For this blog entry I simply want to reflect on the state of my wrestling fandom and The Work Of Wrestling. It's not a review or an essay - think of it as a journal entry with little structure. I wrote it because I felt like it with no immediately apparent purpose. Let’s see what shakes loose.

For the past six weeks I've watched and reviewed Monday Night Raw. During that time I've also caught up on AEW Dynamite. One show is not particularly better than the other. They share so many similarities that their differences hardly register. If I showed one show to a non-fan and then the other show a few minutes later and asked them to tell the difference, I don't think they'd be able to.

I'm particularly perturbed by AEW's backstage camerawork.

It's indistinguishable from WWE's, and they've even started doing that thing where the camera lingers on the subject or interviewer for a few seconds after the scene is over. I cannot fathom why AEW would do this. Someone in a position of power is actively making this terrible creative decision. There is no visual wrestling rule book dictating it be done this way. Also, don't they want to distinguish themselves from WWE? Why not do so in easy, simple ways like camerawork?

Even more discouraging is the main event title scene. I no longer understand who Jon Moxley is, and I have no interest in Cope. I don't know what they're feuding about. The only Death Rider who inspires any feeling in me is Marina Shafir. She's coolness and toughness personified. I particularly enjoyed her picking up Renee Paquette and hauling her off screen during one of the Death Rider's brawls.

Even though AEW isn't as good as it was a few years ago and it shows no signs of improvement, the apocalyptic narrative surrounding them is ludicrous. I revile the mind that yearns for something like AEW to fail. It's a lizard brain pasttime that does nothing but keep pro-wrestling analysis in the dirt. I see on a couple Facebook pages I follow quotes from Eric Bischoff and the like blasting the promotion for not getting anyone "over" and their roster not drawing any money. These are primitive arguments had by people who either don't watch AEW regularly enough to know what it's really about, or who have a vendetta against the world.

For the most part, I've been enjoying watching and reviewing wrestling again. I tend to write The Raw Review on Tuesday right after I get home from work and then I spend the rest of the week editing it before publishing on Friday. It's a good system. I don't feel like wrestling is taking up too much space in my life. The one disheartening thing is that I don't feel like I'm reaching an audience. Facebook used to be a pretty good barometer for the success (or lack thereof) of an article.

Now, despite having 11K followers (half of whom are fake), I'm reaching 3 people.

I'm considering deleting it, as well as all of my social media accounts because they're time consuming and not productive. I feel like I have the audience that I have, and they don't even use social media to find my work. They go to the source, the podcast feed or this website, when they feel like it. I'm giving up on the vague idea of "internet fame". I feel I had my brush with success several years ago and now it's over. I don’t even have the energy needed to be successful. To quote my second favorite wrestler, “I’m hurt and I’m old and I’m fucking tired and I work with fucking children”.

And I'm mostly fine with that.

Of course, I hope my reviews and podcasts are successful, but I need to think some more about what success, for me, in this realm, actually looks like.

On the one hand I think cutting off social media entirely would be condemning my content to even greater obscurity. Then, on the other hand, I think I'm basically as obscure as I'm ever going to get with social media. I like the idea of having a clear head, not rushing to state my opinions as soon as they crystalize in my skull. There'd be room and time to breathe.

During this reevaluation process it's probably a good idea to state my goals with the podcast and this site.

The ultimate goal remains largely unchanged; analyze professional wrestling as an art the way it deserves. I want to provide you with a form of arts criticism you simply can't get anywhere else. I want what you hear and read from me to be like a breath of fresh air, a break from all the rumor and innuendo that make up most of pro-wrestling journalism. I am officially not a journalist. I'm an art critic, an interviewer, and an artist. Each of those aspects of my intellect are served by The Work Of Wrestling.

My loftier goal also remains unchanged: affect professional wrestling creation, to actually change aspects of the business from the comfort of my little apartment.

The thinking is that if I bring a more sophisticated form of criticism to this medium that it will, in kind, become more sophisticated. A rising tide raises all ships approach. I'm happy to report that has happened over the past decade. Don't worry, I'm not so egotistical as to think "I did it all!" I'm happy to stake my claim on a small yet influential corner of the internet, quietly chipping away at my stones until they took recognizable shape. My ideas and thoughts about wrestling reflected a larger shift in the professional wrestling community. Change happened because of various subsets of the community, working in tandem, wanted to take wrestling more seriously.

Why bother doing this?

Simple. It's fun.

Critiquing art is fun. Analyzing, deconstructing, and appreciating art enriches one's experience of said art. And pro-wrestling, a form of athletic theater, is particularly fun to analyze. Pro-wrestling is also misunderstood, to this day, by so many people, even people who enjoy wrestling. It's still mostly considered "soap operas for men", the genius of a wrestling match entirely lost on a generation. It's fun to try and correct that.

I also enjoy the rhythm of my week when wrestling is part of my life.

Difficult day at work? Watch wrestling.

Dark thoughts getting you down? Write about wrestling.

Feeling crippled by self-doubt and anxiety? Podcast about wrestling.

It serves as the connective tissue of my days, allowing me to navigate to happier and healthier states of mind.

A gratitude for all that professional wrestling has done for me informs my work. I think you need that gratitude if you're going to exist on the internet critiquing something. Without it you'll drift off into self-indulgent dissatisfaction. I try to keep my voice in check now, something I didn't do years ago, in the interest of fairness. My criticisms can be biting - particularly of Seth Rollins these days - but I think they're defensible. I'm trying to carve out a space in pro-wrestling analysis that's in no way shameful. I'd like to think it's a space someone who works for the WWE would actually take seriously. I don’t trade in the base emotions of the audience. Instead, I appeal to their higher sensibility so that we might converse like intelligent adults. Everything about this site, from the font to the design, is in the interest of cultivating that more sophisticated experience.

I don't believe wrestling, when analyzed earnestly, lends itself easily to top ten listicles.

It needs a more fluid, less rigid structure to reflect the complexity of the art.

So that about does it, wraps it all up for this blog. The Raw Review will come tomorrow and a new episode of the podcast will publish on Monday. I don't yet know what the pod will be about, something I enjoy figuring out over the weekend. Thank you for reading and listening to my work, whoever and wherever you are. You're a much-needed incentive to be creative and share my thoughts on this medium. I appreciate your loyalty and shared passion.

I look forward to what we'll accomplish in the future.

p.s. Mick Foley just liked one of my comments on his Forty Years Of Foley Facebook post. Getting that nod from the gods never gets old. Thanks, Mick!

If you enjoyed this please share it with all your pro-wrestling friends on the social media gimmicks. And subscribe to my podcast The Work Of Wrestling. New episodes every Monday.

Tim Kail's Wrestling Journal, 2/13/25