So, before I even start, lets get one thing out of the way. Yes, I DO hate that soooooo many 80s/90s wrestlers are dead. Most well before their time. I DO hate that. Buuuuut, thats not what this post is about.

I’m watching last weeks dynamite. JR is interviewing Swerve Strickland. I’ve been advocating for a return to the 1996 style JR/Mankind interview since 1996. I think it’s a format that works. I DON’T understand why it’s taken this long, Kane interview aside, to get another one.

But…then I’m watching the first 20 seconds. JR is soooooo aged. I don’t mean it in a disrespectful way. I just mean that his voice is slowed down considerably. His face had visually aged. And hearing his voice just reminds me of going to Elyria Ohio.

You see, my mom lives in Elyria Ohio. And in the mid 90s to early 2000s, I would go see my mom, stay with her for the weekend, and she lived near a mall. In 2001 I actually lived with her for about 8 months.

And that mall has a LOT of memories for me. Its like my teenage years in a nutshell. If you go through my comments, theres a recent one about playing starfox 64 at Toys R Us. That was at the mall.

Well this last week, we had some tornados come through Ohio. 460K people were without power. I was among them for 3 days. Well, on the 3rd day, my mom came out, picked me up, drove me 30 minutes to her condo, and I showered. The whole area was SOOOOO run down and broken from what I remembered.

It’s so bad that Walmart had to shut down. In a 2 minute drive through the streets, I recognized the city, but not the area if that makes sense. My mom even got annoyed by me saying too often “That used to be where ____ was…”

It reminded me of Legend of Zelda, Ocerina of Time. Where you grow up in a cheerful and happy town, and then you get older and its this run down area. You still can see what it used to be, but it’s very different now.

And thats how it feels hearing JR give a sit down interview. Hearing his voice is somehow firmiliar, yet foreign. Like the voice still sounds like the guy you remember in the 90s…but also like its run down and broken.

Aging does that to us all. I look in the mirror and expect to see a young 19 year old ready to tackle the world. Instead I’m presented with a grey haired 40 year old, who still look ready to tackle the world. How long until I see a wrinkly 60 year old, who’s just ready for a nap? Actually 40 year old me would enjoy a nap too.

Still, I can’t see/hear JR and not be reminded of how good he once was. How good Elyria once was, and how young I once was. But now, all I see is a shadow of what I remember it being…