Why Now?
Was thinking about just making a joke post to start off and post Tanner’s tweet from December
Not going to do that but I wrestled with that one longer than I would like to admit. Part of that is because starting a wrestling website is an objectively dumb idea. I’m not saying starting a blog or something you do with a partner, that makes sense. For something like that, the guardrails are fairly clear. There isn’t a lot of mucking around. Simon with Handwerk is some of the best wrestling writing we have seen in years. Joseph and Colette with Big Egg are doing the lord’s work in keeping some of that FanFyte spirit alive, they just happen to be two of the most insightful and fun writers on wrestling around. Incredible stuff is being done right now, contained within more personal pursuits. That is so clearly a more sustainable route for this sort of endeavor and yet this is going up on a site that aims to be a more collaborate situation. A place that has a variety of different voices.
And that’s why starting a website is a hair different. For Christ’s sake, before we hit 200 words on this thing we have already brought up two dead wrestling websites. One started by a literal child who clearly shouldn’t have been allowed to do what he did, and the other was propped up by a game company propped up by the Chinese government. Tanner and I aren’t kids, nor are we the Chinese Government. In theory, that means we should know better yet we are here. Structurally it is hard to wrangling a group of people, plan content among folks, make sure the site is functioning, make sure you don’t bring in folks that mess with culture of the folks there in a negative way, and on top of all that, we also want this thing to generate some sort of money for everyone involved, what could go wrong?
Despite all that we chose now to launch. I didn’t even know if I liked wrestling during the pandemic. The Thunderdome was an arrow from god to tell me I was free, that I no longer needed to commit time or energy to this pursuit. The quarantine era of the pandemic could have freed me from this hobby. Then for some reason at the end of 2022 I started picking up again with some seriousness. A terrible decision all-in-all. I thought “I don’t need to watch current stuff, just do some GWE watching, that’s fine”.
That isn’t the type of wrestling fan I am yet though. So I dove back into modern wrestling, and god damn it, it is pretty good. AEW is terribly booked, WWE and NJPW mean nothing to me, and the indies still aren’t what they once were but the bright spots still shine through.
Going to start speeding through some things here so bare with me. Getting back into the groove, Tanner and I talked about getting the FKAABTs going again. With Dan, Chris, Quentin, and Skylar we had already been talking about this for months. A 5+ hour commitment was already made months ago. A brain damaging exercise.
I think this broke my guard down I was already susceptible to terrible ideas, especially from Tanner. I’ll let Tanner talk about what happened after his December tweet but we had been talking about a different non-wrestling related project that he wanted to pivot to a site. I wasn’t sure then, barely sure now I wanted to agree to it. Going around the internet, looking for things to read or even people to listen to who aren’t deranged is way too hard. And that set off everything in motion.
I was back in love with the sport. Ready for a project beyond my podcasts I was already doing and I was dumb enough to pound the pavement on this. But we are here now and we are going to make this thing work. Get ready.
A new website from folks who have been watching wrestling for absolutely way too long. Folks who have been on message boards, been part of moderately successful wrestling podcasts, and most importantly have seen dumb people make bad wrestling sites for as long as they can remember.
That’s why we are doing this. Violent People aims to bring critical analysis of wrestling, long-form pieces, a rotation of podcasts (some you know), and try to fill a hole in the wrestling website landscape. Seems like right now, a lot of wrestling websites are for “news” or from the scum of the earth folks. Sometimes a mixture of the two.
In the coming days, we will share ways you can help sustain the growth and effort of the site. We want to be able to pay writers in a field where that doesn’t happen enough. VP will give writers the ability to cut their teeth beyond writing show reviews (which we will still have in some form or fashion but want there to be room for more), and beyond having to post about promotions that work for SEO. We have already invested in this, we know this can be successful with your help. Excited to show you folks what we are working on and how you can support us.
- Violent People Radio #28: The XII Nights of Bloodsport - December 5, 2024
- Something New - December 1, 2024
- Scorpio Kings Of The Indies - November 24, 2024
