Enjoying professional wrestling as entertainment is simply a matter of learning to suspend disbelief.

Imagine yourself sitting in a crowded movie theater. You've paid your seven dollars or so for a ticket to see "The Bourne Ultimatum", secured the vaunted back corner seat, and settled in with your soda and ultra-salty popcorn. In near ecstasy you watch as Matt Damon's title character, Jason Bourne, engages deadly enemies in chaotic gun battles and car chases, escaping death by less than a hair again and again.

And then, a guy in the front row stands and stomps out of the theater, growling, "This is so fake. There's no way he could survive that crash. I can't believe all of you idiots are going to watch this."

People would not react kindly to that. So why should professional wrestling fans react any differently to the flock of naysayers that circle their hobby every single day?

Years ago, industry insiders and fans maintained that pro wrestling matches, with their over the top personalities and ridiculously exaggerated move sets, were legitimate, competitive contests. However, it does not take a mastermind to realize that an Irish Whip - a staple of modern professional wrestling - would never work in a real fight.

After all, it is a move where one grappler shoves the other towards the elevator cable-like ropes surrounding the ring, causing the victim to run and rebound off of said ropes- most likely to be met with a fist, forearm, or boot.

Just like the moviegoers paying good money to watch the Bourne movies, professional wrestling fans have trained themselves to abandon logic so that they can adhere to the rules of the show's world. They learn to push aside aspects of that world that they would not normally believe possible.

That is suspension of disbelief.

Yes, professional wrestling is scripted. However, presented as "sports-entertainment" as it has been for several years, it occupies the same niche that television shows like Grey's Anatomy and any of the countless crime-scene and lawyer dramas have occupied without complaint for decades. It exists to draw ratings, to make money, and to let people escape from their humdrum, everyday lives for a few hours a week.

In addition to the in-ring action, which can reasonably be compared to a circus act or ballet dance, viewers are treated to dramatic and comedic plot lines laced with intricate characters and storyline elements. Though often hackneyed and sometimes in terrible taste, the stories of professional wrestling have built mortal men into living, breathing comic book characters who exist entirely to be cheered or booed as the situation demands. They are larger than life supermen (and women) playing at a bloodsport where no one really wants to get hurt, and viewers are allowed to live vicariously through them: tasting defeat, earning victory, and experiencing the thrill of the thousands upon thousands of wrestling fans blowing the roof off of an arena.

It's about letting go of your preconceptions and realizing that, in this life, it is acceptable to enjoy something that other people may not understand.

Learn more about this author, Travis Reynolds.
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