Emotions are the essence of human life. When we touch the hearts and feelings of people, we attract them deeply. The closer we are with each other, the more vulnerable we are. And because emotions are within ourselves, via emotions people are able to get the closest to each other.

There once was a time when I used to watch WWE. You can say, wrestling is fake or staged, there are just poor actors. That’s all true. But it attracts so many people because the storylines and feuds touch our hearts. They tickle our emotions. Mostly, its good versus evil. The bad guys wins with tricks as long as, finally, the good guy is able to overcome all hurdles thrown into their way. But the best storylines are the ones that are fought between two people who cannot be clearly separated into good and evil.

Since 2017 I haven’t watched any wrestling event. Because the live storylines haven’t been really good. They have been good versus evil in a highly stereotypically exaggerated ways. So, really, it has been stupid. But there was one story that that still stroke my mind until now. And this has been the feud between William Regal and Dean Ambrose in the late FCW.

Lost father vs. lost son

Florida Championship Wrestling has been the training ground for upcoming WWE talents. But it was less professional than modern NXT. It was also hardly watched on TV. It was a free minded, creative niche in the wrestling business. Ideas not only sprung to mind but have been able to play out. It was hit and miss most of the time.

Most talents in FCW have been in independent wrestling companies before. So, William Regal, an older WWF / WWE star, who did commentary in FCW, knew most of the newcomers. As he knew about Dean Ambrose a.k.a. Jon Moxley. Since I don’t know exactly what was behind the feud between them, I can only assume. Some of the segments might have been done ad hoc. But in retrospect, it’s an open end storyline that still offers questions with lots of hidden answers because it ultimately closed FCW.

For all the segments of the feud between William Regal and Dean Ambrose, played out during 2011 and 2012, I once created a page on Eire+Alba. This site isn’t active any more. But occasionally, people from all over the globe stumble upon it, just recently someone from Nepal.

Admiration, familiarity, emulation, rejection

For three days, the one person from Nepal clicked all the pages, possibly watched all the segments, promos and matches, William Regal and Dean Ambrose did together. Something like that happens at least once per month. Because that storyline was unique. It was an older, father-like character against a younger, son-like character. The younger admired the older or saw some familiarity, even saw the father he missed all his life. Two unique minds (some would say: deranged) that overcame many struggles in their respective lives, fought against each other.

As a spectator, you could love and hate both of them at the same time. It’s like a protagonist and an antagonist in a good movie should be like: the good guy with a glimpse of evil; the bad guy with a glimpse of good. So, you basically didn’t know whom to root for. Both at the same time? Not quite possible, but that was the beauty of it. Because both, William Regal and Dean Ambrose, knew how to translate movements into emotions. And vice versa.

First, there was admiration on both sides. Then discovery and acknowledgment of familiarities. Both saw themselves in the eyes of the other man. The younger wanted closeness; the older was terrified. There was then rejection and finally hate. Most people are able to relate to that story because most of us know about admiration and rejection. Emotions make every human life worth living. And because of that, the story of William Regal versus Dean Ambrose was beautiful and timeless.

        © Dominik Alexander / 2020

Kolumne 666 is just as many words. In there, two topics are interwoven, which at first sight hardly have anything to do with each other. One topic is taken from the pool of headlines from the past few days; the other subject comes from my own biography. Kolumne 666 is a serial commentary on current affairs and is intended to stimulate thought and discussion; either here or in offline with friends.