An overdue update (September 8, 2021)

On My Mind This Week

When it comes to this blog over the last few weeks, I’m been thinking much more than I’ve been doing, which you’ll likely have noticed given the lack of updates. Started in a period of furlough from my newspaper job, I conceived Riffing On Wrestling as a way to share my fandom with you in the hope that it might lead you to something you found helpful, meaningful, or entertaining. It was also a chance for me to share the knowledge I’ve accumulated as a fan over the last 30 years, as well as the unique perspective I have as a decade-long editor of a pro wrestling newsstand publication.

As a format, I liked what I was doing a lot: sharing the matches, the podcasts, the Twitter posts and, most importantly, the thoughts that came up throughout my week. However, as furlough ended and I got back to the newspaper, pro wrestling became a much lesser part of my time, and it was a squeeze to write for a living and log back on and do it again here, especially where the matches deserved context.

While I like the format that Riffing On Wrestling had begun to establish, podcasts are much less time-consuming, and actually, are much more fun to do. With podcasts I get to call up my friends, and occasionally those who I don’t know beyond social media interaction, and share a conversation that might go anywhere, since I’m not the kind of person to refer to bullet-points for telephone chats. An early survey on Twitter also showed that 75% of people preferred audio content over written content - a suggestion that I’d contest, but one that was made by the consumers, so who am I to quibble?

So it’s a bit of a quandary as to where Riffing On Wrestling goes from here. At least you can know this: whether it’s posts or podcasts, the content will remain free for now, although I cannot thank enough those who have so generously bought a subscription knowing that the content would be free during many countries’ pandemic lockdown period.

Indeed, what happens next might well be driven by you, so if you have any strong thoughts on the direction of Riffing On Wrestling, I would love to hear from you in the comments below, or via @hardcopydotie on Twitter.

There is an exciting time coming in pro wrestling, and believe me, even with the AEW signings of CM Punk and Bryan Danielson, the peak has not come yet.

Let’s find the best way for me to communicate it to you - although I wouldn’t review #Raw in detail for double my editor’s salary!