For the second to last episode of 2017, Work of Wrestling podcast returns to the original three-part format of the show!
For the Lock-Up, I review everything in pro-wrestling that I've seen in 2017. I focus primarily on WWE, discussing some of the highs and the lows, what stood out to me as particularly memorable and what WWE can do better (from The Festival of Friendship to the squandering of Bayley).
Read MoreWork of Wrestling host Tim Kail is joined by resident Bret Hart-expert, Al Monelli, to finally discuss Bret's New York Times Bestselling autobiography Hitman: My Real Life in the Cartoon World of Wrestling.
Read MoreThis year's Survivor Series fluctuated between "fine" and "fun". Nothing was terrible, but nothing was too memorable, and in-between existed a lot of legitimately good fun.
The basic conceit of Raw and SmackDown facing off in competition would resonate more if the stakes were clearly outlined and involved more than "bragging rights".
We might know the motivations of the characters when they're outside the squared circle (i.e. Kurt Angle wants to keep his job, Shane McMahon wants SDLive to be more than the B-show), but we don't know what an actual win in the wrestling match itself signifies. The concept of "why" any of this is happening doesn't have an instantly accessible answer beyond, "Because!"
Read MoreAt the end of 2016 my weekly podcast, The Work of Wrestling, will go on hiatus. During that hiatus I plan on restructuring the show so that, in the future, it will be distributed in a highly focused, seasonal format. I do not yet know how long that hiatus will be and I do not yet know how long those seasons will be, but I am excited about the prospect of reinvention and return.
While I still plan to continue writing about wrestling whenever the mood strikes, it feels like a good time to offer a "see you later" (rather than a goodbye) to The Pro-Wrestling Community, particularly to the younger writers & podcasters currently honing their crafts. You are the ones who will take up this mantle, push it into the 21st Century and beyond, and change the way people think about professional wrestling (for the better). Your passion, your ingenuity, and your progressive perspectives will be needed for our Community to ever grow up.
Read MoreWhile I spend most of my time these days writing arts criticism related to professional wrestling, at heart I'm a fiction-writer. That's what I've done my whole life, and that's what I'll continue to do long after I've written or said my last word on pro-wrestling. While I love the writing process itself, I am not enamored with the "literary world".
Readings, wine-tastings, workshops, conferences, literary-networking, talking about books, waiting six months for a response...all of it interests me a lot less than working on something and then sharing it directly with you free of charge.
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