Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. My writing genius has been recognized and sought by so many people that you now have another destination to read my crap. The writers at PWInsider.com, the internet's leading source for pro wrestling news and analysis (think online ESPN for pro wrestling) saw how unbelievably awesome my writing was and personally flew to my house and begged me to write content for them for their relaunched subsite PWInsiderxtra.com. Either that or Mike Johnson (the Xtra site's main editor) mentioned on a recent audio that they were looking for volunteers to contribute columns and I immediately emailed him and said "OOOOOOOOH!!! ME!! PICK ME!!!!!!!!! ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OVER HERE!!!! MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" It was one of the two.
At any rate, the first of my columns is now up one that site and can be seen at http://pwinsiderxtra.com/ViewArticle.php?id=20419&p=1 . The column name is "If I Didn't Watch Wrestling..." The concept behind the column is that much has been said about what the business needs to do to get back to the heyday of the Monday Night Wars era when both WCW and WWF would run head-to-head on Monday night and the combined ratings for the two shows would be near 10, whereas today WWE is lucky to get a 3 when they are unopposed by any other nationally televised wrestling products on that night. Obviously to do that, wrestling shows need to attract a much larger audience and attract a lot of new fans. The irony is, while there is a lot of talk about what needs to be done to get back to that popularity, the companies that produce national wrestling television now don't seem to watch their shows and think "What would somebody who doesn't normally watch wrestling think about this?" If someone sees a wrestling show over at a friend's house or flipping through the channels, something HAS to catch their attention and make them want to watch again, otherwise, that exposure has done nothing for you long term.
Speaking from my own experience, if I started watching wrestling now, I would not be a fan, plain and simple. I started watching in college because I had a lot of friends who lived on my floor in my dorm who were fans and I watched a couple times just to hang out with the guys. But then something happened. I enjoyed it. I saw there watching because my friends were, but then I found myself wondering who that badass Stone Cold Steve Austin was going to beat up next, or what The Rock was going to say next, or who was going to put that prick Triple H in his place, or what antics Edge and Christian were going to pull to get a leg up on their rivals the Hardys and the Dudley Boys. I couldn't wait to tune in to the next show because I wanted to see what was going to happen. However, if I was just getting introduced to wrestling today and I saw some fat guy they called the "Funkasaurus" dancing to shitty 70's music and some guy in jorts arguing with some other guy about "embracing the hate" like the worst Star Wars parody ever, I would have said "What the fuck is this shit?" And I never would have had the desire to watch because it was so stupid.
So in a nutshell, my column is about that concept of what would someone who isn't a regular wrestling fan think about the four current national wrestling shows (WWE Raw and Smackdown, TNA Impact, and Ring of Honor). In terms of format, it's very similar to my "Questions" articles in that I'm taking notes of random thoughts as I watch the shows and then compiling them. I then provide a final verdict where I decide that based on that particular week's shows and that week's shows only, which show would I be most and least likely to watch again the following week.
So wrestling fans, it be sure to check it out as I hope for it to be a regular weekly column I do for some time. Non-wrestling fans, be sure to check it out so you can make fun of all the stupid shit I point out that I'm dumb enough to watch on a regular basis.
P.S. FYI in the columns I'm listed as Randall Brown instead of Randy because the email I use to submit the writing says Randall because I got it after college to be my professional email to use for things like resume submission and whatnot just so nobody's confused.
people thought I was just joking about being a wrestling fan