Wrestlemania, Tommy Tiernan and the year that was in wrestling

It's not Tommy Tiernan's fault Becky Lynch isn't a household name in Ireland - but she should be.

Even if you don’t know wrestling, you know Wrestlemania. About to head into it’s 39th installment, it’s the grandest stage of them all - the Super Bowl, the Champions League final, the All-Ireland final of their respective sports.

Wrestling, by and large, is naturally met with great skepticism and disregard by people who don’t know their F5s from their GTSs. I won’t go into great efforts to convince people otherwise, but if your mam enjoys Fair City or Coronation Street or you’re spending Mondays dodging spoilers of the Last Of Us or Succession, its perfectly reasonable for people to be invested in wrestling and the storylines that intertwine the pre-determined matches.

Yes, we know its fake, we know it’s all an act and a lot of the time absolutely ridiculous, but sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it’s great and provides all the emotions and entertainment you gleam from an excellent series of television or a movie. It just happens to be presented through the medium of wrestling, with supreme athletes flying around doing unimaginable feats of athleticism, strength and skill.

Skepticism is exactly how Tommy Tiernan met Becky Lynch, a Dubliner at the very top of the women’s division in WWE, the premier wrestling business in the world, when she rocked up to his chat show on Saturday night. For those not aware of the premise, Tommy doesn’t know his guests before they step onto the stage, so he teases out their lives and careers from a complete blind spot, devoid of pre-rehearsed questioning and painful banter.

Tommy met Becky with the same sort of disregard of her field that I would expect from anyone not tuned in to wrestling. Although there was additional awkward ridicule, such as referring to fans as ‘eejits’, it was largely how I would expect a conversation between someone who hasn’t a clue about wrestling, or left it behind back in the 1980s, and a fan or someone involved in the business today.

This is somewhat a downside of the format - I’m sure Tommy did his due diligence after the fact and was kicking himself at his line of questioning when he realised just how far Becky’s star stretches.

The thing is, I don’t think that’s Tommy’s fault. Lynch has been a game-changing force in the wrestling sphere ever since she arrived in WWE back in 2013. Up until recently, female wrestlers were more akin to ring girls at boxing events, there to look good in the ring before the men came along and did all of the important work. They were very much an inconvenient sideshow to the men’s efforts that was often overlooked as little more than a tick the box exercise under the guise of equality.

Thanks to Becky and some of her colleagues, women’s wrestling is now taken very much seriously and is aligned just as importantly as the men’s game in terms of story and expectation. They now headline Wrestlemania and have their stories feature prominently on television, with just as much anticipation from fans to see the likes of Becky alongside the Roman Reigns’s and John Cena’s of the space.

She’s a big deal and a hero to many across the pond. Sadly, that hasn’t reverberated back to this side in any major fashion. Lynch could and should be aligned just as highly alongside Katie Taylor or Saoirse Ronan - whatever way you want to split hairs on the sports versus entertainment divide, she is at the top of her game in a massive industry and the true definition of a role model for young girls in Ireland.

While Oscars mania dominated the Irish media landscape this month with plenty of green representation on the red carpet, you’d have to go out of your way to learn that three Irish performers will be featuring at Wrestlemania this weekend, in addition to Irish commentator Kevin Egan. Three wrestlers at the very top of their field will be representing their country on the biggest stage in wrestling, watched by millions - Bray man Finn Balor, and the absurdly pale Dubliner Sheamus, who is likely to win a championship title this weekend in a show-stealing matchup, in addition to Lynch who looks set to become the first ever to compete across both nights of the now two-night event.

It’s not Tommy’s fault these world famous stars haven’t been positioned as such in their native land. No Late Late Toy Show appearances or news reports explaining to hopeful children that we have a handful of very talented people headlining at the top of their fields in America. We do it for our acting stars, boxers and elite athletes - wrestling is a combination of all three no matter how dismissive you want to be of the pre-determined, scripted nature of how it operates - so let’s get their names out there too.

Tuning in to see four Irish people feature prominently on the show is something to be proud of from our small little nation. Position these great Irish representatives as the role models they are and celebrate them for reaching the pinnacle of their field.

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Wrestlemania does indeed kick off this weekend, off the back of the most tumultuous and newsworthy year in its 43-year lifespan. It all figures around owner Vince McMahon, another figure that transcends the wrestling world and someone a lot of people are likely to have heard of, even if they have never tuned into a show.

A number of sexual assault allegations and hush-money payouts levelled against Vince meant he stepped away from WWE last summer, letting go of the vice-hold he had on every single facet of the running of the business. This was long overdue for many fans and observer, with many of the allegations hanging over his head to this day.

Earlier I mentioned Succession, WWE have been in a familial tug-of-war themselves between Vince and his daughter Stephanie and son-in-law Paul Levesque (aka Triple H. Yes, Triple H). WWE is available for sale and the hugely controversial Vince recently returned to oversee that transaction, with many of the belief that he has also wormed his way back into some day-to-day runnings of the operation, including creative decisions - as in the matchmaking, story and character motives that appear on television.

This, if you are to believe Vince has indeed left the building, will be the first Wrestlemania ever not under his watchful eye. A lot of expectation will be on this year’s show after it surpassed many last year, with the headline event matching the returning Cody Rhodes, after he left WWE seven years ago to spread his wings in the independent field and even helped found WWE’s now biggest competitor, against near 500-day champion Roman Reigns, who has had a chokehold on the company from a storyline perspective for years.

WWE is the epitome of the show must go on, with or without Vince. With WWE up for sale at a multi-billion dollar valuation, and Saudi Arabia amongst those keen to sign the dotted line, wrestling will continue to feature in the mainstream across the likes of Forbes and Bloomberg as it will the deep corners of wrestling internet and the tribal crevices of online forums and Twitter.

Here in Ireland, let’s feature wrestling a little bit more prominently in the mainstream for the right reasons by celebrating Becky, Sheamus and Finn for their wonderful achievements on the global stage.