“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Monday Night Rock. [cue heavy metal theme music] Hosted by Asad Vlogs.” Read the rest

Mean Jean Okerlund interviewed the inimitable Andy Warhol backstage at the 1985 World Wrestling Federation event "The War to Settle the Score." Bonus glimpse of Mr. T and also Cyndi Lauper who was all over the big time wrestling scene at the time.

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Starting with this awesome shot of Bettie Page pretend-ladyfighting with a sexy foe, here are some wonderful photographs of female wrestlers from the 19th century through the 20th, all the way up through the '80s and '90s. Read the rest

UC Irvine researcher Crystle Martin studies what pro wrestling fans can teach us about storytelling, education, and community. What she found is like “fantasy football meets Dungeons and Dragons.” Lissa Soep interviews Martin about the interactive theater of professional wrestling fandom.

Stuart Millard on the demented fantasy world of Hulk Hogan. [Frantic Planet via Charles Wheeler]

Old wrestlers come from a world where there’s no such thing as a lie, just a “work,” where the faces and heels would change in separate dressing rooms, and onscreen personas had to be maintained on the street, to keep up the illusion and protect the business. Consequently they live entirely in fantasy kingdoms of their own making, where the truth is whatever version of the facts is coming out of their mouth at that given moment, repainting incidents from the past like dinosaur hunters crushing prehistoric butterflies beneath their heel

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