissioner gets to dictate the rules and how the game works for the next year.
One main idea became obvious from both families, it’s not about watching people get punched in the face, it’s about the company around you when watching people get punched in the face. Both Mr. Buhler, Mrs. Buhler, and Mr. Murren spent their interviews smiling and laughing when reminiscing about their shared memories.
A wave of nostalgia hit me over something I had never watched, but also a hint of envy, that I had missed out on something so enticing, so entertaining, so fun! Mrs. Buhler reminisced about how she had always seen her dad watch wrestling growing up, but brushed it off as some silly, fake nonsense, but now found herself just as involved as her dad was all those months ago.
As frivolous as it may seem to dedicate a night to betting on pre-orchestrated moves, and depending on pre-planned events, it felt genuine to see that every day people find one way or another to come together and celebrate life!
