Category: Wrestling Theory & Criticism

June 5, 2023 /

I had never been to a Comic Con before. In middle school and high school, I was more into wrestling, sci-fi, and Tolkien-style D&D role playing than superheroes. My interests during those years always followed the “The Hero’s Journey” archetype.  I had, however, been to Gen Con decades ago in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Gen Con is all about tabletop gaming. It was such a rush to meet my TV inspirations from Star Trek, such as Majel…

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…

November 13, 2022 /

That night, there I was in in the Squared Circle in Chicago, grappling with myself about why I didn’t like John Cena when I should. No, not the Squared Circle you’re thinking, my friend.  This is a bar restaurant on 2418 North Ashland Avenue in Chicago, near the long stretch of Kennedy Expressway and its run of traffic that seems to go into eternity.  Place for fans and wrestlers alike, with framed championship belts and…

October 1, 2022 /

. It took me a couple weeks to listen to this conversation I had with Tim Kail about ring announcing, writing about wrestling, and our shared passion for studying this unique artform. I was super busy–not too busy to listen to a podcast, but too busy for the emotional roller coaster I feared might launch after listening to myself spill my guts about various things. But in fact it was a very cathartic listen and…

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…

July 6, 2022 /

I was thrilled when my old friend Tim Kail of the Work of Wrestling podcast said he wanted to write another essay for the Spectacle of Excess. Tim and I were pioneers of blogging about wrestling as art (in our minds, at least!) in the mid twenty-teens, and he wrote another great piece about the virtue of spectacle for this blog way back then. This jumble of wrestling concepts and how we navigate them—entertainment, art,…

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…