The Women’s Championship match was the best match of Wrestlemania 32, hands-down, no contest. It had stakes, it had psychology, and it mattered in a way that none of the other matches on the card did. And it was all elevated by the fact that Charlotte, Sasha, and Becky weren’t fighting over some chintzy butterfly-shaped insult — at last, here was a big, badass belt that anybody would be proud to go to war over. The audience got to watch two fights at once: a dust-up…
The Spectacle of Excess Posts
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…
Note: I am a skinny white guy writing an article about a female wrestler’s body, and God knows that there’s been enough of those on the Internet. But while I could write yet another thinkpiece about Kevin Owens in my sleep, that would be kinda cowardly. An easy post. Nia Jax is important, and she deserves an enormous amount of consideration and thought. If I’m not staying in my lane in this article, please let me know…
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…
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…