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…
Category: Wrestling Theory & Criticism
Part 5 and conclusion of the Road to R-Evolution: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 On November 25, 2019, almost five years after his WWE debut, Kevin Owens cut a promo on Seth Rollins where he summarized his bedrock continuity across the years: “I have known who I am since the moment I first laced up a pair of wrestling boots, twenty years ago!” he said, looking into the camera–not just at Rollins, but at…
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…
We must imagine Generico happy, no longer striving to impress audiences or wrangle opponents, no longer, we hope, hurting himself for art and entertainment. Sami Zayn is less lucky.
Part 4 of the Road to R-Evolution: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Kevin uploads a new episode of his Weekend Escapades web series on January 1, 2014, covering the end of one year and the beginning of the next. It features the usual shenanigans: Kevin blearily explaining his next few shows in the pre-dawn dimness, filming Colt Cabana taking a shower, wandering around Chicago in the dark, admiring the Christmas lights of Muncie Indiana. Near…
The revolution is upon us, and I am so grateful for the first submission of AEW analysis to the Spectacle of Excess! Guest contributor Denali W. has taken a deep dive into the layers of story in the Double or Nothing Rhodes Brothers match. Take a look: All it took to sell this match to me was exactly four sentences from a four minute promo that I saw in gif form at the beginning of May:…
Yoshi-Hashi doesn’t have a lot of the things wrestling stars have. He’s not beautiful like Ibushi, or charming like Taguchi, or hard like Ishii. He doesn’t have the natural charisma or athleticism of Nakamura or Okada. He’s not comfortable on mic or powerful in his crowd work. He’s pretty awkward, usually, visibly anxious and vocal about being in pain. His shoulder is always taped, and unlike other wrestlers who wear sleeves or pads or black support wraps, he just wears tape. He’s open about injury in a way most wrestlers, pretending to be gods, aren’t. He’s a good wrestler, technically, but there are lots of good wrestlers.
[Content warning for discussions of suicidal ideation.] In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker arrives on Dagobah to begin his Jedi training. We see him meet Yoda, see him lifting objects and being lectured by his teacher, see him confront the apparition of Darth Vader. It’s implied that he’s on the planet for a month, maybe two. All this goes by in about 30 minutes on the screen; two months of Luke’s life compressed into…
It’s August, 2015, and it’s the go-home show before TakeOver: Brooklyn, the very first TakeOver to be held outside of Full Sail University. Kevin Owens–who will be gunning for Finn Balor’s title one last time before heading off to the main roster–comes to the ring to hype the match, and when he mentions Brooklyn, the Full Sail crowd erupts into boos and “Brooklyn sucks” chants. They’ve always been able to witness TakeOvers, the payoffs to…