Today marks day 185 since I started my Macho Man Randy Savage Facebook account, and I’m disappointed.

To date, nine SU students have asked the lonely Macho Man to be their friend, compared to 216 from college students across the country. At Penn State alone, seven students have friended Savage.

The wrestling icon is not only a two-time World Wrestling Federation Heavyweight Champion and a three-time World Championship Wrestling Champion. He also has a rap album.

Come on, Syracuse, what’s not good enough about professional wrestling?

OK, I admit, making fake personas on the Internet is a little childish, and I shouldn’t expect people to encourage me. But this is my third year at SU, and this is not a case of students taking the high road. You have something against professional wrestling that I just don’t get.

On Sunday night, Central New York wrestling fans packed Hooters at the Carousel Mall in Syracuse to see the annual spectacle known as the Royal Rumble. There literally weren’t enough tables because my friends and I had to share one with three students from Cortland. The waitresses were forced to give out Styrofoam cups to accompany all the wrestling fans.

Still, it was the best time I’ve had watching a sporting event since the New England Patriots repeated as Super Bowl Champions in 2005.

Yeah, I said it. Professional wrestling is a sport. It’s not football or hockey, but it doesn’t try to be. As Vince McMahon will tell you: It’s sports entertainment.

Among the hundred or so people at Hooters was SU freshman Lee Meltzer. He said he’s watched professional wrestling in 20 states and plans to see Wrestlemania 22 in Chicago this April.

The kid knows his stuff and he was better able to put his finger on why wrestling is not accepted at SU.

‘When people think of wrestling, they think of steel chairs and bleeding,’ Meltzer said. ‘They don’t think of it as educational. But if you go to the drama department, there’s nothing educational about that. It’s entertainment.

‘With wrestling, they perform in the ring; they do their acting. I feel that if people stop criticizing it and look at is as entertainment, they will appreciate it more.’

As evidenced by the showing at Hooters and the numerous sellout crowds the WWE has seen in Upstate New York, Meltzer said it’s not the region. It’s that on the SU campus, people see wrestling as fake and not as an alternative to real sports.

My friend, Mark Melara, a junior at SU, said he’s experienced the wrath of this negative stereotype. In a television, radio and film class, his professor mentioned that WWE’s Monday night show, ‘Raw,’ was recently the highest-rated show on cable (it has competed for the top spot for years).

‘All the girls were looking around and saying, ‘What’s that?” Melara said.

Melara cited another example when former WWE wrestler Mick Foley came to speak at SU. Foley, who is also a New York Times bestselling author, filled only about half of Goldstein Auditorium.

‘It’s not something you want to mention to a girl that you like professional wrestling,’ Melara said. ‘If on Facebook, you write, ‘I love wrestling,’ it’s like saying, ‘I like the Backstreet Boys.’ It’s an instant turnoff.’

On Sunday, wrestling fans were treated to a classic underdog triumph. Rey Mysterio, a 5-foot-4 high-flying Mexican-American, beat the odds above 29 other wrestlers to win the Royal Rumble. He didn’t win a trophy or even a belt; he earned a shot at a WWE title and 20,000 people screaming for him at the American Airlines Arena in Miami.

One thousand miles away in Syracuse, a few dozen fans were cheering for him, too. On April 2, Mysterio will be wrestling for a title. But most SU students unfortunately will never give it chance.

Timothy Gorman is a design editor for The Daily Orange, where his columns appear every Tuesday. E-mail him at tpgorman@gmail.com.

Published on January 30, 2006 at 12:00 pm