PPV Preview: WrestleMania 36

We’re going to look back and see a lot of conspicuous gaps in history once this is all over. No matter what else happens, 2020 will always be the year that COVID-19 launched an all-out assault on us, claiming lives, ruining other lives, and leaving the entire world at a loss for answers. On a …

What Else Is There?

Sometimes I hear someone describe a movie as “just a bunch of people sitting around talking.” I’m sure I’ve done it myself. This typically means one of two things, that the movie is aimless and boring, or that the movie fleshed out its characters thoroughly enough to make such simplicity interesting. I’m happy to report …

Sometimes Parents Just Don’t Understand (Their Kids’ Music)

Music has always been a very personal thing to those who love it. The attachments that form between the listener and their favorite art feel intimate, and that art gets held tighter and tighter as a result. Maybe that’s why there will always be a strange relationship between kids and parents when it comes to …

PPV Preview: WWE Stomping Grounds 2019

6/23/19, Tacoma Dome, Tacoma, WA It’s been a busy month or so for wrestling fans at large, as All Elite Wrestling, Jon Moxley (fka Dean Ambrose), WWE’s own NXT, and New Japan have kept us on the edge of our seats. Then there’s main roster WWE, the leader in the clubhouse sitting over here farting …

An Alomar Elegy

Like most people, sometimes I daydream about Roberto Alomar. Seriously, what a fascinating baseball player. First off, he’s in the Hall of Fucking Fame, and while that might not mean what we wish it did, it still means something. Then there’s the fact that his entire family was always playing baseball all the time. His …

PPV Preview: WWE Money In The Bank 2019

XL Center, Hartford, CT Over the past several years, Money In The Bank has maneuvered its way into position as something of a fifth major for WWE. The conceit of the MITB contests themselves is largely to thank, as there’s plenty of appeal in watching seven or eight wrestlers compete in an unusually important ladder …

A Range Life

I never got a chance to see Pavement before they broke up. The band’s contentious separation seemed to ensure that anyone who missed out the first time around wouldn’t get a chance to rectify that mistake, and for the most part, that has been the case. Pavement has only officially and fully reunited over one …

A Gas Station Outside Columbus, Ohio

I’m getting used to 16-hour drives. After spending the first 32 years of my life in the same Missouri city, I headed east two years ago to give life my best, or at least that was my intention. The result was bloody emotionally, as I struggled with everything I left behind and everything that wasn’t …

WWE Needs a Real Draft

There is a deep, rabid clamoring among sports fans for drafts. The NFL and NBA drafts have become such ceremonial events that networks and media hubs have practically made stars out of analysts who project selection order and pour over the skillsets of hundreds of teenagers looking to reach their game’s highest level. Online figures …

PPV Review: WrestleMania 35

MetLife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ (4/7/19) From the opening match on, WrestleMania 35 set its course without being obvious about it. Tony Nese dropped the despicable Buddy Murphy to claim cruiserweight gold for the first time, a cue for the rest of the good guys on the card to follow suit. We’ll look back on …