The Truepenny Show Time Machine

I've written a lot about Pro Wrestling over the last five years and some of it, sadly, won't see the light of day because the sites those pieces were written for either no longer exist or aren't working the way they should. I am going to be posting some of the articles I wrote for Wrestle Talk TV here, and some of the things I wrote in other places too. I have asked permissions and everything is cool. I would especially like to thank Oli Davis of Wrestle Talk for releasing me from that copyright obligations that were placed upon me and I can now relive some of these pieces and reassess them. So tonight there will be some oldies but goodies, what ever is lying around on my PC in fact. I will be adding more in the future and some will be appearing on the Patreon Account. In the meantime if there is any old things you'd like to see, let me know. If there is anything else the other folks want to share I shall let you know in the usual places . . .

James

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Dr. F.R. Leavis and the literary wrestling fan

Do you know who Dr. Frank Raymond Leavis is? He has had more cultural impact through his writing than perhaps any British Humanities scholar of the 20 th Century. He was the leading light in a movement that lent credence to the idea that novels were of artistic value. Seems silly doesn’t it? Obviously novels are important, The Bronte’s, Dickens all that. Surely someone must have read them before and thought these things are quite good? Well they may have done, but it was Leavis who was the first person to give them academic weight. He propagated the belief that popular literature was as important if not more so than the classical texts so prevalent in the education systems of the time, because they were reflective of the culture that produced them. He is the reason you probably didn’t spend days slaving over Latin grammar in secondary school. So why am I battling on about a long dead Cambridge lecturer? Well it’s to do with the methods we use to appreciate popular culture....

The Forgotten Tag Teams; The World Class Tag Team

Today marks the 30th Anniversary of the World Class Tag Team Gedo and Jado, to celebrate I'm re-releasing this article I wrote for Wrestle Talk TV as part of my Forgotten Tag Teams series. Who is the most influential tag team in wrestling today? The Usos with their family friendly outlook, history and work rate? Or is it The Wolves with their American Strong style approach to Impact? Or is it the state of the art spot driven offence of The Young Bucks and Time Splitters in NJPW? Well they are in NJPW, in fact you could argue they ARE NJPW. They are the reason for the whole companies success and growth after hitting rock bottom in the early 2000s. They are Gedo and Jado, one of the most successful tandems in wrestling history, a fact overlooked by their success as bookers. In fact so successful are they with the pencil they have taken the Wrestler Observer Booker of the year awards from 2011-2014, no one else has got a look in. If you examine the story of the ...

Mae, Mildred and Moolah; Putting Women First

The history of women's wrestling is not always pleasant, and in this article I tried to outline its complete history in North America to bring people up to date on the whole story as women's wrestling began to rise. Tomorrow four women will wrestle for a recognised world title at Wembley Stadium, which would have been impossible the last time a major company played the same venue. While there are plenty of things to fix, here is a revisit to my story of how things got started. This was first published on WrestleTalk.Tv sometime in 2015. The recent passing of Mae Young closes the book on a story of professional wrestling that should never be forgotten. It is easy to see her as a lovable old rogue passing her last days by having some fun on an international stage. Picking up a few last pay days to ease her retirement, one might say being exploited for comedic gain, but her story starts at the very beginning of big time women's wrestling in North America and if you like tale...

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