Review: The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling

Cover of The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling

Sitterson, Aubrey and Chris Moreno. The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling: A Hardcore, High-flying, No-holds-barred History of the One True Sport. Ten Speed Graphic, 2018. Review by Ben Abelson The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling (from here on referred to as CBSPW), written by Aubrey Sitterson, and illustrated by Chris Moreno, is a fun, … Read more Review: The Comic Book Story of Professional Wrestling

Special Edition for PCSJ on Pro Wrestling

The editors for the Professional Wrestling Studies Association are happy to celebrate this year’s Wrestlemania week with the new special edition of the Popular Culture Studies Journal on professional wrestling. This special edition can be accessed for free here. The essays contain work from a variety of scholars on numerous topics related to professional wrestling … Read more Special Edition for PCSJ on Pro Wrestling

CFP: Professional Wrestling: Politics and Populism

Professional Wrestling: Politics and Populism Call for book chapter proposals Deadline for abstracts (250 words): 15 March 2018 Contact: Sharon Mazer (smazer@aut.ac.nz) Provoked by the disruptive performances of Donald Trump as candidate and president, and mindful of his longstanding ties to the WWE, this edited book will look at the infusion of professional wrestling’s worldview … Read more CFP: Professional Wrestling: Politics and Populism

Interacting with AAW Heels

In this blog post, I explore the question: How much of the heel’s identity and success is dependent on the wrestler’s performance, and how much on the audience’s (re)actions? This question relates to the work I am doing on the co-constructon of kayfabe through the moment-to-moment interactions between wrestlers and fans. For this particular blog … Read more Interacting with AAW Heels

Calls for Conferences

Central States Communication Association 2018 We are looking to create a panel for the 2018 Central States Communication Association convention to coincide with the release of the Popular Culture Studies Journal  special edition on professional wrestling studies. Since the convention is the same time that the special edition will come out (April 4-7, or Wrestlemania weekend), we … Read more Calls for Conferences

The Squared Circle and the Magic Circle

As part of the Works-In-Process aspect for the Professional Wrestling Studies Association (which you can read more about in Submissions and Contributions), I am submitting a piece I am writing on the co-construction of kayfabe between the wrestlers and their fans (which I have written about elsewhere on this blog, here and here), and how … Read more The Squared Circle and the Magic Circle

Defining Convergent Wrestling

Professional wrestling has been criticized for its emphasis on the fiction of its entertainment rather than the reality of its sport. My partner, Christopher Olson (Seems Obvious to Me), and I argue that professional wrestling functions as a convergent media product, representing a vital text for examining the media landscape of the 21st century.

The true nature of professional wrestling is in how it combines fiction with reality; it exists at the intersection of different identities, realities and conventions, which can seem oppositional to one another. When examined through the convergence of different identities, realities, and conventions, the true dialectical nature of professional wrestling emerges. Professional wrestling succeeds because of its ability to converge these different factors into a coherent post-modern and polysemic text with which an international polyvalent audience can identify and engage. This post will deconstruct this nature of professional wrestling by considering the various factors that are converging to construct the texts, practices and experiences of sports entertainment.

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The Co-Construction of Kayfabe

This blog post expands on the ideas of the co-construction of kayfabe, an idea I presented at the Popular Culture Association 2016 conference in Seattle. For this post, I reflect on a live wrestling event I attended in an attempt to define what my partner, Christopher Olson, and I mean by “convergent wrestling.”

The entire presentation can be heard on Soundcloud, but I will sum up the idea here to address a recent experience with a live wrestling event: AAW‘s “Take No Prisoners” on May 6th, 2016.

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