I’ve recently come out of a depression.

I didn’t even know I was depressed until, around September of last year, I started feeling better about work, life, and art. I experienced the mental equivalent of clouds parting after a storm, and a warm beam of sunlight cutting through the dark. The juxtaposition of mindsets was so palpable that I realized, “Oh, I was depressed!”

That depression lasted for about two years and it manifested as a kind of dull, throbbing ache, a sense that something was about to go wrong at any moment. At my day job I struggled to decide what task to undertake next. I didn’t have a schedule (big mistake when you have bipolar!) and I would wander, aimlessly in my mind from one potential tragedy to the next. At home I was better, but I wasn’t really enjoying my life either.

To enjoy life seemed like a luxury I couldn’t afford.

How did I deal with this depression?

The McMahon Behind The Curtain

The opening segment of this week's Monday Night Raw is a light shining at us from the future, illuminating what the WWE could (and hopefully will) become one day.

In it, Roman Reigns, yet again irate at the absence of his WrestleMania opponent, Brock Lesnar, took to the microphone to air his grievances.

Brock, in Roman's words, "Didn't show up to work".

This has been the essence of his problem with Lesnar, and the basis of their WrestleMania rematch. Roman, regardless of the crowd's perpetually mixed-to-negative reaction to him, always shows up to work. He "busts his ass" for the business that's "in his blood", and, just like the fans, he's sick and tired of Brock Lesnar only showing up to work "when the money is right or the city is right". He believes The Universal Champion should be a full-time member of the WWE roster; an unconditional leader of the locker-room and the company.

Am I A Pro-Wrestling Fan Or A Human Being

I stood with my hands in my pockets and my eyes on the floor, waiting for the next stall or urinal to open up. We were a pack of shifty men, unaccustomed to bathroom lines. A father and a son talked about Spiderman: Homecoming (the movie we'd all just finished watching) behind me. The father liked it. The son wasn't so sure. Both loved Michael Keaton. Most of us were quiet save a few customary post-pee man-grunts.

A stall door opened, and a bearded young man exited. He wore a Bullet Club tee-shirt. I recognized the skull and crossed AKs immediately. Even though I knew nothing about the Bullet Club (other than the fact that they exist and are important in indy wrestling) I experienced the warmth of recognition.

A fellow wrestling fan!

The Art of Wrestling Is In The Details

The pro-wrestling community does a lot of debating about "no-selling", "dick flips", and "beach balls" these days.

But what about the roll-up?

What about how a wrestler uses their eyes during a pin?

What about the little, fundamental details of professional wrestling that get buried under high spots, hand-gestures, headbutts, entrances, memes, and chants from self-obsessed audiences? I'm certainly guilty of falling prey to the analysis of these popular topics (see my article from two weeks ago).

The Magic Of Wrestling Action Figures

I held Anakin Skywalker in my hands, and I felt nothing.

For the first time in my life, an action figure wasn’t anything more than a piece of cheap plastic. His poorly molded head stared up at me, devoid of magic. His unarticulated arm was stiff so that a lightsaber would go in and out the hilt extending from his hand, making it appear as though the blade could be turned on and off; the kind of gimmick I always hated even as a little kid. Toys with “Chop action!” buttons, bells, and whistles assumed I didn’t have an imagination. His fixed pose felt like an insult to my intelligence.

My mom sat next to me in the car, watching me open two more figures inspired by Attack of the Clones: a similarly stiff Obi-Wan Kenobi and a tiny Padme Amidala. We were in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, our custom during these sacred action figure openings.

What Summer Slam Taught Us: A 3-Point Plan For WWE

Once cooler heads prevail and feelings aren't so hurt on all sides, there are a lot of positive lessons WWE can learn from this year's SummerSlam.

And I do not mean that in the condescending “Here’s what I’m going to teach you!” kind of way (I'm an advocate for the WWE being exactly what it really wants to be without making concessions to an audience that it simply isn't designed for). I mean it in the way that any reaction to any creative endeavor yields a lot of incredibly useful data.

The Art Of The Brand Split

The WWE announced on Wednesday morning, May 25th that in addition to broadcasting SmackDown live, Tuesdays on the USA Network, that a brand split will once again take effect in its fictional universe. Raw & SmackDown will feature *insert press-release quote* "unique storylines with unique casts, writing teams etc".

There are a lot of obvious benefits to this creative direction. Not only does a switch to live presentation help revitalize the WWE's stagnant B-Show, a definitive split in an over-crowded roster means less repeat match-ups, less over-exposed, over-worked talent, and more creative focus (hopefully) committed to improving the quality of these proposed unique storylines. With each roster able to focus on one live television show a week (rather than two where wins and loses cancel each other out) there could be more room for the performers to establish their characters via backstage interviews, in-ring promos, and main event matches that represent the culmination of consistently promoted throughlines rather than last-minute, contrived hero/villain pairings.

The Art Of Sasha Banks

A true star in entertainment is very rare.

Much like the celestial bodies they're named for, a star's talent, charisma, ingenuity, or personality burns so brightly and distinctly that they're impossible to ignore. They shine through the impenetrable dark of sameness that defines the vast majority of our existence. Their reach is seemingly infinite, easily comprehend and appreciated upon first glance.

THE RAW REVIEW

We’ve been here before…

A WWE pay-per-view that is met with resounding disdain is immediately followed by an episode of Monday Night Raw that elicits unanimous praise. As genuinely disheartened as I was by the Fastlane pay-per-view, as soon as I heard “Here comes the monaaaaaaaay!” and saw Shane O’Mac hit the RAW stage with his reliably fancy footwork, all wasn’t forgiven, but all was certainly forgotten.

BE SMARTER: A MESSAGE TO NXT FANS

Professional Wrestling Is Life

Life can be divided into three distinct stages.

We are born.

We struggle to define our existence.

We die.

It's no coincidence then that this would be the basic structure of most human stories; a beginning, a middle, and an end (or The Thee Acts). We see Three Acts in everything around us, be it our twenty-four-hour cycle (we wake up, we work, we go to sleep) or the entirety of our time on this planet (youth, middle-age, elder-age). Even our intangible experiences of life are typically divided into threes: Good, Evil, a moral gray area.

THE WORK OF WRESTLING PODCAST

THE PODCASTTim KailAugust 3, 2015pro wrestling blogs, pro wrestling podcast, roddy piper, roddy piper passes away, roddy piper podcast, professional wrestling, wwe, wwe blogs, chris jericho, nxt, nxt blogs, pro wrestling art, promo

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