WWE- Rooting for short fighters

Walking down the street, we come across people from all walks of life. Some people are tall, some short. Some are thin and some are fat. Watching these people while walking down the street, we sometimes wonder what would it be like if two of them from opposing spectrums of height and weight were to fight each other. Ok, that’s not what you normally think when you see a tall and a short guy walking together. But if they are walking together, it stands to reason that they are acquainted. What are the odds that two people walking together do not know each other? And Brad Pitt himself has said “How well can you really know someone unless you fight them?” Brad Pitt has his faces plastered all over on billboards. That means what he says makes sense. You don’t get your face on a billboard unless what you have to say is worth listening to.

Ok, there are exceptions to every rule

Ever since David took down Goliath, it has been considered acceptable instead of a massacre to match up a tall tree vs a small shrub. There is an inherent appeal in watching a tiny person go up against a bigger one. So much so that an entire Bollywood movie was made around that premise, starring the Great Khali and Rajpal Yadav. It was creatively named, Kushti (wrestling). The climax of the movie was a battle between the giant and the dwarf. Which is what some WWE fighters treat us to night in and night out. The one wrestler I loved watching was Rey Mysterio. The lightest heavyweight champion in WWE history. He exudes the same appeal. That of watching a underdog dominating. He’s only 5″6 and about 80 kgs. And he goes up against huge giants with aplomb.

There are so many things which short wrestlers can do but tall ones can’t even if they try. Short wrestlers have a lower center of gravity so they can move around a lot quicker and they have greater hang-time when they jump off of the turnbuckle. They can perform a lot more gravity defying aerial moves. And they are forced to rely on their speed and quickness to get the best of fighters with size and bulk. Even though Mysterio is only 5″6, he weighs 80 kgs. That’s a lot of muscle in a pint sized package. Unlike the bulky and huge fighters who can just bump their opponents around with their mass, short fighters have to make the best use of quick strikes. They aren’t huge on ground submission moves, instead they take their opponent down one chip of the axe at a time. Here’s taking my hat off to those guys who show us all that size really doesn’t matter. It’s not about the size of the dog in the fight, its about the size of the fight in the dog.