Why Manny Matters
- People -
By Pennie Azarcon dela Cruz
Executive Editor, Sunday Inquirer Magazine
WATCHING wrestling was how we bonded with my father when we were growing up. I remember how on Saturday nights, he’d pull up an armchair directly in front of our black and white set, turn the channel to wrestling and loudly egg on the contenders like he were in a cockpit, which was in fact where he was on Sunday afternoons.
Released from our house chores, us girls eagerly watched from the sidelines, taking our cue from the paterfamilias and rooting for this guy with feathers on his head and Apache markings on his face. Meek and poker-faced, the native American character definitely provided the perfect foil against his blustery Yankee foe. Bullied, bamboozled and bent every which way, the Apache took all the punishment quietly until the very last round. It was then that he would suddenly regain his mojos and with a few well-executed throws, have the muscled Kano lying face down on the canvas and howling with pain as his legs were being twisted into fancy shapes. As the referee tapped the requisite three counts, the Apache would execute this rain dance we often saw on cartoons, complete with the mouth-tapping woh-woh-woh victory whoop.
Sometimes we’d even mime the dance and the war whoop, and would erupt in cheers when the referee raised the Apache’s arm to declare him winner. It didn’t matter that we were practically watching the same routine on weekends, only with slight variations on the wrestling techniques or the get-up of the contenders. It didn’t matter either when, many many years later, we would learn that the brash antics, the suicidal leaps on the enemy’s chest, the heart-thumping kicks to the groin, the pretzel twists to the legs and the blue-face inducing headlock were all staged.
