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…
Category: Wrestling Theory & Criticism
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…
So I was watching Breaking Ground, which gives a backstage look at NXT wrestlers as they develop their characters and attempt to find their place within the shambolic carnival of professional wrestling. This is on the Network, mind you, and everything you see is completely sanctioned by WWE. One episode focuses on Baron Corbin, or more specifically, Tom Pestock the Former Football Player-Turned-Wrestler, as he grumbles backstage and keeps to himself and rides a motorcycle…
Artwork courtesy of Punkrockbigmouth (punkrockbigmouth.tumblr.com) Another wonderful wrestling writer has stepped up to help me keep Spectacle of Excess afloat while I grind away on the novel I’m translating. Barry F. Hess offers an insightful look at the relationship between wrestling and Shakespeare here, touching on a number of concepts about the bard and the business that I never noticed before: Two of my most favorite pastimes in life are reading William Shakespeare and watching…
For my final nostalgic reblog of this Mercury Retrograde, I wanted to share this post about the classic essay that inspired this blog: “The World of Wrestling” by Roland Barthes. I felt pretty feisty when I wrote this, like I still had to defend my project of what I’m calling “wrestling theory and criticism”. I’ve finally moved past that anxiety so many of us have over thinking wrestling is important, worthy of critique, emotionally resonant,…
This little post about Eric Rowan has enjoyed a surprisingly high volume of search engine traffic since I wrote it nine months ago. Most of the search terms were something to the effect of “is Eric Rowan really that smart,” but people also googled about his artisanal grapes and wine-making, his classical guitar, and his Rubic’s Cube. In essence, everyone was thinking what I was thinking — the sheep-masked Wyatt just didn’t make any sense.…
I wrote this just a couple months after the Shield broke up, back when it was impossible not to fall madly, desperately in love with Dean Ambrose. He was the best thing ever ever ever to happen to professional wrestling, and the people who read this post at the time told me they thought so too. So much inauthentic narrative snafu would then send me into an embittered phase where I could barely even stand…
Pro wrestling will give you trust issues. The language of pro wrestling is the language of deception. Mark, work, selling, and kayfabe are little strands of carny DNA that show us wrestling’s origins — a callback to when strongmen traveled with carnivals across the United States, bilking gullible Dust Bowl Alpha Bros out of money by goading them into rigged matches. Even if one of the local hayseeds looked like he might actually win a match with the strongman, another carny (hidden…
Andrea here again. In honor of my hero defeating Ryback to become the new intercontinental champion and savior of that much embattled belt, here is a reblog of my thoughts on the ethics of Kevin Owens from May of this year. He’s done his best to be a real jerk, but I still think he’s a realist and a working class hero: I find myself with a contrary opinion in regards to the story we’re…
When Brian Pillman was announced as a playable character for the soon-to-be-released WWE 2K16 (as part of Stone Cold Steve Austin’s showcase mode), it instantly brought back memories of watching Brian Pillman on ECW when I was a kid. Here’s a guy who, even for ECW, managed to be one of the most entertainingly unhinged wrestlers on the roster (with the exception of maybe New Jack, who wasn’t so much a wrestler as a feral human who…