In 1986 Robert Fulgham wrote his bestselling book of essays entitled, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.  These are his conclusions:

“Share everything.
Play fair.
Don’t hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life –
Learn some and think some
And draw and paint and sing and dance
And play and work everyday some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world,
Watch out for traffic,
Hold hands and stick together.
Be aware of wonder.”

Everything I really need to know in life I learned from big time wrestling. Every Saturday evening, just before the news and Flat and Scruggs, my dad and I would watch Big Time Wrestling (BTW) from our home in southern Ohio, which means it was pronounced Big Time “rasslin.” It was brought to us in the living black and white from beautiful downtown Huntington WV.

Here’s what I learned:

1. Your name defines you. Studies have shown that names have been proven to affect everything from a child’s self-confidence to his grades in school and his future professional success. Nothing underscores this point more than the ring names of BTW wrestlers. Walter Kowalski, William Fritz Afflis and Ed Farhat would not have been successful as BTW wrestlers had they not had the monikers Killer Kowalski, Dick the Bruiser and The Sheik. My favorite was Bobo Brazil. (Thankfully, he did not use his given name of Houston Harris). His signature move was the Cocoa Butt where he smashed his opponent in the forehead with his own head, causing his opponent to wish they had become priests like their mothers had wished. This was true even if they were not Catholic.
2.  Never argue with a hard headed person. See preceding paragraph.
3. The bigger they are the harder they fall. This little Pearl of wisdom has two caveats. Firstly, you must be able to cause the opponent to fall. This was difficult for those who faced Haystacks Calhoun who was 6 foot 4 inches and tipped the scales (if he didn’t break them) at 602 lbs. The same was true decades later for opponents of Andre the Giant, who was a foot taller but a mere 520 lbs. Secondly, one must be careful as to where they if they fall.  If they fall on you, it defeats the significance of this learning point.
4. The bigger they are the chances are they cannot run all that fast. Haystacks Calhoun and Andre the Giant spent a lot of time slowly pursuing opponents as the latter scampered around the ring. In light of the two caveats set forth above, I considered my running from bullies in junior high a wrestling move rather than an act of cowardly self-preservation.
5. The importance of cooperation. One of the great events of BTW was the tag team match where two wrestlers were in the ring and their teammates would be on the apron. Upon being tagged they could come in and take over for their teammate. On June 30, 1961, Bobo Brazil teamed up with Haystacks Calhoun against killer Kowalski and Dick the Bruiser in a two of three fall match at the Denver Coliseum. Brazil was halted by Kowalski in the 1st when he was caught by the abdominal claw grip. He used the Cocoa Butt to win the second over Kowalski, but the other two participants met in the 3rd and Dick the Bruiser tossed Calhoun from the ring and the big man was counted out. Calhoun was counted out because he was too large to get up and reenter the ring. The important message here is that it is to be sure that the cooperation you offer does more good than harm.
6. Appearances can be deceiving. This point was driven home by watching female wrestlers. Although some of them looked rather hardened, like a female matron from the 1940s women’s prison movie, others were very pleasant looking. Once the bell rang it was no ordinary catfight, but rather a battle to the death, like 2 lionesses defending their young. I would not see this much female violence again until high school when Mary Margaret Murnahan and “Loose” Lucy Lattimore fought over who gave the best Hickey. The same with midget wrestling, not that they gave hickeys. Yes, in the age of political correctness I am sad to say I watched Little Beaver, Lord Littlebrook and Fuzzy Cupid go at it in the ring. They were mean and fierce, traits they probably had to develop to survive childhood. I vowed to be nice to girls and little people, in part because it would make my mother, a Sunday school teacher, proud. But mostly it was because they might beat me up, my family would then have to move out of town in shame.
7. Sometimes the dragon wins. The good guys did not always win the match. Sometimes the referee’s attention would be diverted, and he would miss a dirty move. Occasionally, both tag team members would gang up on a wrestler while he was down, or an opponent would pull a substance or object from his trunks and blind the good. Sort of like politics today. What I learned is that when life unfairly body slams you to the canvas – get up. Quickly. Before someone does an elbow drop your midsection.
8. Never trust a baboon. Gina “Bronco” Bouza was a female wrestler who worked in the Chicago stockyards where she could kill cows with her thighs. After taking up wrestling and defeating all female wrestlers, including Quebec’s Giselle “Frog Legs” Boudreau in a vat of hearings, her agent booked her to wrestle a tricycling baboon named Bungles. Within seconds of entering the ring, Bungles snapped Bronco’s neck, threw her from the ring killing her instantly. From this I learned never to trust baboons, or agents.

On that note I’m going to cheer myself up by watching Bobo Brazil Coco Butt someone on YouTube. I bet he could have whooped that baboon.