Welcome to TurnbuckleZine.

Feel free to check out the tabs above for info about me, my more in depth thoughts and opinions that I have written on this site, and my tribute to two of my favorite professional wrestling icons

FYI

A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images.

More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest.

The Intercontinental Podcast

Feel free to check out my pocast with my friend Brayton. He lives in Illinois, USA, I live in the Czech Republic. We have created the world's only trans-continental wrestling podcast.

The argument that

"wrestling isn't real"

is so obtuse, so dull to the point at hand, so willfully ignorant of the concept of reality.

What's so real about any game?
What is real in any way about putting men in bizarre clothes, giving them an oblong ball, and asking them to run it across a line for 60 minutes?

Worse yet, what's real about paying them millions of dollars to do it?

-Read On-

05/30/2013

Jericho’s Challenge to Punk

Given the WWE’s current climate of “heels being the characters that deprive the audience of X” (examples being heels that walk away from matches such as Ryback opting out of some challenges from Cena, and my favorite example from when Fandango and Jericho had their “dance competition,” which consisted of Fandango spending minutes not dancing, causing the audience to boo a guy for not participating in a dance competition on a show about professional wrestling… this is still one of my favorite moments in Raw history), CM Punk is in a perfect position to be the biggest dick heel in history if the build up an entire feud between him and Jericho without Punk ever even being in the building. … like, Jericho cuts a few promos aimed at Punk “watching from home,” maybe Heyman gets goaded a little more and says some stuff that he believes is on Punks behalf.

All of this leading to Payback, and there’s just no CM Punk anywhere in the building.  In Chicago.  At a Pay Per View.  Talk about being a fucking heel.  AND, he could show up, like, the next night and state that he never accepted Chris Jericho.  Why would he have?  He already beat Jericho twice, why would he fight a two time loser again.  

Dude, when CM Punk is not around I start going crazy.

Posted at 11:00 PM (2 weeks ago) | Permalink

03/28/2013

Such a beautiful thing.

Such a beautiful thing.

(Source: wewatchwrestling)

Posted at 10:18 PM (2 months ago) | Permalink

02/17/2013

The Intercontinental Podcast Episode 19: G v E

This week Brayton and Paul mostly focus on Elimination Chamber and where it fits in with Wrestlemania season. We have some good discussion on the quality of Del Rio’s protagonist character, emotional bonds among characters in WWE today, and America’s self loathing / what you can take from Jack Swaggers character turn, his new manager and Antonio Cesaro.

archived to mediafire.  download HERE

Video posted at 5:13 PM (4 months ago) | Permalink

02/02/2013

The Intercontinental Podcast Episode 18: Happy National Pro Wrestling Day!

Brayton and Paul air so many grievances today, you’d think it was Festivus. Paul laments the tragic loss of Team Rhodes Scholars. Brayton is disappointed that so many young stars are being passed over in favor of past stars returning and being whisked right into a main event story.

We both brighten things up by talking about National Pro Wrestling Day, and the stacked card of known to lesser-known independent talent.

archived to mediafire.  Download HERE

(Plays: 0)

Audio posted at 5:00 PM (4 months ago) | Permalink

12/11/2012

» Ridicule "Up"

awrestlingtumblr:

The whole controversy last night about Miz implying “Team Rhodes Scholars” (its painful typing that name) are gay has me thinking.

I wasn’t offended by the comments being anti-gay. It was playful middle-school taunting that I’ve heard actual gay men make against straight men who don’t realize how… [read on]

I still haven’t seen this episode, I’m about to put it on, but I think this is the reason why people are offended:

In comedy,  there’s an adage or rule that you can make fun of people “up,” but you can’t make fun of people “down.”  What that basically means, for an aged example, is that it’s funny to a village if a jester makes fun of a king.  The king is powerful, and it’s populist to make fun of him.  The king couldn’t make fun of the jester, or at least, it would never be funny “for real” for a king to make fun of the jester.  The same goes for someone like Stephen Colbert making fun of George Bush, or even Barack Obama.  Those Presidents are obviously powerful, and Colbert, while popular, is in no way as powerful.   It would probably be difficult for Obama to make fun of Stephen Colbert and have be actually funny.  

Extrapolate this to societal relations.  It’s racist and unsettling when white comedians blatantly make fun of black people simply because of their race… this is obvious because black people, while technically gaining rights every generation, are still the underprivileged, and have been since the founding of the United States.  It’s funny when Dave Chappelle makes fun of white people for their whiteness… it’s not funny when a white comedian does the same to black people (unless the person laughing is racist, I guess?), because if we’re being realistic, white people have the power in the United States.

The same goes for gay people.  It’s funny for gay people to make fun of straight people (as you said, you have seen gay people make fun of straight people using similar slurs the Miz used).  It is not funny for straight people to make fun of gay people because straight people are the powerful, dominant class of sexual orientation in the world, and always have been.  

I’m not saying it’s right or wrong for Miz to use comments like these. I personally disagree with choices such as these and believe it’s possible to be more creative and mock someone like Damien Sandow in a more, for lack of another word, “populist” manner (one that would logically and “righteously” get him over with the crowd) by mocking Sandow’s use of ridiculously large words, often repetitiously, such as I have done in this entry.   

While people may debate whether his comments are right or wrong, I do believe in the logic I have outlined in this response, and that it is a good construct for gauging how to effectively write and perform a serialized television program. 

Link posted at 8:21 PM (6 months ago) | Permalink

12/03/2012

“I find that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.  I vividly remember the Stone Cold Era, because I was very tight with Stone Cold Steve Austin.  Back then, the comparisons were always made to Hulk Hogan, and a lot of people forget that now.  But I don’t think Steve Austin, as much credit as he got, ever got the full credit he deserved… because unfortunately people were always hanging on to the past.  

Now today, you have WWE ‘13.  Who’s on the cover of the video game?  …CM Punk.  And again, what does everyone want to talk about?  The Attitude Era.  Stone Cold Steve Austin. The same thing that Austin faced, because everyone wanted to talk about Hulkamania.  

The difference is that the blaze period of the Attitude Era was very short. I don’t see this era yet peaking.  I think that we are at the very beginning of [this] era.  What I would think would be the goal here is to make people forget the Attitude Era in a way that Steve Austin could never make people forget Hulk Hogan.”


-Paul Heyman

Posted at 8:46 PM (6 months ago) | Permalink

11/25/2012

The Intercontinental Podcast Episode 11: It’s Not a Tumor

Brayton and Paul cross over from, “it’s pretty hilarious and awesome watching John Cena as the doofy romantic hero,” to, “it’s pretty awesome watching John Cena as the doofy romantic hero.” WWE timelines and storylines are discussed, and we go a little bit into the Jerry Lawler heart attack segment with CM Punk from a couple weeks ago, since it was referenced agan on Raw. And we talk about how Dolph Ziggler is the guy from Kindergarten Cop.

This episode has been archived to mediafire.  You may listen by downloading here

Video posted at 7:09 PM (6 months ago) | Permalink

10/14/2012

There Are No Words video.  Amazing.

Video posted at 3:21 PM (8 months ago) | Permalink

09/17/2012

More Great Facial Expressions: Night of Champions

I’M THE TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS

Amazing reaction

Posted at 10:18 PM (9 months ago) | Permalink

06/28/2011

» Fair to Flair: Lie to Me

fairtoflair:

Wrestling is fake. I’ll give you a minute to process that shocking piece of information that surely shook the very foundation of your reality. Breathe into a paper bag if necessary.

Ya good? Okay.

Wrestling is in a tough spot in terms of storytelling. A person goes into a scripted television…

Spot on!  Here’s my only beef:

Casual fans can sit back and watch the show like I wish I could, but it takes a different approach to get those jaded fans to feel something when watching wrestling.

I completely understand the point you intended in your article, where a casual fan can, hypothetically, get sucked into the entertainment of the spectacle without the fact-checking, the consideration, the snobby-ness.  In that regard, yes, I agree and wish I could, in all its genuine glory, appreciate the three hours of storyline based programming we are presented on cable TV a week. 

However, I suppose my contention to this part is more of a question:  do you think it’s possible to appreciate the show in this way and still enjoy someone like CM Punk?  Chris Jehrico?  Even, to a lesser extent, R Truth?  I’ve met a few people while in touring bands that also appreciate wrestling, and, somehow, they have all been the type of fan that we’re discussing right now, and they HATE those guys.  They, literally, don’t “get” them (in whatever sense of the word that is supposed to mean?).  The exact quote regarding CM Punk (this was in March) was, “he talks too much, it’s boring.”

My friend John has run into the same issue.  He met someone at a bar that was a wrestling fan, but the conversation capsized when he started describing his favorite wrestlers as Punk, etc.  The other person didn’t get it, and that was it.

Now, I’m not saying it’s wrong to dislike someone like Punk, but I’ve sorta always liked the bad guys and wanted them to win.  Since I began watching in ‘97, and Bret Hart launched his anti-America campaign, I was hooked.  Maybe hooked for the reasons spelled out in this article, but that love led me to where I am today, internet be damned.

I’m having trouble reaching my point, and I’m in no way trying to argue with your article since this was just a very minute part of it, but I guess what I’m trying to say is in many ways, I am happy being just a little bit more than a casual fan.

Link posted at 5:18 PM (1 year ago) | Permalink

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