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So I’m close to 1k followers but I’ll start the festivities early, and he is how it’s gonna go down.

Prizes:

First prize: 1) Any t-shirt on wweshop.com, will ship internationally as well. 2) A copy of Octodad Dadliest Catch on PC or PS4 or alternate game if...

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Who says only modern-day pro wrestling is fake?

Researchers have deciphered a Greek document that shows an ancient wrestling match was fixed. The document, which has a date on it that corresponds to the year A.D. 267, is a contract between two teenagers who had reached the final bout of a…

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SWA Grads class of January 2014

Front Row (left to right): Me, English Tom, Dick Richards, Irish, Ronny The Tough, Kris. Back Row (left to right): Prof. Lance Storm, Girl Tom, Gordon, June, Chelsea, Alex, Bret, Jeram

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Graduation

Yesterday the big surprise wasn't as big a surprise as we thought it might be. No, there was not a battle royale but instead we were doing matches with no preparation, just on the fly. The only thing Lance told us was who we were fighting, who was the face/heel and we needed to let Lance and the heel know what move they we are going to hit for the finish. And then after that you we just had to have the match with no spots planned, nothing. We did this twice. Once as a babyface and once as a heel.

If this was a real life class, this would have been our exam. Lance said that this isn't a pass or fail course but if he was going to have a final exam, this would be it. He also said it was a good test because if you could get through this, you could basically have a match with anyone, no matter how much prep time you have. I think I feel safe in saying that I passed the 'exam'.

That was our final time for training at SWA as today was like our graduation. Lance gave us some final pieces of advice and gave us all individual feedback. I won't indulge as to everything that he said today because I think it's was a personal discussion between the class and he, but I am happy with his feedback and my results over the past three months.

Maybe I will indulge after I get famous and write a book, but for now it's on to bigger and better things!

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We did tag matches today. Not much to note on that front. It was fun and everyone messed something.

I am very curious about tomorrow though. Someone asked Lance if we were doing matches. He said kind of but I'll explain tomorrow. Tomorrow we think is also probably our last day for in ring stuff because Friday is our "graduation". What could it possibly be???

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Sooooo, through a crazy circumstance I unofficially have been offered my first booking on April 12th with New Xperience Wrestling (NXW).

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Facing The Storm

As you readers may know, I recently had my first match in class. Since then we've been having matches basically every second day. These matches have been a step up, challenge wise, compared to our first matches. The only thing we're given from Lance now is our opponent. The rest is up to us. Between the two of us we have to decide heel/babyface, who's going over (to win), the finish, comeback, cut-off and everything in between. Totally and completely built between the two of us.

For our first independent match I worked with John aka June. I thought everything went okay but we did mess up one spot and some of the psychology wasn't solid, which at the time I felt to be the thing I needed to improve on the most.

A few matches later, a great test was put in front of me as I was to go one-on-one with Lance Storm himself. I was kind of nervous about this match because I am a perfectionist at times and I wasn't particularly satisfied with my matches before this, be it one thing or another. Thus I wanted my match with Lance to go with no screw-ups, and just have it be a good, psychologically sound, solid match to prove that I can do this job and do it well.

Simply putting the match together with Lance was a great learning experience. As a veteran and ring-general usually Lance would put his matches together by himself but this was truly a collaborative process between he and I and I learned a lot without even having to wrestle the match.

As for the match itself, I thought it went well barring the one miscommunication in the beginning. My classmates seemed to enjoy it as well, specifically the fast paced, action packed comeback and finish. Action packed is a compliment I got on my next match as well and I think That's a key to having an exciting match and a desired result at the end of a match. Not the only result but one of.

I've now had 7 matches in class and feel quite accomplished, albeit I have a lot of work to do in order to get where I want to be. Only four more classes left with SWA and then it out into the real world, all on my own...

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My First Match

A couple of weeks ago I had my first ever professional wrestling match ever. Now to clarify this was not my debut, it was still during training so there was no crowd other than my classmates and Lance.

Before the match I was a little tentative as I suppose all of us in class with no prior experience must have been. We did have some support and this match was treated as a stepping stone, I think is fair to say. Lance paired us all up, told us who was to be the heel/babyface, gave us the finish and gave us the cutoff spot (the point where the heel takes advantage and we transition from the shine into the heat). I was the babyface paired up with Irish as the heel. Irish has had some prior experience so I felt confident in going out there with him. We ran over the two spots we had and then had some time so we thought about a couple other spots we wanted to add in and before we knew it, it was time for the matches.

I'm happy to say we had no major screw-ups. Basically everything went as planned and for my first match ever I think it went pretty okay. After everyone's matches we watched them back and got feedback from Lance. Although we didn't necessarily make any mistakes, there were definitely some things that we (and I in particular) needed to work on, but in the end I got through it and was satisfied with the progress I've made from Day 1, taking my first ever bump, to now, having my first ever match. Truly what a world of difference. 

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it’s a hard knock life for damien sandow fans

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I'VE NEVER BEEN THIS HAPPY EXCUSE THE CAPS LOCK YELLING BUT DANIEL BRYAN DANIEL BRYAN DANIEL BRYAN

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Leonardo DiCaprio is the Daniel Bryan of Hollywood

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Why do you watch wrestling? Isn't it fake?

via Kyriakoudes and Coclanis in “The ‘Tennessee Test of Manhood’: Professional Wrestling and Southern Cultural Stereotypes,” Southern Cultures 3 no. 3, 1997: 

To be sure, some may object to calling professional wrestling a sport. Certainly, if a truly competitive outcome is the sine qua non of sport, wrestling does not qualify. In professional wrestling contests, “the outcome is generally known.” Today’s professional wrestling organizations carefully point out that they provide “sports entertainment” rather than truly competitive contests. Matches are scripted, moves are choreographed, and punches are pulled. As on World Wresting Federation (WWF) official pointed out, their contests are “entertainment no different than when the circus comes to town.” An unnamed wrestling fan expressed a similar view: “I say wrestling is like a good fiction book; it may be fake but it’s very exciting.”

Nonetheless, professional wrestling is not without its dangers; injuries are common, and sometimes the blood is real. A recent example resembles Longstreet;s backcountry fighters all too well. Michael Foley, who at the time wrestled under the name “Cactus Jack,” had his right ear torn off after a botched attempt at performing the “Hangman” maneuver, in which his head and neck were to appear to be entwined in the middle and top ropes of the ring. Foley had successfully performed the maneuver some seventy-five times, but on this attempt the ropes were too taut, and his ear was ripped off as he tried to free himself during the match. Surgeons were unsuccessful in completely reattaching Foley’s severed ear, and he now wrestles with a leather mask under the new name “Mankind.” Despite these occasional injuries, however, truly competitive professional wrestling is as much fiction as Longstreet’s description of the fight.

The lack of competitive outcome should not exclude wrestling from the world of sport. To most who ponder the role of sport in American life, the competitive element of the contest holds the least interest; such concerns are the province of collectors of statistics and play-by-play antiquarians. It is the social and cultural elements in modern spectator sports that draw scholars to study the phenomenon. Modern sport is an entertainment that draws spectators into an emotional involvement with individual sports figures and teams. Spectator sports have become narratives in which conflict is ritualistically reenacted. All modern sport is spectacle, a struggle between good and evil, between one’s “team” and its despised rival.

Taken in this light, professional wrestling’s scripted matches and predetermined outcomes make it no less a sport than any other bona fide sporting endeavor. Professional wrestling’s formal theatrical conventions, or as Barthes put it, the “iconography” of wrestling, make “reading” its symbols a straightforward affair. Like true theater, professional wrestling broadcasts its cultural and symbolic meanings with greater clarity than sports constrained by binding rules and truly competitive outcomes. Moreover, the mutability and elusiveness of wrestlers’ identities, their self-conscious irony, and their willingness to flout, or “transgress,” cultural and moral conventions make the sport especially well-suited to these postmodern times.

PS- Louis M. Kyriakoudes and Peter A. Coclanis are avid wrestling fans (going all the way back to Bruno Sammartino ) who happen to be legit and respected economic, business, Southern, race, and gender historians.

Honestly, I’ve found that one can’t swing a stick within the field of academic history without hitting a wrestling fan.

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Hurricanranas make me happy.

Recently in training we've practising just moves that we can add to our repertoire and potentially use in our comebacks and for near falls. We did bulldogs yesterday which I was happy to do and I felt pretty competent. Today we did backbreakers and side slams. Cool, most delivered some and a took a lot but didn't deliver any because those are not moves I'm ever going to do in a match.

HOWEVER, afterwards Lance taught me how to reverse it into a huricanrana. It worked good, I got the hang of it and it just feels right. Feels magical and makes me so happy delivering them. Yay for progress!

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Religious affiliation: Cesaro/Zayn IV.

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Promo day on Monday. This should be very entertaining...

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BRAY'S NEW WORLD