Features
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Cody Rhodes’ American Dream
I traveled to Jacksonville for AEW Dynamite last week for the sake of seeing Yuji Nagata wrestle in America for the first time since I was a child, when Nagata was a wrestler I liked because he did karate kicks in WCW/nWo Revenge and wrestled on B-shows like Saturday Night and {Pro}. I was extremely excited…
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Please, I’m Begging You, Don’t Make The Rock a Politician
I like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I’m not alone in that, obviously—Johnson is one of the most popular wrestlers in history, a movie star who defines a generation of blockbuster action movies like Schwarzenegger and Stallone before him, and a decent enough social media presence if you’re into his particular brand of Cool Dad. He’s…
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Peacock Is Editing Racism Out of WWE Content. So What?
The WWE Network sunsets in the United States on April 4, as it becomes part of NBCUniversal’s Peacock streaming service. Launched in 2014 (after an initial conceptualization as a television network that never came to fruition), the WWE Network is one of the the promotion’s signature achievements, forever altering the global wrestling marketplace in a…
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5 NFTs WWE Should Mint to Claim the Throne of Worst Company Ever
Non-fungible tokens—or NFTs for the sake of not gagging on the language of the digital carny—are the talk of the collectables market at the moment. I won’t pretend to understand the intricacies of what is, on the surface, a pyramid scheme that bilks the many for the profit of the few while further smothering the…
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Teach Sting How to Blend
Dad needs help.
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Minoru Suzuki, King of Wrestling Fashion
I’m the kind of freak who leaves the phone notifications on in my social media apps. There’s a guy on Instagram who sometimes sells Crush Gals records from Japan. There’s a Facebook group full of men who suddenly decide that a 1985 Hulk Hogan trading card that I’ve had in a desk drawer for awhile…
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The (Past, Present, and) Future of Professional Wrestling Is Transgender
There is an occasion for this post, obviously, which is that earlier this week, Gabbi Tuft, who competed in WWE under the name Tyler Reks, came out as transgender on social media. Though she left WWE in 2012 and has largely moved on from the world of professional wrestling, this is still a big deal…
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The Royal Rumble Is Wrestling’s Greatest Gimmick Match
Tonight is the Royal Rumble, the one night in 365 where, regardless of how good or bad WWE’s endless narrative grind is, everything feels fresh, new, and full of possibility. I would charitably call myself a lapsed viewer of WWE television, but the Rumble—the match itself, that is—always brings me back. It’s the one night…
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The Hidden Histories of Wrestling Magazines
Something I’ve been obsessing over the course of the pandemic are the ways in which wrestling fans “see” wrestling. We’re restricted, at the moment, to the broadcast version of wrestling, shot by a finite number of cameras and edited live to the specifications of a company’s house style. It’s fine—it’s how most of us engage…
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On WWE’s Best and Worst Character: Vince McMahon
Vince McMahon Isn’t Seeing the Pearly Gates Because of This!