I’ve always liked Roman Reigns.
I’m a twenty-eight-year-old married man.
My favorite wrestlers are performers like CM Punk, Sami Zayn, The Rock, Steve Austin, Bret Hart, Mick Foley, AJ Lee, Lita, Sasha Banks, Bayley, Charlotte, and Roddy Piper.
I’m fairly certain I could be labeled a “smark”, and, like many who write about pro-wrestling on the internet, I have my fair share of criticisms for the WWE.
Read MoreOne. Two. Three.
Happiness.
For a brief, beautiful moment, I experienced genuine happiness at the end of Monday Night Raw.
My viewing of RAW last week was slightly similar.
Read MoreNXT, the WWE's farm-league show, is the right length of time combined with the right cast of characters combined with a focus on the most fundamental truth of the pro-wrestling fiction (that pro-wrestling is a legitimate sport, not a form of entertainment). This makes for a show that would entertain almost anyone - from the most jaded smark to the most inexperienced wrestling viewer.
Read MoreForty minutes.
That’s about how many minutes of legitimately good (or entertaining) television existed on last night’s three-hour RAW broadcast. This is an estimate based on the opening match, Daniel Bryan’s segment, and the final segment.
Read MoreLately, SmackDown has existed as background noise in my house.
This has less to do with the quality of the show and more to do with the fact that Raw’s three-hours saturates the viewer. By the time SmackDown comes around to HuluPlus on Saturday, I’ve already seen a minimum of four hours of WWE “content” (usually more as a result of perusing the WWE Network and YouTube). There is no other television-narrative I devote that much time to. Every other show I watch is either twenty minutes a week or forty minutes a week. Like most, I occasionally binge-watch a show, but such shows are always focused on the same characters or the same, consistent narratives. The WWE has yet to catch on to the viewing patterns of today’s generation, and the fact that more and more audiences are responding to psychologically driven, serial narratives with relatable characters in interesting situations.
Read MoreSinger/songwriter Sia recently released a spiritual successor to her massively popular music video for "Chandelier".
This video, for her single "Elastic Heart", features the same dancer from "Chandelier", Maddie Zeigler, performing alongside Shia Labeouf inside a steel cage.
Read MoreNXT is the best product the WWE offers, and more than enough reason to become a Network Subscriber.
And I am by no means a WWE shill. I'm hesitant to even write the phrase "WWE Network" because it's become associated with such negativity in our collective fan-mind (something that needs to be corrected in the future as it is actually quite a positive). I write that NXT makes it worth it because I am a subscriber, and every Thursday (soon to be Wednesday) when I see what is essentially a one-hour, genuine professional wrestling pay-per-view produced by the WWE, I feel as though my investment is worthwhile and as though there is hope for the future of the company.
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