President Josiah Bartlett once told his staff it was their job to raise the common denominator rather than appeal to it.
Anyone who knows me well enough to tolerate me isn’t surprised I’d start this thing referencing such an egg-headed platitude from The West Wing. But I truly believe that’s what Cageside Seats is capable of doing. It’s why I write anything at all. Between the “hot takes,” rude tweets, and middling down of complex but salient points into easily digestible junk food for bait, there
is space for nuance and solid analyzing. While some may say a choreographed sport featuring a mortician zombie, a curse demon, and a giant dinosaur is unworthy of that much dedicated brain matter, we disagree. This thing we love is worthy of words, sentences, and thoughts that elevate it above common internet commentary. And yeah, sometimes even above where it actually is at a given moment.
It’s WrestleMania season, which means there’s some new story to write or react to everyday. The “Take Industrial Complex” runs hot this time of year. It’s a beast that demands food with an Audrey II-like veracity.
I’ve never been one to give in to demands and frankly, I’m not interested in that discourse. Cageside Seats, as I’ve always seen it, is the cure for the common wrestling site. It’s not built on aggregating the news in a “just the facts” style nor is it just our opinions on the world of tights and fights. The aim is to hit that sweet spot; to write about the juicy things relevant to wrestling fans but put a little thought behind it. Anyone can tell you about those texts between Hunter and Nick Khan, but we provided context. There’s no sense in writing a few hundred words about big topics without accounting for how that one piece fits into the larger puzzle.
It matters that CM Punk’s latest promo has some hypocrisy behind it. It’s important when Randy Orton and Pat McAfee degrade the product and the guy who calls himself “QB1.” And there’s a deeper layer to cats like IShowSpeed and Jelly Roll getting prime placement on the biggest show of the year as it reflects a large part of WWE’s attitude towards the business, for better or worse.
I wish I had more time to contribute to wrestling discourse. Everyone on the staff does. But with the time I do have, I want to provide more than bite-size opinions disguised as facts. The world is filled with enough Stephen A. Smith imitators who feel their points become stronger the louder they voice them.
No thanks. If we love wrestling the way that we say we do, then it deserves so much more than that.
The written word is a dying art these days, partially due to the people falling in love with a facts vs. volume farce masquerading as a thoughtful debate. To say nothing of search engine summaries and our 500 words competing with someone else’s 280 characters. It’s hard out here for a pen. But as another American president once said, we can do the hard things.
I’d love to talk more about Oba Femi playing a role Black men don’t often get to play as pro wrestlers, at least with any personal agency: the dominant beast.
I could write for days on Becky Lynch vs. AJ Lee and why it works on multiple levels. The Man believes—and wants us all to believe—that she’s the industry trailblazer. But her confidence is in the gutter because AJ shatters that mythological tale Becky likes to spin.
Then there’s Cody Rhodes, a man who twice now finds himself as the company’s also ran on TV despite being the exact opposite when the cameras go cold. Does that say something about WWE, that their white meat babyface with his face on trucks and his name in gossip mags must look like the world’s biggest underdog at Mania? Steve Austin showed there’s money in stacking odds against a rebel protagonist, but the day I believe that Cody is anti-authority is the same day I believe Paul Ryan actually listens to Rage Against the Machine. That’s not a diss to Cody either. Just an observation that he’s better suited doing anything else but that. Like playing Guile, for instance. Is it weird I can’t wait for Street Fighter? But I digress.
While we lament not having enough time to truly dig into all of those things and about a million more, I hope you know that with the seconds we do have, we aspire to be more than what you get with anyone’s 120 characters. More importantly, we hope you expect something thoughtful and well written, even if you expect to disagree.
We bring our whole selves to the table, meaning you may not always agree. And that’s cool! As I always say, this isn’t science; we can see matches differently just like we can see wrestlers’ legacies differently. The comments section can be treacherous at times, but it’s often where I lurk to read different opinions. Maybe I missed something on Raw while expanding on the part of the show that piqued my curiosity. Perhaps I was so down on a show that I overlooked a match that I might dig on a second watch. Or maybe, just maybe, there’s someone out there who loved Jimmy and Jey’s new entrance music.
Admit it, I promise I won’t judge.
The point is, being open to differences of opinions makes all of us better writers.
The problem with coverage focused solely on “takes” is they posit a boring world where there’s a right and wrong answer to art, and that said answers are determined by the teeming masses or the loudest voices in the room. That’s not a world I want to live in any time soon, especially if the cost is layered and interesting writing.
There’s a reason we have different writers on staff, and no, it’s not to stage a Battle Royale scenario where only one survives. It’s to provide you with varied opinions and styles, which hopefully begets satisfying written words. We bump heads in the Cageside offices.
We challenge viewpoints, argue about match build ups, and disagree about the dopeness of wrestlers. Little secret: We even differ on several internet darlings. What works for all may not work for some, and our offices illustrate that perfectly. We always leave room for the possibility that someone may disagree. I’m getting married this summer so I supposed that’s a great lesson to learn now instead of five months from now.
Raising the common denominator doesn’t mean speaking down to the audience; it means respecting them through prose. Respect their time, their attention, and certainly their voice. Adequate writers do that every now and then. The truly effective writers that soar above the clouds do it all the time with the precision of a Swiss watch. That’s the writing that goes beyond just “this is bad” or “this is good”, but strives to hit on why “I wish they hadn’t” or “I wish they would.”
Whether recapping or commenting on the news of the day, we’re at our best when we express why the pro graps on TV made us feel the way we do. Giving it a simple thumbs up or thumbs down with no explanation, or, God forbid, because everyone else feels that way and we’re afraid to speak honestly, does you a disservice. We’re human so it’s natural we may fall short of these lofty ideals every now and then. As the great philosopher Mike Epps once said, “playas fuck up too.” That’s when it’s on you, cagesiders, to check us and keep us working towards our better angels rather than shaking hands with our demons. Curse ones or otherwise.
My hope, better yet my wish, is that you find writing here that moves you. Words that make you think or angles you never thought about. Or yeah, even a few words that make you feel like someone else feels how you feel and that you’re not crazy. If you find any of that, let us know.
You do that and from time to time, we promise to give you more of it.
