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Let’s start with the refrain: All cops are bastards. It has been nearly a month since George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, and every single night since then, in the wake of protests across the country, local, state, and federal officials have abused their power again and again and again,…
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I need to begin this piece by acknowledging that I am not the right person to write it, that despite my own marginalization I am a white woman and, as such, regardless of whether or not I am seen as a woman or a man, the institution of American policing, the carceral state, capitalism…
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On Sunday, I asked why wrestling, a century-plus long engagement between the performing arts, sports, and the public, saw its role in the fabric of American society as distraction, arms flung wildly in the air to draw the attention of its viewers away from content other forms of entertainment, even ones geared towards children,…
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I won’t sugarcoat it: right now, there are few things less important than professional wrestling. Between last week’s torrent of grief in the wake of the deaths of Hana Kimura and Shad Gaspard, the ongoing trauma and anxiety stemming from the country’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, and this week’s series of protests in…
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Initially, this was going to be an essay about Owen Hart, an essay on the resting unease with which I’ve regarded the work (and ultimately the occupation) of one of my favorite wrestlers for the majority of my life. I haven’t seen the episode of Dark Side of the Ring about the negligence that…
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I’m pretty sure I don’t like professional wrestling anymore. Don’t get me wrong—I love it and likely always will, but unlike in February and early March, where I was watching every episode of WCW Monday Nitro leading up to Lex Luger’s 1997 WCW Championship win, it’s no longer the kind of thing I seek…
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Richard Wayne Penniman, who revolutionized American music and culture as Little Richard, passed away yesterday at the age of 87. I am nowhere near knowledgeable enough about the history of rock and roll to eulogize him, nor is that my function as a wrestling critic, but when someone of the stature and influence of…
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I miss professional wrestling terribly. I know that it’s still out there, plumbing the depths of human morality, bleeding viewers and endangering labor while declaring itself essential, but how can you miss a houseguest who won’t fucking leave? I miss the real thing, y’all—125 people packed in a barn that just housed a chicken…
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I’ve been thinking a lot about the human voice lately, about how pared back my experience of it has been over the last month and a half. When I’m not writing about professional wrestling and when I’m not a poet, I’m the manager of a record store. Before my store closed down last month,…
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I want to start by going back to 2018, when World Wrestling Entertainment was last the center of national and international scorn. You may remember 2018’s Crown Jewel event, broadcast live from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia exactly one month after the state carried out the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in their embassy…