[Content Warning on this piece for discussion of sexual violence and trauma.] Over the last two weeks, wrestling has been confronted with a problem that, frankly, too many people within and without the industry have known was coming for some time. When #MeToo began spreading at a pace faster than anyone in the entertainment…
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,…
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…
Week to week, it’s kind of difficult to figure out a way to contextualize an episode of AEW Dynamite. We’re long past the point where there’s something novel about there being another wrestling show on a major broadcast network, and everyone has decided to push the potential consequences of wrestling during a pandemic where…
It is hard to know where to begin this review of AEW Dynamite. Fanfyte took last month off of regular coverage of televised wrestling as a means of responding to WWE and AEW’s decisions to shoot live shows during a pandemic. That pandemic is still a going concern, and watching wrestling under these circumstances…
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,…
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…
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…
Welcome to Let’s Pretend It’s Any Year Other Than 2020, where the Fanfyte crew talks about wrestling from May in other, better years. There’s been a lot of Atsushi Onita coverage on Fanfyte lately. I wrote about his exploding ring death match against Terry Funk as an example of the tenderness I’d like to…
You may not know this from Fanfyte VCR or any of the non-COVID-19 related wrestling coverage I’ve done during These Uncertain Times, but I feel like my enjoyment of professional wrestling—current American professional wrestling at least—is at an inflection point. WWE isn’t just bad—they’re an active blight on American culture. AEW is dealing with…