Category: The Kayfabe Quandary

February 27, 2023 /

Oh, for a muse of fire! It’s about damn time a faction of brooding heartthrobs emerged in Area Code Pro Wrestling. Like really, why has the patriarchy been so squirmy about appealing to the thirsty demographic? WIth the exception of a certain refrain about a fairly tame wrestler who hails “straight from your baby-mama’s DM’s,” the local wrestling promotion has been a downright prudish affair in the year and a half it’s been running. Money…

December 26, 2022 /

Oh, that this too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew! Because in November, right as the deep abjection of my seasonal affective disorder was cranking into high gear, the local booking unfolded into a biting allegory of Alaska’s colonial history.  I was deeply unsettled by this turn of events. I did not expect such depth of concept from this little dog and pony show. As I descended into my scheduled…

August 7, 2022 /

Three teenage girls ran up to me while a match was going one time when I was the ring announcer for the local wrestling promotion. They asked if they could take a picture with me. It was only my third show as ring announcer, and I was still figuring out all the dynamics of my role. If you’re doing it right it’s a very busy job, announcing for a professional wrestling show. My voice was…

July 16, 2022 /

“Hell hath no fury like a woman fashion policed by a man who looks like Fred Flintstone.” —Proverb The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough was, I shit you not, the song Pandora chose as I rolled up on the quaint craft fair out front of the 907 Pro Wrestling venue last weekend. “LFG,” I said to the voices in my head about this cornball synchronicity, because Cyndi Lauper of all people would understand the very niche existential…

June 13, 2022 /

Wow! Lady Stripes, her babyface fiancé, and the dashing, brooding monster heel really went for it at the local wrestling show this weekend. The babyface fiancé won his match with the heel clean and with a different ref (yawn) but later in the show the story took a shocking turn. I can’t clip a YouTube video to save my life, but skip ahead to 11:25 to watch things play out: The only problem is that…

June 10, 2022 /

If I were booking the local wrestling show, I’d build the entire narrative around the female referee at this point. She’s a whole narrative universe. On the surface of it, she is a damsel in distress; in the subtext, she is a professional woman facing a moral dilemma foisted upon her by the men who depend on her. Lady Stripes found herself reluctantly thrust into the spotlight a couple months ago when her beloved babyface…

May 25, 2022 /

The storyline is heating up at the little wrestling promotion where I used to ring announce and am now a smarky gonzo journalist in the audience. The top referee in the company is a woman. Her love, the embattled babyface, proposed to her in the ring after a big show last month, right after he finally won the championship. As she held his hand up to affirm that he was the winner, he pulled her…

May 8, 2021 /
October 7, 2019 /

I’m pleased to present our first Impact analysis, and on such an important wrestling topic: shoot trauma invading kayfabe. Thanks to Rory Garon for their shrewd insight into the perilous Eddie Edwards storyline! –Andrea You’ve probably heard about how Sami Callihan broke Eddie Edwards’s face with a baseball bat. Even people who haven’t watched a second of Impact wrestling have heard about that incident. News of injury spreads like wildfire through the world of online…

February 23, 2019 /

The Golden Lovers – neither of whom have officially self-identified as queer, or straight, though Kenny’s made a lot of references to dating both men and women – have, over nearly a decade, made queer romance the center of their professional personas in a way no tag team ever has.

There are very few wrestling romances with happy endings, let alone queer romances. However, the Golden Lovers have avoided this cliche, treated their relationship with total solemnity and sincerity – even when they were on opposite sides of the ring.