Ah, the wrestling ring. Is there a more beautiful stage than the squared circle? When people pull the “wrestling is a universal language” card, not enough of them point to the ring as proof, preferring things like “narrative” and “the ability to perform through a language barrier” instead, but let me tell you something: four rings, three ropes, and turnbuckles did not spring forth into the human consciousness like Venus from the sea.

These things were communicated and understood. Some promoters thought they could improve the ring with more sides or do away with the ring altogether, but nah dawg, that’s strictly sicko shit.

What’s amazing about the wrestling ring is that literally anybody can have one, supposing you have a couple thousand dollars kicking around. Most people don’t, but some people do, and the people who do can build a stage anywhere, do anything with it, then load it into the back of a U-Haul and throw it into a storage unit until the urge to put on a show strikes again. And if you’re smart, you won’t even have to do any of the work of setting it up and tearing it down because the wrestlers will do it for you. It’s perfect.

The problem with having your own ring is that it’s possible that nobody around you knows how to set it up. I imagine this happened in a lot of rich kid backyard wrestling promotions during the heyday of teens jumping off of their parents garages, an investment in the future success of their loosely planned fed that probably should have been invested in a trampoline instead.

Based on the music video for their smash hit cover of Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal,” I think the boys of Alien Ant Farm were those kind of backyarders.

Thankfully, the video depicts AAF performing the song to a backyard of fans who are justifiably losing their fucking minds, taking fewer bumps than Lance Storm on an ECW house show, but there’s no way the band had that ring built and that canvas done up with their logo for a one-song performance. People wrestled in that ring, even if they’re fictitious and live only in the world of a three minute music video. All it would take is one Irish whip before the question shifted from “Annie are you okay?” to “Skullcrusher are you okay?”

I’m not trying to concern troll, but I’m right.

alien ant farm