Tim Kail read my story about the first wrestling match I ever saw on his podcast The Work of Wrestling this week. He made it sound so good! You should go listen to the podcast and also check out his blog — he has been working tirelessly to celebrate professional wrestling and redefine it as an art form, away from the ever problematic label of “sports entertainment”. He also talked about our new heroes Kyle…
Author: Andrea
Tim at The Work of Wrestling turned me on to these guys and they are brilliant. Political satire for the WWE Universe! Just what we need during these dark times: Kyle and Oliver do awesome covers of WWE entrance songs, Paige’s being perhaps their most kick ass: But their NXT song is more complex than a bold cover — it is a parody delivering a satire that is actually a message of grievance from the…
“Русев удря Русев мачка!” Have you wondered what it is Rusev is saying at the beginning of his entrance music? It’s been driving me crazy because I couldn’t make it out. Then I finally saw it in one of his tweets and spent a little time with Google Translate. Rusev udrya Rusev machka! is Bulgarian. It’s hard to hear in his entrance: I always thought I heard budrya instead of udrya. Machka stumped me because…
Writing about professional wrestling has been for me an exercise in churning out old school critical content at the speed of the internet age. I have learned much! I used to be the type to fiddle with my sentences, question the quality of my thesis, wring my hands for days on end before I felt confident sharing my writing with the world, or anybody. But that doesn’t work when one is writing about wrestling. I’ve…
It occurs to me that CJ Parker is actually an impressive character. In the era of monster douchebag asshole heels like Seth Rollins and creepy greasy antihero heels like Bray Wyatt and Luke Harper, good on this kid for getting over as a loathsome pussy hippie liberal jobber heel. Sorry to be crude, but I can’t think of a better way to describe CJ Parker. And while he gets his ass kicked every time, he…
We all, I think, come at wrestling with our own collection of references, noteworthy matches we saw live, caught as children when they aired on television, or special pay-per-views we saw back in the day when, because of price or cable TV limitations, you didn’t necessarily see every pay-per-view. These important moments in a wrestling fan’s career define the fan’s perspective at its core. They are foundational, just like the books and films that influenced…
Something cool happened, by the way — my story about indy wrestling called “The Unshakable Kayfabe of Tommy Rage” got nominated for a Pushcart Prize by the folks at New Pop Lit! You can read the story at the link below. Also check out Thomas Mundt’s story “Placeholders”, I found it hilarious.
I contend that we may be witnessing an era of missed opportunity. In these post-Authority times, there is a chance for the WWE to turn a corner – start a new chapter, head down a new storyline. The Authority’s departure is an opportunity for the WWE to experience a true period of lawlessness. Oh, we’re told things are lawless right now by Seth Rollins because he for one has been a marked man. But they’re…