Русев Удря, Русев Мачка. I just noticed the original post about it turned three years old last month. That might have been the day I fell on the icy driveway, I don’t know. In other words, I was thinking about other things. Death and such–I was in quite the Bray Wyatt mood all month. But it’s a day worth noting for The Spectacle of Excess. It’s the post that got us on the IWC map.…
Category: Wrestling Theory & Criticism
Anything you can do, I can do better I can do anything better than you In 2012, El Generico loses, and loses, and loses. He loses key matches in Ring of Honor against Kevin Steen, unable to halt his nemesis’ rise to the top, and then unable to unseat him. He loses or vacates at least four different titles in the U.S. and Japan and Germany. By the end of the year he holds not…
I am so excited to present to you this essay by guest blogger LB Teufel about the origins of The Golden Lovers and a wild match that I now need to go pore over, as I have recently caught the Kenny Omega pheromone and know the thirst and awe of his divinity, oh yes! Enjoy this cool essay, and let’s hope we hear more from LB in the future. –Andrea In August 2012, El…
On January 25th, 2018, WWE Chairman Vince McMahon made the unexpected announcement that he was re-launching the XFL, his failed football league from 2001 that ceased operations after only a single season. Reporters greeted the announcement with a combination of surprise, curiosity, and incredulousness. The mere act of a reboot in 2018 isn’t so surprising; after all, the past two years have seen classic TV series such as the X-Files, Twin Peaks, and Roseanne resume…
The air is heavy with the scent of rice crackers and seaweed-wrapped rice balls, and I am grieving. It’s February 2016 in Osaka, I’m here for the New Beginning show, and three days ago Daniel Bryan announced his retirement from wrestling. The people around me are nibbling on snacks, chatting about the card in the darkened arena, waiting. Beside me, Dan is bowed over with his head in his hands. He started to get a…
Photo Credit: Alan Rolette, RiverHorse Wrestling Photography Spectacle of Excess is delighted to interview the Ambassador of the World Wrestling Network, Trevin Adams. WWN is an umbrella organization that governs a network of independent wrestling promotions that include EVOLVE Wrestling, SHINE Wrestling, Full Impact Pro Wrestling, Style Battle, Viva La Lucha, WWN Supershow and American Combat Wrestling, among others. WWN produces and distributes streaming wrestling content that is available for purchase on WWNLive.com, which is…
[Warning for intense bloody imagery in this essay.] Final Battle 2010, the climax of Kevin and Generico’s bloody feud, takes place in the dead of winter, but I watch it many years later in the early spring, when the leaves are that particular luminous green that’s almost golden. (The leaves are important. We’ll get back to the leaves.) The year-long arc, from 2009 to 2010, from Final Battle to Final Battle, is Kevin’s story. I…
Some moments in wrestling are staggeringly momentous, huge enough to fill a stadium with emotion, so titanic that the audience’s reaction becomes itself part of the moment: the Miz winning the world title; the breaking of the Undertaker’s streak. Some are smaller, more intimate, shared with a group of hundreds at a small show or a live event. Some are so fleeting and personal they may only touch a scattered handful. But whether big as…
Greetings friends! I have emerged from the abyss with the fourth in my series of posts about the art of the fabulous Punkrockbigmouth. Check parts I, II, and III if you’re interested, and be sure to check out all of PRBM’s work on punkrockbigmouth.tumblr.com. The term “cartoon satire” doesn’t structure quite right for an -ism, but let’s get over ourselves. Not all -isms can logistically take on the suffix, and I’m just making all this…
Wrestling is repetitive. At its worst, it’s a frustrating experience, full of dead ends and pointless loops, events that pile up without a story to tie them together, jolting along until they merely stop without closure. But there’s promise and potential there, too. Given enough time and patience, some luck and stubbornness and inspiration, you could put all those repeating patterns together into stories that echo and resonate off each other, like bells that never quite…