Due to an ongoing shoulder injury, I am only able to lift lighter weights at the gym. I do shoulder presses with 12-15kg dumb bells. This suits my workout regimen which is now based on aerobic conditioning and less on strength work. However, the gym I go to is one of those poncy, “look-at-me-I’m-ripped” places with pretty-boy steroid-assisted grunters in their designer tank tops, who hog a bench for 40 minutes while they do their 3 X 10 reps, often with a spotter taking most of the weight for the last 2 reps in each set. But THEY use 35kg dumb bells, and I just know they look at me and sneer. I really want to tell them that I’m natural, and the amount of weight they struggle to lift doesn’t make them better than me. At other times I’d like to drop the dumb bell straight across the bridge of their nose and watch them juice all over their designer tank top.

Is it me that has the problem here? Or should I do the rest of the gym a favour and go medieval on these posers?
~ Mr Wonderful

Super Crimson agrees that proper gym etiquette is an absolute necessity for any self-respecting athlete or serial murderer. The behaviour of others can have a big impact on your workout. Whenever the guards let Super Crimson use the gym here at the AWF Asylum for Professional Wrestlers and Other Criminally Insane Persons, he always follows these rules:

• Be courteous at all times. Super Crimson finds it's best to avoid eye contact with the other inmates.
• Check to make sure you're not wearing lycra, spandex or anything stretchy in day-glo colours. There is no excuse for this kind of thoughtlessness. Anyone who breaks this rule is fair game, really.
• Be thoughtful. If someone drops a weight on themselves, don't laugh until after they lose consciousness.
• Wipe down the benches after you are finished. There's nothing more unpleasant for the next person than finding the bench all covered in blood and the stuff from the inside of people's heads.
• Return the weights to the racks, except for the ones you need to weigh down the bodies for disposal into the Harbour.
• Make sure there are no witnesses. This is particularly important if you were wearing lycra.
• Perform a general tidy-up before you leave. Sometimes it's easier and more efficient just to torch the place. For this Super Crimson recommends one of those trendy health clubs where all the weights are covered in chrome and they're playing the kind of music Scotty Club listens to; years of accumulated hair gel deposits mean these places go up like a torch.
• Lay low until the authorities lose interest.
  
  P.S. - what is 'natural'?
  
  
  

Dear Super
I find your column insightful, scintillating and more than a little erotic. I suppose you get that response all the time!

Anyway, back to the point of my message. I have been a wrestling fan for many years, and never miss an opportunity to frequent the changing rooms when the big boys of the circuit are in town. I've seen things that would make your eyes water! Sadly though, I have never mustered the courage to enter the ring myself, although I'm confident I would be a startling success. I practise the moves religiously, and have even created my own blows, throws and grips. This is where I need your advice. Is it possible to patent my wrestling moves, so other people cannot copy them?

One in particular I like to call the screaming squirrel. The local paperboy won't be so quick to leave my paper on the lawn next time! He howled like a neutered mongoose for hours, so I'm told. The secret to effectively completing this move is to attack from behind, and use BOTH hands.

I suppose with a little confidence boost I really could become a full-time wrestler. I keep myself in peak physical condition, in fact my bench-presses are now up to 37 kilos. I can manage 12 push-ups before I black out, and I regularly jog more than 600 metres without stopping. I hear many people talk about 'the right stuff'. Am I full of it?

Thanks for taking the time to read my email, or at least getting someone to read it to you. I look forward to your wisdom-filled droppings landing on my computer.

~ TTT (The Thailand Terror)

Super Crimson would like to get one thing straight right off the bat: Super Crimson makes the jokes around here, not snivelling, bandy-legged, damp-palmed, Liberal-voting, chubby-kneed, thyroid mutants like yourself who couldn't poo out of the right hole without an instructional diagram. Gimmick infringement is a serious matter around here, missy.

Now that that's out of the way, let Super Crimson stoop from the heights of his wisdom and try to address your question as if it were halfway intelligent.

Super Crimson suspects you probably don't have what it takes to be a professional wrestler. You probably think wrestling is all about glamour: running around in your underpants, throwing guys across the ring, hitting them with chairs, and feasting on the recently-buried dead. But pro wrestling is so much more. It's a disclipline, a Way of the Spirit. Think of us as kind of real-world superheroes.* Wrestlers are like the guy in The Incredible Hulk, drifting from town to town, helping the helpless and comforting the downtrodden, before turning green, running through cardboard walls in slow motion, and wandering off misunderstood and alone to the tinkling of sad piano music. Are you prepared to live like a kung-fu monk? To dash into burning buildings to save kittens and puppies? To sleep every night on barbed wire and thumbtacks? To snack on danger, dine on death, and suck down a plateful of nice yummy earthworms for dessert? Super Crimson didn't think so. (We don't do these things either, but if you were a wrestler, we'd sure as s**t make you do them, just to see your fat ass squirm).

Perhaps you could consider an alternative career, such as lavatory attendant, or perhaps Alan Jones. After all, we've all got to play to our strengths. In the meantime, if you ever make it back from Thailand, drop us a line. Super Crimson would love to have you over for dinner.

* - except that our superpowers are falling down and overacting.

Dear Masko,
I am a big wrestling fan but don’t have much of a chance to wrestle. I would like to wrestle but it seems to always be out of reach because of school , friends and family but I’m willing to try my best to become a pro-wrestler. What should I do? What does it take to become a real pro-wrestler and how does one get started at AWF schools?
~ DX #1 Fan

Dear DX Fan,

Despite your questionable taste, Super Crimson likes you. He promises to eat you last.

There are two ways to become a professional wrestler. The first is to escape from the secret Government laboratory where they built you from body parts and alien DNA, and be discovered by AWF talent scouts fighting invisible space gorillas in a dumpster in Rooty Hill. That was Super Crimson's way. The second is to save your money and go to a good wrestling school. Super Crimson recommends the AWF school (see the link on this site). The trainers have done the best they can with Super Crimson, and the rest isn't their fault.

The main thing the instructors at AWF University will be looking for is a positive attitude. In pro wrestling, "positive attitude" means a grotesquely inflated sense of your own ability and an almost pathological lack of shame. Serious mental illness, as manifested in a willingness to risk major physical injury for sod-all money, is also a plus. Combine these things with a severe personality disorder and you will go far in this sport.  

In the meantime, you need to rid your life of negative influences. You mention three: school, friends and family. We've all been burdened with these things but you don't have to suffer forever. Drop out of school (you don't need education to wrestle - you think many nuclear physicists throw themselves onto thumbtacks for a living?) and ditch your friends - once they find out you're a wrestling fan this should take care of itself. As for your family, remember that your parents got you born for their own selfish reasons and then stuck you with their lifestyle choices and weird-ass values. Of all the people in this troubled world, you owe your family the least. Kill them all. Kill them now, and eat the bodies over time (this also has the benefit of providing much-needed protein for your weight-training programme).

Remember, pro wrestling is all about living your dreams, and really, if you're the kind of person who dreams about powerbombing helpless, twitching victims through burning furniture, then you're probably best kept off the streets.

Super Crimson looks forward to seeing you in the ring - we can always use fresh meat for the grinder.

(P.S. - that whole eating you last thing - Super Crimson probably lied about that).