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10 THINGS WRESTLING FANS CAN DO DURING THE CORONAVIRUS OUTBREAK

By Joel C Croyle on 3/16/2020 11:29 AM

So, we are all in our houses eating are curdy and whey because the Corona Virus is wreaking havoc all over the world.  Our sports and live shows have been shut down as has our wrestling. Smackdown is airing from an empty PC facility, indies are having to cancel, and WrestleMania 36 looks to be a no-go.  Here is a list of 10 things wrestling fans can do while stuck at home during this crisis.  

10) Read a wrestling book.

There our tons of wrestling books out in the world, many of which you can get on apps like kindle or audio apps for audiobooks. Jim Ross’s new book “Under the black hat” is due out in March and his first book “Slobber knocker” is available.  I have read the latter and highly recommend it for any fan of any style of pro-wrestling. I also highly recommend any book by Mick Foley and Chris Jericho. My favorite book in the wrestling world is Daniel Bryan’s “Yes! My Improbable Journey to the Main Event of WrestleMania.

9) Find an indie promotion you can stream and watch it!  

There are a ton of indies out there that aren’t Ring of Honor (which I hardly consider an indie anymore anyway).  Progress Wrestling, a British professional wrestling organization can be seen on demandprogress and are doing great things. Evolve has a huge library of shows through WWN or check out Shimmer and Shine or some fantastic women’s bouts.

8) Start watching the NWA (current). 

If you are an avid reader on this site than you know the new NWA is growing in popularity.  It is plausible that the NWA is going to be hit very hard during the virus. They likely won’t be able to produce shows without an audience, maybe the will, we will see.  But there are more than 20 episodes on YouTube to see right now. It is very old-school. Studio wrestling at its finest. You will see new stars and people you know like James Storm, Nick Aldis and even on occasion, Scott Steiner.

7) watch an old wrestling show as if it is brand new.

It is one thing to go looking on the WWE network for that one match you loved from yesteryear. It is another to watch a series from beginning to end as if it were current.  We do this with many other TV shows. Somewhere out there a young teenager is happening on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” season 1, episode 1 right now. So why can’t we do this with “Stampede Wrestling”, the “AWA”, or even WCW?”

6) Dissect a match

We all have our favorite match of all time.  We’ve all watched “that match” fifty times. We’ve showed it to fans or friends saying, “If you really want to see what wrestling is all about, watch this…”.  But do you know every move and every sequence? Last year I did this with Savage vs Steamboat from WMIII. I watched it as a whole as I always do and then started it again, pausing at each move, seeing how it was created, why it was done and how it was executed. And in case you are wondering, yes, Steamboat has the greatest arm-drag in history, bar-none.

5) Get caught up!

In the last two years wrestling has absolutely exploded again.  There are four main shows going on with Smackdown, Raw, NXT and AEW on national television.  On top of that you have weekly shows from 205 live and NXT UK on the network and ROH on the Fite network.  That is a lot of weekly wrestling to get through and most of us simply can’t, so we pick and choose. My favorite is NXT so that is always seen every week, now we can catch up on everything else.

4) Who is your favorite wrestler?

Just like a single match, we all have our favorite wrestler.  The question is, have you seen all their matches? To this day I still find matches occasionally, either new to the WWE network or on YouTube, etc of Jake “the snake” Roberts that I haven’t ever seen.  You like Andre the Giant? Go look in the 70’s archives. You dig CM Punk? Check out his indie and Ring of Honor work. Compare it to their most recent work and see how they have grown.

3) Watch every movie by The Rock.

Maybe you’ve had enough wrestling and need a break but still want to tie it into your passion.  The Rock has an incredible amount of films to watch. Did you see the “Tooth-Fairy”? I hadn’t till m y 9-year-old wanted to see it after she saw a trailer, and you know what? It wasn’t horrible.  Not by a long shot. In fact, it is pretty funny. I recommend the following: “The Scorpion King”, “Walking Tall”, “Hobbs and Shaw”, “Moana” and “Journey to Witch Mountain”. But one movie I put above the rest is “Gridiron Gang”, a true-story film about a teenage football team from a Juvenile detention facility that could play with nearby high-schools. It is incredible.

2) Watch every WrestleMania.

It does seem as though we aren’t getting WM36 this year or at least not how it was anticipated to be.  It is the cornerstone of the WWE. I’ve never had the chance to watch WMI-35 straight through but it would be interesting to do, not just for the matches but just to see how the WWE has evolved over this time.  This of course could be done with any of their PPV’s. My secondary suggestions for this process would be “King of the Ring” and “Royal Rumble”.

1) Make use of WWE network/Highspots/ROH/Impact Plus/New Japan/Fite/etc…

There are so many streaming sites for wrestling now and so much content to dive into.  It would take you hours just to watch every “table for 3” episode ever made, let alone everything on these networks.  New japan is only 999 yen (about 10 bucks) and has incredible matches of every sort you can think of. Fite has a ton of indie content for purchase.  Try them out

Lastly – keep safe and healthy everyone.  Help each other and encourage each other.