Bray Wyatt was powerfully convincing about John Cena being a false hero. Will he hit on such an uncomfortable truth about Dean Ambrose? Will he talk about Dean Ambrose’s sometimes awkward delivery of humor? Or will he try to win Ambrose to his side? Like, behold the foolishness you’ve been reduced to, oh venerable hardcore legend. Could there be a Dean Ambrose-like storyline inside Luke Harper and Eric Rowan? Might we discover the soul of…
Tag: Dean Ambrose
No Myth in Wrestling There’s always talk of legends in wrestling. Never of myth. Because all of wrestling is a myth, and yet what is legendary is a particular actor-athlete’s portrayal of the myth. Legendary are the men, not the wrestlers. Wrestling is ultimately a form of American mythology, and yet like with any cultural mythology a small part of us maintains that it is “real”. The Glory of #Bunnymania Don’t discount the fact that…
Night of Champions didn’t bore me once. Every match was solid, interesting, worthwhile to watch and played an important role in its narrative thread. (Except maybe Randy Orton vs. Chris Jericho— that conflict seemed like a last minute idea somebody had and figured we wouldn’t notice it came out of nowhere because they called RAW last week a “season premiere”. But it was still a good match to watch.) Most impressively for me, though, was…
VICE has an interview with Werner Herzog entitled “Werner Herzog Has a Lot of Time For WrestleMania”, in which the luminary German documentary filmmaker cops to being a wrestling fan: I take it you don’t consume much pop culture? Not very much, no. Well, I look with great interest at phenomena like WrestleMania. Or I used to watch the Anna Nicole Smith Show because there was a very strange cultural shift there. I go to…
I am taking my time to find my place as a semiotic wrestling critic in the blogosphere, and to find like minds on Twitter. I haven’t yet found anyone doing exactly what I’m doing, but I do find the occasional tweet of a kindred spirit, like this one: Mr. Not PG! @WWEThatsNotPG Follow AMBROSE TROLLING ROLLINS IS PERFECTION. IT IS EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING 6:52 PM – 4 Aug 2014 Yes. Ambrose is the sublime. Everything…
After last night, Dean Ambrose might be my favorite wrestler of all time. Oh, the hilarity! I am hopelessly in love. That man is a brilliant character. I thank the gods he did not go softly into the lunatic fringe. I will say I was concerned — he was on the verge of becoming a one dimensional madman, and wrestling has a history of turning promising characters into simplistic types. But suddenly he appeared composed,…
There’s something wonderful about Sandow dressed as Abraham Lincoln losing to Big E. Very postmodern. Such a complex irony to unravel. Quoth Lana: “You foolish American. Don’t you know that pride cometh before the fall?” She speaks hard-luck wisdom to us in the guise of a mean girl heel. Really, she’s offering tough post-Soviet love. I gush: Roman Reigns, entering not from the stage, but through the audience. And Dean Ambrose, too, and the Shield…