What may be even more interesting than professional wrestling itself, is the prototype for who the "wrestling fan" is.

The "wrestling fan" isn't a universal "one size fits all" specimen, but a plethora of different personalities all enjoying the same product. Yes, I know that it's "fake," but so are 99% of the other entertainment products out there on the market today. It's no different than a soap opera, with the same outrageous storylines and same cheesy acting. These are just a few of the different types of people who enjoy this absurd, ridiculous, dramatic, and wacky world of men fake fighting each other in underwear.

1. The "Takes Wrestling Too Seriously" Fan

Obviously, the first one is gonna fall under the quintessential wrestling fan. This is the stereotypical wrestling fan who buys into every single thing on the program and carries the deepest emotional investment in the storylines, match outcomes, and even off-screen happenings of his favorite wrestlers. He gets mad when the heel (the bad guy) wins, he cries when his favorite wrestler retires and jumps for joy when the babyface (the good guy) reigns supreme.

2. The "I'm So Excited I'm Gonna Have A Heart Attack" Fan

This wrestling fan takes the first one mentioned above TO A WHOLE OTHER LEVEL. This wrestling fan gets so excited at live events that he LITERALLY has to grab his chest in fear that he is actually having a heart attack. This is the overly dramatic fan who sits behind you and screams at the top of his lungs acting like the entrance of his favorite wrestler is the "second coming" of Christ himself.

3. The "Boyfriend Dragged Me Here" Fan

This girl is generally the one sitting next to her boyfriend either looking completely disinterested in what is going on or making jokes about all the wrestlers and their ridiculousness. She only really came to the live event because her boyfriend didn't want to go alone, and in turn, he agreed to supply her a "free dinner" for the night in exchange for accompanying her wrestling obsessed boyfriend to his sanctuary. (Cough cough, me and my girlfriend.)

4. The "I Can't Wait To Kill The Bad Guy Wrestler When I Grow Up" Fan

Folks, you might want to put this young little fan on the FBI watch list now. This is the young fan who believes everything that happens in the ring, and has such hatred for the bad guy wrestler that it morphs her into looking like the girl from "The Grudge." This fan will HOPEFULLY grow up and find out that wrestling is indeed predetermined, and that the "bad guys" aren't actually evil in real life. But judging by the look on her face, that's not happening anytime soon.

5. The "Just Here To See The Sexy Wrestler Guys" Fan

This fan is in most cases the girl who started watching wrestling when she was channel surfing and saw the extremely muscular and masculine wrestlers on TV. She generally is a fan of the select few wrestlers who are moderately more attractive than the others; and who most of the time the "male fans" HATE (ie. Roman Reigns, John Cena, Shawn Michaels, etc.). At the live event, she can be the one yelling sexual innuendos at the attractive wrestlers as they walk out, embarrassing everyone around her.

6. The "I Can Beat Up This Wrestler" Fan

This is maybe quite possibly the most annoying wrestling fan of all. This is the guy who spends the entire show talking about how much "tougher" he is than all the wrestlers, and thinks everyone is interested in hearing about all the bar fights he has won in his lifetime. This is also the fan who many times will jump the barricade at live events in an attempt to beat up these wrestlers. Unfortunately for him though, in most cases, he ends up getting thrown around the ring like a rag doll by the wrestler, until security comes down to escort him out of the building.

7. The "I Read All The Wrestling Rumor Websites And I Know More Than You" Fan

So, remember when I said the "tough guy fan" was the most annoying wrestling fan of them all? Well, I lied. This wrestling fan is without a shout of a doubt THE WORST kind of wrestling fan out there. This is the fan who generally only watches the program in order to critique it, and who will spend hours talking about "how terrible it is" on his YouTube podcast that has three subscribers.

However, this is the fan who will also spend hours of his time looking at all the wrestling rumor websites and will brag about how much "he knows about the wrestling business," even though he has never even stepped in a wrestling ring before. This guy will continue to berate the product, always trying to find the negatives, yet will never stop watching.

8. The "Been Watching Wrestling Since The Beginning Of Television" Fan

This wrestling fan is the grandma who has been watching professional wrestling since it was in black and white. She is just as invested in the product now as she was back in the 1930s, and will usually have her favorites she cheers for without hesitation. Hey "PC Crowd," watch out for this fan though! She may also be the one yelling culturally inappropriate slurs at her TV when the bad guy is winning. Let's just hope he isn't from another country.

9. The "Waiting For A Women's Wrestler To Have A Wardrobe Malfunction" Fan

This guy is just here to party! Typically he is not even a fan of the product, he just heard that some of the girls would be wrestling; and he is just hoping that he can get a glimpse of a woman wrestler's shirt ripping open or some wrestling tights falling down. This guy generally WILL COME TO THE SHOW ALREADY DRUNK, and as the show progresses will only get more thirsty for alcohol and the scantily clad women.

10. The "Please Just Put Me On TV" Fan

Many times he will dress up like legendary wrestlers and can be heard sharing with anyone who will listen other times that he has been featured on TV during WWE live events. This fan spends the entire show trying to locate the hard camera and has no desire to engage in the stories featured at the event.

11. The "Celebrity Cameo" Fan

This is the "token celebrity cameo appearance" that every WWE live event seems to want to showcase on a weekly basis. The WWE specifically, has an undying desire to appeal to the mainstream audience and to be viewed as legitimate entertainment. So when they can feature a celebrity OUTSIDE of the professional wrestling business, they will always hop on that opportunity in a heartbeat.

This celebrity many times will have no idea about the storylines, wrestlers, matches, and is simply just there, "to be there." Most of the time it will be a local celebrity too so that they can fuel their own egos about how "loved they are" by the fans. Hey Big Ben, come to a WWE live event in Cincinnati and see how the surrounding fans react to your presence.

12. The "Divorced Dad Trying To Impress His Kids With WWE Tickets" Fan

This fan might be the most complicated or intriguing of all. Many times this guy was a fan at some point in his life, but that might have been 20 years ago. He sits on the edge of his seating waiting for The Rock or Stone Cold Steve Austin to come out but doesn't realize they retired over a decade ago and he doesn't know any of the new wrestlers.

However, this guy's children love professional wrestling, and what better way to "stick it to the other divorced parent" than to show your kids how much more you love them by taking them to a WWE event. If you catch a glimpse of this trio, many times the children will enjoy their time at the show and jump to their feet when Roman Reigns or John Cena's music hits, but still may feel very uncomfortable to interact with the guy they see every other weekend. But hey, at least the new stepdad didn't take them. Kudos to you, dad.

13. The "John Cena" Fan

This is the John Cena fan, i.e little kids and women. Women love John Cena for looking like the wrestling version of Marky Mark. But like it or not, he has been the poster boy for the WWE for several years now because his "Superman"-like character is something that the little kids in the audience can really grasp onto. His character is about as wholesome as wholesome can get with the "never give up attitude" and all. It's no wonder on a monthly basis he markets all his merchandise in different colors so that all the parents can basically buy the exact same shirt, hat, sweatbands, necklaces, and everything else, but just in different colors every single month.

He is a cash cow for the WWE, and even though the older male audience has wanted him to deviate from his vanilla cookie cutter persona, the WWE clearly sees where the money is. Even though half the crowd is with me chanting "John Cena Sucks," the other half and younger demographic is deafening the arena with "Let's Go Cena" chants. It's hard though. It's just hard for a 28-year-old man like myself to get behind a character like this, when I grew up with the "Face of the WWE" being a bald redneck who flips the bird, guzzles beer, curses out his opponents, and beats up his boss on a weekly basis.

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Obviously, these are not all exclusive to just pro wrestling fans, but with an entertainment product as wacky and absurd as professional wrestling, these characteristics just seem to be more evident in their fans. I have been a pro wrestling fan for close to 25 years and as a fan, professional wrestling has made me laugh, cry, jump to my feet in excitement, scream out in anger, and showcase any other emotion you can possibly piece together as truly an emotionally invested fan. I could not pinpoint what "type of fan" I was, but I can be quite certain I'm most likely a combination of many mentioned above, except number 7, I mean, I do have a life.