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					Also this issue: The Hissyfits -Patrick Rapa Celtic Fling -Ashlea Halpern Fourth to Be Reckoned With -Patrick Rapa

July 5-11, 2002

mixpicks

Wrestle Dazzle

Maura Johnston

First, a disclaimer: I canceled plans on a rainy New York night because I got wind that my boyfriend's favorite wrestler -- the glammed-out, movie-loving, wigged and painted Goldust -- was putting in a personal appearance at World Wrestling Entertainment's flagship restaurant, and I had to be there. I hate slasher films and Tekken bores me, but I've got a season pass for the WWE's weekly mano a mano struggles set on my TiVo. The WWE's brand of wrestling is still fairly misogynist -- a recent storyline revolved around the ass size of the company's "good girl," and the other women in the company competed for a Golden Thong trophy. Some of the more well-known wrestlers specialize in drawn-out brawls that are perfect opportunities to get a soda or three. But when wrestling focuses on the in-ring battles and lets its workers be, well, athletes, it can be very, very good -- take a recent match between high-flyers Rob Van Dam and Eddie Guerrero, where a championship belt, hanging from a rafter above an in-ring ladder, had to be grabbed in order for one of the men to claim victory. The ladder wobbled, and the men (one with a mullet, the other wearing a singlet airbrushed with a yin and yang sign) crashed into it and into each other. "Wrestling's fake," detractors say. OK, so the Sixers aren't working according to a team of writers. But watch as the line between two men's positions as actors and the actual danger involved wobbles, and you'll realize that the "fake" aspect of wrestling is essential to its appeal.

WWE Raw, Mon., July 8, 7:45 p.m., $20-$45, First Union Center, Broad St. and Pattison Ave., 215-336-2000, www.wwe.com.