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WrestleMania 36, the collective fever dream of a world hungry for live entertainment and yet somehow sick to death of the WWE’s signature brand of live entertainment, took place last week, forever altering many fans’ perception of what wrestling is—what wrestling is capable of being—through its presentation of the Undertaker/AJ Styles Boneyard Match and…
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In yesterday’s piece about how wrestling continues undaunted through a pandemic, I mentioned that my relationship to wrestling was growing strained as a result, that I didn’t know if it would be possible to repair my relationship to it. The reason I haven’t completely broken away from wrestling in this moment is that I’ve…
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At the risk of repeating myself, it is insane that there is still professional wrestling on television right now. It is irresponsible that there is still professional wrestling on television right now. It is, depending on your level of concern over coronavirus, morally reprehensible that there is still professional wrestling on television right now.…
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There shouldn’t be any wrestling right now. The fact that wrestling is a going concern, regardless of how many people are or aren’t sitting in the audience, is wildly irresponsible. One of the only live sporting events on television on Friday, SmackDown’s broadcast from the WWE Performance Center was restricted to “essential personnel only.” Think…
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I should have known better. I should have known that ranking every member of the nWo would lead me down some dark paths, and here I am watching WCW Monday Nitro circa 1997, the wrestling I grew up on. Here’s what I know, deep in my bones: Rey Mysterio Jr. is incredible, watching Ric…
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I don’t want to make fun of Cody Rhodes’ neck tattoo, but we need to talk about it. Making its debut at last night’s AEW Revolution, Cody Rhodes’ neck tattoo was very bright, very loud, and very much there, right there, on Cody Rhodes’ neck. Cody Rhodes’ neck tattoo is just Cody Rhodes’ logo,…
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At this point, everybody knows the picture—”Macho Man” Randy Savage, clad almost entirely in denim, looking pensively into the distance while sitting on a rocky shore. It’s an indelible portrait of one of wrestling’s most beloved figures, something at once cartoonish and real, completely sincere and utterly ridiculous. It’s my favorite picture of a…
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The new World order are going into the WWE Hall of Fame this year, and while the company is limiting the group to its three founding members, I’d like to believe that the lack of a physical building for the Hall of Fame means that there’s room for everybody. Can’t remember who was in…
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On this week’s episode of AEW Dynamite, Nyla Rose became the company’s second Women’s Champion. We’ll get to the significance of that moment shortly, but let’s begin here: She should have been its first. Think back to the beginning of All Elite Wrestling as a going concern. The way it went about determining the…
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I went to a sports bar yesterday. That’s not wildly aberrant behavior—the joint I go to has good, cheap sandwiches that come with onion rings—except for the fact that, for the first time in half a decade, I was there to watch the (less) great (than professional wrestling) sport of professional football, as presented…