“the thing I came for: the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth” -“Diving into the Wreck” by Adrienne Rich In the early morning hours of Easter Sunday, as much of Mexico prepared to celebrate the resurrection, one of lucha libre’s most revered figures quietly departed. Esteban […]
It started as a story about Martin “Farmer” Burns, but while combing through old newspapers, a different figure pulled me in, an untamed storm of a man named Stanley Ketchel. What began as a tangent became an obsession. Martin “Farmer” Burns was a legendary 19th-century catch wrestler, he held the American Heavyweight Championship in 1895 […]
WrestleMania weekend is dumb. There’s too much wrestling. Most of it is bad. Sam was asking if there was a streaming schedule on the Discord, even though he won’t watch any of the shows live. I went looking, and not only could I not find a “WrestleMania Weekend 2025 Streaming Schedule” or anything like that, […]
For the uninitiated, at the end of 2024, I started a Grom Zaza career retrospective. Like most things I do, it was a runaway success. The people were clamoring for more. One of my New Year’s resolutions, on Violent People Radio #31, was to meet deadlines. If I promise something is going to come out […]
Sometimes it is difficult to say where a voice begins and where it ends. Some voices live only in the here and now, a fleeting present, broadcasting a moment before vanishing into the ether, never thought of or heard again. Others, like that of Bill Mercer, become more than a voice, they become a permanent […]
Welcome to the first edition of the Grom Guide, the Zaza Zoom-In, the Rings Reexamination? Ok, so I don’t have a locked-in title. I’ve had a Google doc keeping notes since almost the beginning of Violent People, titled “The Untitled Grom Zaza Project.” For posterity I think I’m sticking with that name. My goal here is […]
Let me take you back to Christmas Eve, 1997. Picture a dimly lit room, crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with chaotic energy: a cursing grandma clutching a drink, a crowd of loud degenerates, a shrieking kid clinging to their mom and begging for “Powa Ranjas” toys, and me, hustling my way through the melee in search of spare […]
Let’s get this out of the way: Sam designated the week of November 10th-16th as VP2010s Week here at Violent People. We’ve already seen fantastic contributions from both Sam and Chris. Naturally here I am as the third “founder” posting my contribution—albeit a week late. It’s a bit surprising for me to miss a deadline, […]
Tomorrow evening marks a momentous occasion that will reverberate through history, one way or another. Sam, Chris, Pat, and I are gearing up to record the 25th episode of Violent People Radio. Oh yeah and, the United States of America will elect a president. I went with the VPR joke rather than some quip about […]
As you all know I am the foremost historian covering The Russian Lion, The first World Champion of professional wrestling, George Hackenschmidt, well, at least here at Violent People. My piece on his trip to Australia is without a doubt the writing I’ve worked the hardest on for this site. It also may be my […]