What fight through yonder window breaks?

It's Thursday night, and I am all alone. I could either attend some happening frat party with a Natty Ice in one hand and a half-blitzed sorority girl in the other, or I could sit at home, munch on Smartfood and watch another exquisite UPN presentation of WWF Smackdown. The choice is clear. Give me the remote. While a rarity here at Penn, millions of others share my passion. WWF's two weekday shows are the most-watched shows on cable television. For aficionados, pro wrestling is as much a part of childhood as Saturday-morning cartoons. My younger brother and I grew up putting our own personal smackdown on each other. Using our parents' bed as a mat, we would launch ourselves from the bedposts and perform Macho Man flying elbows and Hulk Hogan leg drops that resulted in the occasional black eye or bruised rib. Much has changed in wrestling since those days. But the elements that made me an addict -- senseless violence and intriguing storylines on and off the mat -- have been preserved. These attributes make pro wrestling a unique hybrid of two of the greatest entertainers in history: Shakespeare and the Roman empire. While I'm sure you can see the similarities to the bloody carnage of Roman gladiators, you are probably less willing to acknowledge the likeness to the works of the great English playwright. But Shakespeare, just like the games, was entertainment for common people, an escape from the troubles of everyday life. His plays were written to please his poor, yet critical audience -- not the queen -- just as the games were staged to appease the Roman people, not the emperor. In that tradition, WWF is rest and relaxation for the average Joe Sixpack, the Homer Simpsons who rely on television for relief of their 9-to-5 stress. Through the actions of their favorite wrestlers, they live out their daily fantasies; which disgruntled employee wouldn't want to chokeslam his wealthy boss through a table and chug a pair of beers in celebration? Further, pro wrestling's storylines -- with new twists unveiled each week -- contain many aspects of works penned by Shakespeare: deceit, deception and double-crosses. And though they don't speak in flowery language, each athlete is also an actor who must interpret that intricately woven plot. Thus, being good with the mic is as crucial as steroid-inflated pecs. Some competitors even have quite a knack for metaphor; Chris Jericho refers to himself as the "ayatollah of rock and rolla" and performs a finishing move aptly entitled "the walls of Jericho." And unlike any play I've ever seen -- but much like the gladiatorial contests -- the blood flows freely on the wrestling stage. Each week wrestlers receive chair-shots to the head, are power bombed through windows and are even run over by cars. And while many of you may think wrestling is fake, I assure you they haven't figured out a way to fake falling from the top of a 30-foot-high cage unharmed. Watching a recent documentary on wrestling, I couldn't help but cringe as an on-site plastic surgeon sewed up a three-inch gash on one competitor's chair-torn head. While the similarities between these bloodbaths and those of Rome is obvious, there is another that is a bit more subtle -- audience interaction. If a gladiator lost in combat, his death was not necessarily imminent. His life was in the hands of people. If they wanted the warrior to live, they would give him a thumbs-up. If not, the gladiator would become lion kibble. In much the same way, the fans of the WWF hold the fate of the competitors in their hands. If the crowd reacts strongly to a wrestler, either with cheers or boos, he remains a contender for the championship belt. But if the fans tire of someone, he disappears from the limelight. And so I urge you to check out tonight's action for yourself. Because, in the words of Stone Cold Steve Austin, Brian Cope said so and that's the bottom line.

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