"Can you imagine the level of a mind that watches wrestling?” says a character in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters. There are, of course, many things that Woody Allen doesn’t understand – rock music, popular culture, appropriate boundaries with teenagers under his care – but his dismissal of wrestling is one that I suspect many of his fans agree with. Isn’t wrestling just a joke, they argue, enjoyed only by rednecks? Don’t they know it’s NOT EVEN REAL?

All of which is missing the point. Because wrestling has changed considerably in the last fifteen years or so, and yes, everyone apart from small children and the dopey woman sat behind me at this show knows it’s scripted. That’s what makes it interesting. If sportmen were genuinely whacking each other on the head with steel chairs while the referee’s back is turned, it’d be pretty horrific (though it would liven up most sporting events). It’s not, because everyone knows this is staged violence. Modern wrestling is a mix of action movie and soap opera, wrapped in the trappings of pantomime. There are heroes to cheer, villains to boo, allegiances are switched, betrayal is always just around the corner and intense, complex rivalries play out over several months before coming to a head (usually on a Pay Per View show). But while storylines are set out in advance, that doesn’t mean that professional wrestlers are not extraordinarily athletic – you can’t fake being thrown across a ring and landing on your back. Sure, punches are pulled and moves telegraphed, but the best wrestlers move with an almost poetic beauty – if this was dance or gymnastics, they’d be hailed as great artists. What they do is create great theatre, and you’d have to be pretty damned miserable not to enjoy it. Which is probably why Woody doesn’t.

TNA are America’s second-string wrestling division, snapping at the heels of the lumbering WWE, but in Britain, their broadcasts are actually the more popular, formerly on the now-defunct Bravo and now the only show anyone watches on Challenge. This is their fourth UK tour, and the Strange Things posse headed over to the opening night in Nottingham to check out the fun in a three-quarters full arena.

Bang on 7.30, the show opens with ring announcer Christy Hemme – formerly a not very good wrestler who now seems to have found her mark as a first rate presenter – working up the crowd, before the opening match, between Gunner and Britain’s own Douglas Williams. It turns out to be a bit of a flat start. Gunner is being pushed heavily by TNA at the moment, but I’ve yet to speak to anyone who likes him, despite his ‘Mr Intensity’ persona, but he's an effective performer and Williams is usually excellent - but the match is strangely muted, with what seems to be a few fluffed moves before Williams gets the predictable victory. Watching this is eye-opening stuff though, as you begin to realise what an important role the commentary plays in selling the action and the drama on TV. It’s not that the live version is bad – it’s just a very different experience.

While a British victory cheered the local crowd, this was a poor start, and things looked like they might not get any better when Crimson – another newish addition to the TNA roster getting a big push – came out for the next match. Like Gunner, Crimson has yet to show any signs of a personality, and any hope he has of getting the crowd behind him was lost when his opponent turns out to be Samoa Joe. Joe is currently playing a bit of a heel on TV, but the fans love him and he responds in kind, clearly enjoying himself and to hell with character continuity. He’s a large man – some might say fat – yet can do a drop kick as well as any smaller wrestler, and the arena is soon chanting his name, much to the distress of the afore-mentioned moron behind me, who is the only Crimson fan in the house (she keeps up a running commentary on inanities, delivered in a whiny voice, thoughout the whole event, by the way, but this is her final appearance I this review).Joe makes this match fun to watch, and I find myself getting into it more and more.

Next up is a three way featuring the more athletic X-Division wrestlers. In action are Alex Shelly, current X-Division champ Austin Aries and Mark Haskins – another Brit who we’re told is from right here in Nottingham. Maybe he is, who knows? My companion Naomi tells me that Haskins is a very good wrestler, but my memory of him is from a fairly disastrous TV appearance a few months back where he was all swagger and no delivery, bored the crowd and pretty much disappeared. Here, thankfully, he holds his own against the competition, though inevitably the impressive Aries wins – no titles are going to change hands at these shows!

The final match before the break is a women’s four way. The TNA Knockouts (geddit?) were for a long time the show’s biggest draw, but have been shamefully underused over the last couple of years – though things are improving, with fan favourite Gail Kim back from an ill-fated career switch to WWE. Kim is here tonight, alongside Tara, Mickie James and Madison Rayne, who has the most painfully annoying ring persona I’ve ever seen – she can’t possibly be that horrible in real life, so I have to admire her acting abilities. Unfortunately, this match never quite catches fire, despite at least three of these ladies being first-rate wrestlers who always deliver the goods. An appearance from the strangely absent Velvet Sky might’ve livened things up.

After a thirty-minute break, the action resumes with Bully Ray vs AJ Styles. As the name might suggest, Bully Ray is villainy writ large – if wrestling IS panto, he’s the consummate bad guy, and he takes to the mic to berate the crowd and engage in gross behaviour – spitting up in the air and catching it in his mouth – like a cartoon villain, inviting a chorus of boos and a chant of ‘pussy Ray’ that I really hope catches on around the world. In fact, this is the light-hearted match of the night, as crowd-favourite AJ plays to the arena and the pair take an age to actually get down to grappling. Styles is the master of wrestling as an art form – he makes impossible moves look elegant and effortless, and secures a victory after some high-flying action.

The main event is a match-up between former tag-team partners and current main rivals Bobby Roode – the champion – and James Storm. This rivalry has been played out a lot on TV over the last few months, and while both Storm and Roode are highly-skilled wrestlers, I never really took to them as a team and I’m getting a little bored of their current rivalry. It’s a surprisingly short match, with Roode getting himself disqualified to avoid losing the title – as he’s done on TV several times. It was at this point that everyone expected to see wrestling legends Sting and Hulk Hogan to come out and do some in-ring wrap-up chat, and indeed Sting does arrive to play to the crowd, dropping references to Nottingham Forest and mocking Derby, before demanding that the match be replayed. Then, things get interesting. Firstly, fellow legend Kurt Angle – currently a heel – arrives to instead demand a tag match with him and Roode vs Sting and Storm. That gets the crowd going, as Sting isn’t actually wrestling these days. Bully Ray pops up to uneven the odds in favour of the bad guys, and then – to the sound of Eye of the Tiger and the biggest cheer of the night – Hogan arrives.

Hogan hasn’t been seen on the TV show since October, and while his presence here was well known, no-one was expecting him to wrestle – so this is a big deal. Sure, the man can barely move these days, but fuck – he’s Hulk Hogan. The sheer nostalgia value, the chance to see the world’s most famous wrestler in the flesh and the knowledge that this is probably the last time he’ll appear in the UK – it was a genuinely, oddly moving experience for a lot of people.

Hogan’s few moments wrestling in this match are nothing much – he’s hardly going to compete with the younger guys, or even the veterans who have had less surgery and more ring time. But when he rips off his T-shirt and points at his opponent, it’s kind of like seeing a long-split favourite band get back together for a gig – they might not be as great as they once were, but just seeing them together is enough. So it is here.

The inevitable victory for Team Hogan – the actual pin going to Storm on Roode, which is only fair – is the capper of a thoroughly entertaining night (though the fun continued into the early hours for some of us). Tickets are already on sale for next year’s tour – with prices capped until February 6th – and I seriously suggest that the more dismissive amongst you stop worrying about seeming uncool and get yourselves along. You might just have the time of your life. see it.

DAVID FLINT