It’s not always easy being a pro wrestling fan. Even in 2012, decades after Vince McMahon let the cat out of the bag, the most common retort to any mention of wrestling fandom is the tried and true classic—”You know it’s all fake right?”
How to respond to that nugget of wisdom? Of course it’s all fake! That’s a big part of the fun. We love wrestling because it is so over-the-top, campy and outrageous.
Even “serious” wrestlers like Daniel Bryan and CM Punk do things in the ring that defy the laws of physics and rational thought. That’s okay. It’s all part of the show.
Despite these obvious truths, we still feel the need to defend the business. The wrestlers do it too. That’s why Mick Foley likes to run down his laundry list of injuries. Sure, they all happened as a human cartoon, but they lend realism to the absurd.
It’s the same reason Jim Ross points out a wrestler’s amateur background. It somehow makes it easier to ignore the utter possibility of a hurricanrana when the performer was once a special teams player at the University of Oklahoma.
And it’s why we love it when one of our own goes on to succeed in mixed martial arts. See? Those guys pretending to be tough on television? Maybe there’s something to that act after all.
Everyone knows Brock Lesnar. But he’s not the first and he won’t be the last pro wrestler to excel in MMA. Here’s ten other wrestling stars who went on to MMA fame and fortune.