Why Wrestling Is The Most Masculine Sport

I moved to Vermont in the middle of my seventh grade year from New Jersey. Up until that point I had been hanging out with gangbanger and drug dealers from Newark. For anyone who doesn’t know that part of the US, I’ll summarize: it isn’t very nice. You could walk down the street and have someone mug you and take your shoes. Although I learned a lot of good things in New Jersey such as resourcefulness, it left me with a permanent watchfulness and sense of aggression.

As middle school progressed into high school I moved on from being the shy new kid who looked a little hood, to being a kid well liked by his grade. However, I wasn’t doing any sports and had no outlet to vent out my pre-teenage frustrations. That is what lead me to the wrestling team.

In my school, the wrestlers were the most badass group of kids in the school. They worked hard daily, they were respected yet feared at the same time, and they were well liked by the teachers and faculty. I wanted to be one of those people, so I joined the team.

At the time I could not predict what was going to occur over those next few weeks. The first day the coach told me that I had to cut thirty pounds if I wanted to start on the team. Since I was an overweight 190-pound freshman I figured I should take his word for it and lose the weight.

The next few weeks were agony. I sprinted down the hallways morning and night until I puked. The coaches would have me and all of the other fat kids run outside in the snow and flip tires until our fingers froze. We would work out in the 105-degree wrestling room conditioning until half of the team quit. Somehow, I endured the training and I began to understand what kind of dedication this sport was going to take. The coaches had weeded out the weak and made a small group of elite warriors.

As my body began to change over the course of the season, so did my outlook on life and other people. At the time I was friends with a lot of girls that would disrespect my friends and me. We would ask them out and they would say yes, only go have sex with their senior friends after class.

Mid-season during a cut (losing weight before a meet) a girl that was “dating” my friend dumped him and I saw her making out with a senior in the hall. The younger more immature version of myself called her a few unkind words and never talked to her again. Although it wasn’t very manly for me to stoop to her level, I had taken the first step to not take abuse from people who don’t care about me. My friend, not a wrestler, decided to take the other path become a white knight, and he still is to this day.

One of the last things that wrestling team taught me was that there was a hierarchy to everything in life. On the team the coaches were the most respected, then the captains, then the seniors, and last the freshman (my friends and me). However, I saw that if you worked hard and respected your elders, you could move up the ladder and become one of the more respected people.

Many of the other freshman ended up quitting because they couldn’t handle this fact. They got mad because the seniors didn’t respect them for being them. I saw why the seniors did not respect these people, though—they had no reason to. As a senior who had put himself through four years of extreme exercise and pain, why would he listen to a little freshman who had not gone through any of that?

As those people left the team, I was given more opportunities to prove myself and take their spots.

Wrestling has made me a stronger and more self assured version of myself. Not only have I become stronger and better looking, but now when I say I’m going to do something, I mean it. The work, the hierarchies, and the self improvement all closely mirror the foundations of neomasculinity.

If you want to push yourself mentally and get in the best shape of your life, join a wrestling team or club and try wrestling in a few matches. When you do, you’ll understand what I mean.

Read More:  10 Masculine Virtues That Went To The Grave With Our Grandfathers