wrestling Archives

Thursday

July 24, 2025

RIP Hulk Hogan, the omnipresent Eighties icon

Hulk Hogan, who died today at 71, will be sorely missed. But in July 1996, arguably the most famous and beloved pro wrestler of all time was standing in a ring as fans booed and threw trash at him. He had just turned into a bad guy for the first time ever. This was the second time Hogan would take professional wrestling to unprecedented heights. Nearly 30 years ago, Hogan formed the villainous “New World Order” (NWO) for Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Because of Hogan’s group, WCW would beat the former top wrestling company, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) for 83 straight weeks in the TV ratings. No other company had ever beaten WWE in the ratings.

Thursday

January 26, 2023

Oliver Bateman

Dana White’s Power Slap is a gruesome freak show

UFC president Dana White’s new show Power Slap: Road to the Title debuted on January 18 to paltry ratings — a reported 295,000 viewers following a helpful lead-in from the pro wrestling show AEW Dynamite, which had nearly a million — and widespread critical outrage due to the seeming inhumanity of the sport. Those who did tune in watched in mute horror as Chris Kennedy was brutally knocked out, his hands curling up in what Chris Nowinski, a former football player and wrestler turned brain trauma researcher, referred to as “fencing posture,” indicative of serious brain injury — then later proved unable to recollect what had happened to him.

Monday

August 1, 2022

Art Tavana

Vince McMahon’s final act

Vince McMahon displays a T-Rex skull in his office. It is mounted against blood-colored walls. But is it real? It doesn’t matter, as it’s authentically Vince McMahon to mount such a garish display of masculine bravado on his wall. It’s the kind of over-the-top centerpiece you’d expect from the mogul who built World Wrestling Entertainment into the behemoth it is today. A giant of a man, McMahon has spent four decades laughing maniacally as he feasted on the flesh of his puny competition. “It’s on my wall and symbolic of my voracious appetite for life,” he tweeted. There’s also prophetic symbolism to the dead-dinosaur skull. In June, the Wall Street Journal reported that the WWE board was investigating a “secret $3 million hush pact by CEO Vince McMahon.

Tuesday

June 15, 2021

Ben Sixsmith

Steve Austin and the age of the antihero

Having been fired from World Championship Wrestling, Steve Austin entered the World Wrestling Federation with the godawful gimmick of 'the Ringmaster’. He looked no more memorable than a Big Mac. Austin knew that something had to change. He wanted to adopt an edgier, more cold-blooded character. The WWF’s creative team, displaying the genius that had inspired 'Mantaur’, a wrestler who dressed up as a Minotaur, and 'the Gobbledy Gooker’, proposed such names as 'Otto Von Ruthless’ and 'Chilly McFreeze’. According to wrestling legend, Austin was at home when his wife told him to drink his tea before it turned 'stone cold’. Stone Cold Steve Austin was born. He quickly flourished.

Tuesday

May 14, 2019

Ben Sixsmith

Why pro wrestling is great Americana

The Von Erichs were, at one time, the toast of Texas: a family of chiseled, clean-cut American lads who took on bullies, thugs and liars in the wrestling ring. Girls wanted them. Boys wanted to be them. Advertisers wanted to throw money at them. Under the watchful eye of the family patriarch, Fritz, young David, Kevin and Kerry Von Erich seemed destined for greatness. Then David died, on a tour of Japan. There were rumors of a drug overdose but the autopsy ruled that he had had a heart attack after suffering from enteritis.

Thursday

February 28, 2019

Jack Hunter

The Michael Cohen hearing was pure pro wrestling

How many watched the Michael Cohen hearings and thought it was simply faithful civil servants trying to do what was best for their country? Yeah, me neither. How many thought it was just self-aggrandizing political figures putting on a show? In the lead role, of course, was Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and longtime confidant who has now ‘turned heel’ against his former boss. ‘The last time I appeared before Congress, I came to protect Mr Trump. Today I am here to tell the truth about Mr Trump,’ Cohen declared. What was that truth? ‘He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat,’ Cohen said of the president, presenting his case for each. All of these things may or may not be true.