On December 29th, I celebrated my 33rd birthday. Of all the birthdays, would define it as one of the more unremarkable ones. Not of the events of the days, I went to the casino, ate a bunch of Chinese food, and had this fabulous cake my wife made.

As an age though, not a particularly interesting one from the outside looking in. It certainly must be better than 32, losing my dog of 7 years who I loved more than life itself, and that leading to grief through today and likely for years to come. And often it leaves me to be a less fun person to be around. So I suppose 33 could be anything in a lot of ways. Possibly jumped the gun by saying it couldn’t be worse, but betting odds are that it has to be an improvement.

Working in contradiction to that, I still expect to be watching plenty of wrestling. Part of what I’m trying to work out with this blog is what I want 33 to look like for and wrestling. To say “watch good wrestling” is true but unhelpful. I would love to watch good wrestling. What does that even mean? Suppose part of the goal of next year ultimately is to keep drilling down to what that means. To me and others. Here is everything else I want to do with my next year on earth.

Make it through May for the 1984 Project

How stupid am I? From the jump, taking years to watch ONE year of wrestling, not even in its entirety, dumb as shit. I’m the slowest at everything. I don’t read fast, I don’t watch fast, I don’t write fast. Everything I do might as well exist at .5x speed.

I need to stick with this though. Fallen off the wagon as I try and jam as much 2025 wrestling in before VP100 lists are due. There is a quick answer to why I don’t prioritize 1984 if the actual wrestling is more enjoyable than 2025, and that is people aren’t talking about 1984. There isn’t much in the way of conversation I can have on a day to day basis when hopping into the Violent People Discord if I was only watching. Even when I’m watching modern wrestling no one else is watching, sorry Southern Fried Championship Wrestling, there is a part of that believes that if I talk about that enough, others might get on board. Last year I convinced one other person to rank Mike Pain and that was enough for that to be totally worth it.

Getting to May isn’t some breakneck pace based on where things are at. That is February, March, April, and May. Four months. For most people, that is chump change. The difference for me and some others might be I have a wife who I like who doesn’t like wrestling. If I asked her to, she would probably watch it with me, but I would rather do something we would both enjoy versus wrestling. Sometimes that feels like a unique stance, I can’t really tell with you folks.

Bring Back The Decade In Indie

Before Violent People, I was blogging on Spandex Are Still Cool. I didn’t post a ton but one of the series I did do across probably four or five years was The Decade In Indie. Wildly simple premise, I would watch and rank the good matches from indies around the world that took place in the 2010’s. Something I was looking to bring back sooner but with Handwerk’s in-depth look into the 2010’s, seemed small in scope and ambition.

In this next year, the goal is to give less of a shit. I struggle with that. I struggle with the caring, with the doing, all the above. There are still matches people don’t talk about from last decade that people absolutely should. It has been enough time, everything is on the table. We can’t keep letting great workers get lost. Time to get back into the mines.

We Blogging

This is a minor one, a blog a month. This counts*. Something not tied to a match, not tied to a show, not talking just about matches to be honest. Some will probably be lengthy, some will be short snippets. Seeing all these video game blogs pop up makes me want to go back. Go to back to posting for posting’s sake. We can let it rip, we don’t need to make everything a big show.

* Yes, this blog is a sham. Writing about what you want to do is not the same as doing. We all know that. I’m simply being a coward.

Continue Desert Island Comp

Less about “watching” with this, and more about what I want to produce. This year I ended doing some, one with Pat, one with Padraig, and one with Stephen/Fujiwarasmirks. They are a blast to put together each time out, they allow me to flex a muscle I don’t always get to flex on Violent People Radio. I get to be more of a host but frankly it is a bit more “serious”. Personally, wouldn’t call it stuffy but I get to be on a different gear.

When I do the Desert Island Comp, it allows me to see how different people approach the same prompt. It helps color how different people approach wrestling more broadly, what feels important to them. Some people have answered that question with “understanding why people like bad wrestling” and others said “The Coolest Wrestling When I Was A Quarter Century Younger”. Both incredibly valid ways to look at it, and that is beautiful.

This year I did three episodes. Three very fun episodes but I circle back to wanting to do SIX next year. That has been the goal for going on three years, I’ve never gotten above three. A smarter person would set it at three and feel mighty good when they hit it, as you know, I’m a dumber person. With how much joy I get from digging into the lists of guests, I will probably always want to do more than I’m realistically capable of.

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Will I accomplish most of these? Probably not. Any of them? Equally as likely. But if I post it, maybe I’ll be embarrassed enough to try.