The Champ is nervous backstage, and I’m not sure why.

I’ve never seen the Champ bothered before a show. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the Champ rattled, period. In addition to being the most experienced wrestler on the roster, he’s also the most even-tempered. He handles stressful situations with ease, whether it’s re-jiggering a complicated finish to make it more understandable to the crowd  to taking elbow drops from a three hundred and eighty pound rookie who lost one of his contact lenses during opening spot.

Nothing phases the Champ.

Until tonight.

And a moment later, I find out why.

“It’s the new girlfriend’s first time seeing me wrestle,” he admits.

“Wow,” replies another wrestler, an out-of-town-guy with a cowboy gimmick. “What about…”

“I’ve never even shown her tapes,” The Champ said. “I don’t know if she’s even SEEN wrestling before.”

The other wrestler nods wisely, which is an impressive feat; it’s not so easy to look worldly when you’re a grown man dressed to rob the noon stagecoach. Especially when your vehicle of choice is a previously owned Nissan.

“They don’t always get it,” he tells the Champ.

He’s right.

Even before I became a part of the business, I was always nervous about The Big Reveal. When exactly is the appropriate moment for a thirty-something, heterosexual adult male to let slip to a romantic prospect his obsession with watching other grown men pretend to fight (*)?

With my last girlfrined, I had started slow. A few weeks after we’d started dating, I’d arranged for her to “catch” me watching wrestling. I told her about the business and my involvement in it.

She watched a few matches with me. Afterwards, I asked her what she thought.

“Wrestlers have a remarkable lack of body hair,” she noted, and quickly sealed my mouth with a kiss as I opened it to launch into an explanation. “It’s okay. You’ve explained enough for one night.”

A week later, she came to her first show.

She had met many of the wrestlers the previous day at a party at Mr. Intensity‘s house (**). Like most wrestlers, Mr. Intensity is a character. There are two notable things about him:

Thing One: He has the largest collection of Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazines I’ve ever seen, with issues stretching all the way back to the days of the territories.

Thing two: He has modeled for the cover of several romance novels and even competed in the Mr. Romance pageant. He is ribbed about this mercilessly by the boys and even some fans who have picked up on his resemblance to a crooning heartthrob from the late eighties/early nineties (***)

Anyway, it was quite a shock for my then-girlfriend to meet Intensity and a number of other wrestlers and then the next night go out and watch them apparently trying to kill each other.

“They aren’t  going to hurt themselves, are they?” she asked.

“Of course not,” I told her, wondering how I was going to slip away to get across the street to the drugstore to pick up the razor blades one of the wrestlers had forgotten to buy earlier. “No one is going to get hurt.”

Which, of course, was the exact moment the pride of our junior heavyweight division slipped attempting a twisting  cross body and went KER-SPLAT! onto the concrete several feet in front of the wide eyes and extended arms of his opponents (****).

Ahh, women. There‘s a reason they weren‘t allowed on ships, you know.

Fortunately, for the Champ, there are no misadventures on his particular voyage. He is in perfect form. He whines and complains to the crowd. He defends his title through nefarious means. He scurries backstage followed by crescendo of boos.

“Nice work,” I tell him. “You were despicable.”

“All in a day‘s work,” he says. “I guess I better go out there and see if I still have a girlfriend.”

I guess the Champ gets phased after all. Just like the rest of us.

(*) In my experience the correct moment is after you‘ve had sex with her, but before she‘s introduced you to her friends. That‘s when you open the closet to reveal your DVD collection, sit her down, and give her the talk that ends with “….so, yeah. I’m not going to change. I’m a lifelong wrestling fan and I understand if you don’t love me anymore.”

(**) I was hoping for a cute little cottage with a mailbox out front reading “The Intensitys,” but it was not to be. Every year I also hope for  a Christmas card from them reading “Happy Holidays from the Intensitys” featuring a family picture of the Intensity family--Mr. Intensity in a garish Christmas sweater with his arm around his wife, and--smiling brightly out at the world in the foreground--the two little Intensitys with their faces scrubbed and shining. It hasn’t happened yet.

(***) “Mic-Hael Bol-Ton! Clap clap clap-clap-clap!”

(****) Cracked pelvis. Don’t try this at home, kids.

DAN BRODRIBB is a professional stand-up comic and writer who hosted and provided the play-by-play commentary for independent wrestling promotion Monster Pro Wrestling’s television run.  He is still active in the business as a freelance ring announcer and chair-stacker.  Check out his shameless self-promotion at: danbrodribb.blogspot.com