The Most Important Difference Between Hockey and Wrestling

While there has certainly been a number of changes in our day to day since Rob started wrestling school, the first and most obvious difference was laundry.

I don’t know if you know this, but wrestlers get all up close and personal with each other. Apparently smelling fresh and clean is a really big deal. I mean this makes sense, but prior to Rob wrestling my only other significant experience with someone’s athletic interests was my brother & hockey. According to my brother and his friends, never washing your gear and smelling utterly disgusting is a crucial part of the sport. I’ve been in the front seat of their car with the gear way back in the trunk, and still, regretfully, would catch whiffs of sweaty men.

So while it’s good that this is not the same attitude for wrestlers, the washing needs of wrestling gear that should smell sparkling fresh despite ~3 hours of hard sweating is more intense than what we were previously doing. The pads in particular weren’t quite cutting it with the normal laundry process. Rob did some googling, and we now wash workout clothes separate with vinegar. Yes, vinegar. Vinegar saves lives, people (or at least noses).

The tools of the wrestling-laundry trade

Before wrestling school started, I was working out almost every day of the week and Rob was working out every weekday, so we already had a decent amount of workout-based laundry. When wrestling school started, it added workouts (and the need for more fresh clothes) every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night. It also spurred on my motivation to keep up with my ever-more-fit boyfriend and kept me consistent with now-daily workouts. As you can imagine, our workout laundry bin was soon overflowing.

It also meant being cognizant of when it was wrestling school night to make sure there were clean clothes available. I was not particularly diligent about workout clothes laundry prior to this because I am… lazy? Efficient? A shopaholic? I’m not sure what word best describes the state of my wardrobe, by which I mean to say that I overbuy clothes. I’ve recently cut down on extra clothing, and I think I still have at least 15 sports bras. Actually I changed my mind, lazy probably is the best word for this scenario. If the impossible DID happen and I ran out of clean workout clothes that was a completely viable reason for me to skip a workout.

I would be mortified though if ring o’clock rolled around and we suddenly remembered there wasn’t any fresh gear.

It’s not that trying to plan around clean laundry is a big deal, but it was a change in mindset, and for me, it marked the first big mental shift where I started to prioritize wrestling.

I suppose it would have been less work if Rob had suddenly developed an interest in hockey, but every time I think about car rides with my brother I SUPER appreciate that wrestlers seem to be the more cleanly athletes of the two groups.

It Starts Somewhere

Scarcely a year ago, I only knew 3 things about wrestling.

1. It existed.
2. It was somehow distinct from other fight-y things because it was “fake.”
3. The Rock, Hulk Hogan, and some guy from Predator were all former wrestlers turned actors according to my family & friends.

It’s hard to say what’s more astonishing to me a year later - that my boyfriend is training to be a wrestler and I KNOW STUFF about it, or that when I talk to people about my boyfriend training to be a wrestler, more often than not they respond with something along the lines of “I used to watch wrestling when I was a kid!”

Where was I as a child? How did I miss out on this phenomenon? Why did these people stop watching when they got older?

All questions I ponder, but can’t answer.

But there is a question these people keep asking me in return - “what’s that like, having your boyfriend doing wrestling all of a sudden?”

Ah friends, now that I CAN answer, but it will take some time. So stay tuned if you’re interested in the tale of a wrestler’s road to the ring, as told from those ringside. It starts with… laundry.