If you follow me on Twitter, you might have noticed I’ve undergone a rather dramatic heel turn as of late. It started as a Kevin Steen, had it up to here with El Generico, mental breakdown sort of heel turn. I was all like this on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndreaGregovich/status/723762256303923200 You might have caught me tweeting mean comments about puppies, but my inner circle of DM hooligans witnessed a gif and swear word spectacle of Attitude Era proportions.…
Author: Professor Kayla Fabienne
A big welcome to guest contributor Sawyer Paul, who has laid out a thoughtful theory of a not so straightforward question: what exactly is it that makes professional wrestling “good”? Sawyer’s piece gets at the core of what we’re trying to do here at Spectacle of Excess, and that’s to clarify and celebrate the artistry of this pretend sport. So a big thanks to Sawyer (and all the other recent guest contributors) for the help keeping…
Image Source: wwe.com “…but what’s puzzling you is the nature of my GAME.” —Rolling Stones, “Sympathy For the Devil” While I can’t say I’m giddy with anticipation over the upcoming HHH/Roman Reigns championship match at Wrestlemania, I have been spellbound by the treatise Trips has been whipping together about the authority’s oppression of the ninety-nine percent, the heroic rebel’s challenge to this tyrannical authority, and his assertion that corporate executives are in fact gods and…
Image Source: wwe.com Oh, dear friends, was this week’s RAW not a humdinger? And just when we thought the world was coming to an end because of Roman Reigns, who shows up but Shane McMahon, to drop a bombshell (if not quite a pipe bomb) that he has some kind of lockbox full of blackmail against Vince himself! The prodigal son returned, but not to beg his father for charity and compassion, oh no! Shane came back to…
Image Source: wwe.com It is a thrill and an honor that Tim Kail of the Work of Wrestling has written a piece for The Spectacle of Excess! And what a great thing, he took on the concept of spectacle in wrestling, put his own brand on the underlying idea that inspires this blog. Enjoy Tim’s musings (a manifesto, almost) about the nature of spectacle in professional wrestling. –Andrea * We will not remember most of our lives. This is because the…
Image Source: wwe.com Triple H’s promo last week on RAW was so full of important concepts I had to transcribe it. I’m still getting my bearings after my hiatus from working on the project of wrestling theory that is this blog, so an historic promo like this is a gift from the wrestling gods. Gods indeed! Look at everything he did here. He cast Vince McMahon, nemesis of wrestling fans the world over, as God. Not…
Image Courtesy of Punkrockbigmouth (punkrockbigmouth.tumblr.com) If this were medieval times, I would give my handkerchief to my champion and this blog’s patron wrestler-saint Rusev, and blow him a kiss for good luck as he heads into this year’s Royal Rumble. All his fellow international wrestlers in the League of Nations did was come out and talk smack at Roman Reigns and Chris Jericho, who were blah-blah-blah-ing it in the ring. But Rusev was more artful. He painted for us a metaphor of…
Andrea here. Another wonderful wrestling writer has stepped up to help me keep this blog alive while I finish up the book I’m translating (almost done, I promise!). Scarlett Harris offers us an interesting look here at the generational themes WWE shares with the movie Jem and the Holograms. And get a load of Xavier Woods, by the way! The 2015 reboot of Jem & the Holograms was a flop that I had no intention of seeing until I…
image credit: rohwrestling.com A little secret to let you in on, dear readers: I have a devastating crush on Dalton Castle. I haven’t written anything about him thus far, because where do you even begin to describe a wrestler so sublime? As you know, I’m fairly prolific on the topic of professional wrestling, but I find myself without words enough to express the feelings when someone so thoroughly steals my heart. This is not the…