Professional Wrestling Studies Association
Studying the Past, Present, and Future of Professional Wrestling
We should perhaps reconfigure [nostalgia] in terms of a distinction between the desire to return to an earlier state or idealized past, and the desire not to return but to recognize aspects of the past as the basis for renewal and satisfaction in the future. Nostalgia can then be seen as not only a search … Read more Nostalgia and the Wrestling Fan
One night while working on the Ciampa/Gargano slash project i.e. reading fanfic and luvin it), I realized how all these fanfics are not attempts to recode the Ciampa/Gargano (CG) NXT story (e.g. characters, plot points, facts) but to recode the emotions of the stories as those emotions play a role in how fans decode the stories. … Read more The Emotionality Behind Ciampa/Gargano: Part 1 Pre-Tag Team Titles
The first stop on the Road to WrestleMania is behind us, and as expected, we’re left with more questions than answers leading up to the show of shows. In this post, I will revisit how the women’s division has developed thus far this year, as well as run down the hills and valleys of last … Read more Nylons and Midriffs: Between a Chamber and a Hard Place (February 18, 2019)
February 18, 2019 For More Information, please contact: Jack Karlis, jackkarlis@gmail.com The Professional Wrestling Studies Association announces its inaugural Executive Committee and Editorial Board The Professional Wrestling Studies Association [PWSA] announces its inaugural Executive Committee, under the leadership of President CarrieLynn D. Reinhard. The PWSA also announces its inaugural Editorial Board for its blog and … Read more 2019 Inaugural Election Results
The story of Lanny Poffo, as told in the recent biography by Squared Circle Press, is a story of family. Poffo’s first wrestling opponent, in this biography, was his father. But the story starts earlier, with his father’s record for situps, recorded in a single-panel newspaper cartoon. Poffo also wrestled with his brother, Randy Savage. The … Read more Wrestlers in Comics: Leaping Lanny, the Genius
Squared Circle comics continues its wrestling biography series with a look at Bruno Sammartino. The story begins in Italy, and the bulk of the first issue of the series is set in Italy and then Pittsburgh. Taken together with the biography of Nicolai Volkoff, the first thing that this series of comic biographies teaches me … Read more Comic Biography of Bruno Sammartino