choice but to put my 130 pounds on the hue. As any youngrnman knows, it is better to face death than to lose face.rnBig John, knowing the inevitable outcome of this mismatch,rnflexed his massive biceps and told the big Marine to leave. Myrnslayer-to-be—who when he rose up, revealed himself to be biggerrnthan John—was unimpressed: ‘You and who else are gonnarnthrow mc out?” Smiling calmly, John told him, “Me and” —rnreaching out from under the bar—”this Colt .45.”rnBig John may not have had brains, but—with or without arngun —he had grit, and to this day I do not know why he befriendedrnme. Young “intellecfuals” and New York journalistsrnarc fond of ridiculing “dumb jocks,” specifically black athletesrnfrom the South. These males without chests, dead from thernneck down, are not even man enough to understand that intelligencernis of no earthly use if the intelligent lack the courage tornput their minds to honorable use. Some “dumb jocks” havernnrore humanity than the entire editorial staff of the New Repuhlic.rnFootball players are not paid by the cerebral ounce, and evenrnquarterbacks like Namath can be none too bright. Once, in arncouversahon with former Sen. Eugene McCarthy, I brought uprnthe candidacy of Jack Kenrp, whom even O.J. Simpson (in hisrnmemoirs) ridiculed for his limited intelligence. McCarthyrnfound Mr. Kemp’s entire poliheal career excruciatingly funny.rnBut Kemp and Namath and Simpson seem like intellectualrngiants beside Bill Bradley. Bradley has given up running on hisrnrecord in the Senate— 18 years of sucking up to the WashingtonrnPost—and now wants to be elected president on the NBA ticket.rnBill felt so bad as a white boy in a black man’s world that herninternalized the bogus values of the NBA and wants the rest ofrnus to be as race-obsessed as he is. Better Core. Better Bush.rnMost sports arc obviously mock battles and war ganres, designedrnto train boys to become men, capable of defending theirrnhomes and fightiirg for their coiuitr)’. Amateur and professionalrnsports, over tiie past several centuries, were usually brutalrncombats in which the victor was the last man standing. As reecnriyrnas a generation or two ago, athletes were poor tough kidsrnwho worked hard and played the game. Today, they seem morernlike spoiled darlings paid to sweat in public and act out tiie fantasiesrnof testosterone-starved suburban “males.” As entertainers,rnthey arc lower than rock musicians who write their own songsrnand perhaps a little higher than film stars who act out sex inrnmovies. But if the Vegas-style sports productions of the NBANFLrnvariet)’ continue to provide a degraded model for malerncompetition, what defense is there of boxing (the effete NormanrnMailer’s favorite moral allegor)’) and wrestiing? There is arndifiFerence, of course, between boxing and wrestling: Some peoplernarc dumb enough to bet on boxing matches.rnL ikc most Americans my age, I have seen, usually by forcernmajeure, an hour or two of televised wrestling in almost everyrndecade. Back in tiie late 50’s, our neighbors stayed up tornwatch tiic rassling in tiic years when Corgeous George wasrnking. Fveryone knew the matches were scripted, but in tiic earlyrndays tiie performers were, for the most part, trained wrestiersrnwho were not simply acting, even if the outcome was foreordained.rnThe Flarts —father Stuart and his sons Bret andrnOwen—were genuine athletes who took tiieir craft very serioiis-rnIv. Owen, it is said, was very unhappy with tiie increasinglyrngoof}’ and humiliating scripts and costumes imposed byrnwrestiing czar Viiice McMahon, and it is no small irony tiiatrnOwen Hart died a few years ago doing a super-hero descentrnfrom the rafters when his harness opened prematurely.rnThere is no point to making fun of the rasslers, most of whomrnare ordinary guys trying to make a living for their families. Itrncannot be good for their souls, however, to live a lie for so manyrnyears. My old man used to repeat tiie old saying that acting wasrnthe highest profession for a woman but the lowest for a man,rnand in later years, I used to ponder the second half of that statementrnwhen an actor-president awarded a Medal of Freedom tornJohn Wayne, as if John Wayne were really a war hero and notrnsimply an actor who played war heroes. Mr. Wayne was undoubtedlyrna patriotic American, but to receive such a medal, hernshould have waited in line behind each and every combat veteranrnof World War II —including Jimmy Stewart and ClarkrnGable, who did go into combat; the Coast Guard men who ranrnthe landing crafts; tiie merchant sailors who faced death fromrnGerman U-boats; and director John Ford, who risked his lifernshooting films for the Navy.rnIt is not just that rasslers arc actors but that the cartoon charactersrntiiey play are, for the most part, potty-mouthed brats, therndream-fulfillments of girly 12-ycar-old boys who will neverrnreach manhood. Some of the personae arc simply comicalrnclones of characters who might have been invented by Japanesernanimators. Sometimes the personae go over the top. AmiablernNick Foley has turned himself into Mankind, whose self-destructivernantics astonish even The Undertaker. Far from atiiletic.rnMankind attracts and holds his audience by enduring a levelrnof abuse riiat is almost suicidal.rnStone Cold Steve Austin (profiled in a recent A&F, Biographyrnseries that included profiles of Owen Hart and Jesse Ventura)rnstarted out as a nice Texas boy from a broken home, a goodrnstudent and star football player in his high school. StevernWilliams (iie Steve Anderson) was a shy ovcrachiever whornmade a tragic miscalcnlation in choosing an occupation that offeredrnfame without glory and swallowed up his personal life.rnNow on his third marriage, nice Steve Williams spends muchrnof his life as Antichrist Stone Cold Steve Austin, whose fins carryrnsigns reading Austin 3:16 —Stone Cold’s anti-gospel ofrnamoral violence he created one night to ridicule a “Christian”rnrasslcr. It is all, he says, just good fun.rnBut if Steve Austin is laughing all tiie way to the emergencyrnroom, what of the fans who, in their desperate search for conflict,rnpay their money or waste their finie ou what they know isrna sham? Prcadolescent boys make up an increasing segment ofrntiie target audience tiiat Vinee McMahon and his imitator. Fedrn’I’urner, arc going after. This is tiie demographic justificationrnfor tiie cartoon ahiiospherc created for stars like Hulk Hoganrnand the hero he displaced, Andre (not Navrozov, as my childrenrnused to tiiiiik) “the Giant.” ‘I’lie 12-ycar-old doughboysrnwho foul tiieir name-brand jeans for joy when tiie House ofrnPain is lowered onto the ring are a patiietic spectacle, but lessrndisturbing than tiie post-adolescent Ameriean castrati whornspend so iiiueh of their free time in front of a ‘IV set, droolingrnover the steroid-inflated mercenaries of the WWF and thernNFL.rnSports are one figment in tiie collective delusion of modernrnAmerica, a televised orgy of pseudo-virility in which the atiiletesrnplay the part of pom stars, and tiic fins are self-abusing cases ofrnarrested development trying so hard to believe tiiat Jesse Venturarnis a real hero, Michael Jordan a wonderful guy, MarkrnMeCuire a baseball great.rnBack in tiic 50’s, my old man knew a sports promoter. Hisrnmother was forever ragging him about the dirt}’ business of thisrnFEBRUARY 2000/11rnrnrn