The latest episode of Under the Ring doesn’t get up close and personal with a top wrestler or pro wrestling industry personality, but we have a vested interest in hoping you’ll check it out anyway.
That’s because the guest this week is our own managing editor, Nick Tylwalk. Host Phil Strum invited Nick on the show to talk more about this very site: How Wrestling Junkie came to be, why this is the perfect time to launch a site about pro wrestling on the USA Today Network, and what audience it hopes to reach.
Other topics Phil and Nick discuss:
- Lapsed wrestling fans: How all of us know them, exactly when Nick was a lapsed fan himself, and why Phil never went through his own lapse
- Why pro wrestling journalism matters, even in — or maybe especially in — the age of social media
- The experience of living through pro wrestling’s peak era of mainstream cultural acceptance in the late 1990s and early 2000s
Nick also shares his story about the first time he interviewed WWE talent at WrestleMania 24, which led to one of his favorite articles: Randy Orton, then expecting his first child in a matter of months, naming Rey Mysterio as someone he looked up to for balancing being a great wrestler and a great father, and Mysterio’s response to that praise.
You can listen to the entire conversation between Phil and Nick below.
New episodes of Under the Ring drop every Monday, with Phil speaking to a different guest from the entire spectrum of pro wrestling for straightforward, enlightening discussions. Recent guests have included AEW women’s champion Thunder Rosa, The Acclaimed’s Anthony Bowens, and NWA President Billy Corgan.
Be sure to subscribe via Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast provider, or check out the conversations in video form on the Under the Ring YouTube channel.