PWI
by Josh Olsen
I used to take regular trips alone with my grandparents. We would usually drive, the three of us together in my grandfather’s car, to visit my grandfather’s family in Waukesha, Wisconsin, or my grandmother’s family in Chicago, but my grandmother and I would occasionally travel by ourselves, just the two of us, and since she never learned to drive we would take the Amtrak from LaCrosse, Wisconsin to Union Station, in Chicago. At the time, the 5 or 6 hour train ride felt excruciatingly long, an eternity, and being without the luxury of a Walkman or Gameboy, most of my time was spent staring out the window, coping with motion sickness, while my grandmother smoked Benson & Hedges cigarettes, occasionally dropping ashes on my thigh. But on one such occasion, when I was about the age of 10, around the year 1989, my grandmother must have taken notice of just how bored I was, and she purchased something from a newsstand to keep me occupied. It was an issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated, a magazine dedicated to exploring the subject of, you guessed it, professional wrestling. Now, the purchase of such a magazine, in and of itself, wasn’t necessarily an odd choice. I was then, like many if not most children at the time, a fan of professional wrestling. I was, in essence, a Hulkamaniac, saying my prayers and taking my vitamins. But unlike the more readily known WWF Magazine, which I was a frequent reader of, Pro Wrestling Illustrated did not exclusively focus on the goings-on of Vincent Kennedy McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation. Pro Wrestling Illustrated was not a promotional product owned and published by the WWF, and so it did not feature glossy color pictorials celebrating the greatness of Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. In addition to Jake “The Snake” Roberts and Shawn Michaels, Pro Wrestling Illustrated seemed just as invested in discussing “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair and Kerry Von Erich and “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes, years before they made their big leap to WWF. There was frequent mention of WWF’s regional and global competition, such as WCW, NWA, AWA, NJPW, and AAA. There were gritty, black and white photographs of bloodied and battered men, such as Terry Funk, Cactus Jack, and Abdullah the Butcher, in the midst of brutal “hardcore” barbed-wire matches. The pages of Pro Wrestling Illustrated were of newsprint quality, and the magazine, as a whole, portrayed an almost obscene tone, in my 10-year-old mind. I cannot lie, at the time, I preferred WWF Magazine. Pro Wrestling Illustrated made me uncomfortable, even slightly nauseous, like the first time I saw a pornographic movie, in the 7th grade (Gazongas 2). There was a gritty honesty to Pro Wrestling Illustrated that I just was not prepared for. If WWF Magazine was analogous to the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, air-brushed and commercial and virginal, Pro Wrestling Illustrated was the waterlogged issue of Hustler discovered under an conspicuously-placed rock, hidden in the woods, and at the age of 10, riding the Amtrak with my grandmother, I wasn’t quite ready for Hustler.
Josh Olsen is a librarian in Flint, Michigan and the co-creator of Gimmick Press.
by Josh Olsen
I used to take regular trips alone with my grandparents. We would usually drive, the three of us together in my grandfather’s car, to visit my grandfather’s family in Waukesha, Wisconsin, or my grandmother’s family in Chicago, but my grandmother and I would occasionally travel by ourselves, just the two of us, and since she never learned to drive we would take the Amtrak from LaCrosse, Wisconsin to Union Station, in Chicago. At the time, the 5 or 6 hour train ride felt excruciatingly long, an eternity, and being without the luxury of a Walkman or Gameboy, most of my time was spent staring out the window, coping with motion sickness, while my grandmother smoked Benson & Hedges cigarettes, occasionally dropping ashes on my thigh. But on one such occasion, when I was about the age of 10, around the year 1989, my grandmother must have taken notice of just how bored I was, and she purchased something from a newsstand to keep me occupied. It was an issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated, a magazine dedicated to exploring the subject of, you guessed it, professional wrestling. Now, the purchase of such a magazine, in and of itself, wasn’t necessarily an odd choice. I was then, like many if not most children at the time, a fan of professional wrestling. I was, in essence, a Hulkamaniac, saying my prayers and taking my vitamins. But unlike the more readily known WWF Magazine, which I was a frequent reader of, Pro Wrestling Illustrated did not exclusively focus on the goings-on of Vincent Kennedy McMahon’s World Wrestling Federation. Pro Wrestling Illustrated was not a promotional product owned and published by the WWF, and so it did not feature glossy color pictorials celebrating the greatness of Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior. In addition to Jake “The Snake” Roberts and Shawn Michaels, Pro Wrestling Illustrated seemed just as invested in discussing “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair and Kerry Von Erich and “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes, years before they made their big leap to WWF. There was frequent mention of WWF’s regional and global competition, such as WCW, NWA, AWA, NJPW, and AAA. There were gritty, black and white photographs of bloodied and battered men, such as Terry Funk, Cactus Jack, and Abdullah the Butcher, in the midst of brutal “hardcore” barbed-wire matches. The pages of Pro Wrestling Illustrated were of newsprint quality, and the magazine, as a whole, portrayed an almost obscene tone, in my 10-year-old mind. I cannot lie, at the time, I preferred WWF Magazine. Pro Wrestling Illustrated made me uncomfortable, even slightly nauseous, like the first time I saw a pornographic movie, in the 7th grade (Gazongas 2). There was a gritty honesty to Pro Wrestling Illustrated that I just was not prepared for. If WWF Magazine was analogous to the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, air-brushed and commercial and virginal, Pro Wrestling Illustrated was the waterlogged issue of Hustler discovered under an conspicuously-placed rock, hidden in the woods, and at the age of 10, riding the Amtrak with my grandmother, I wasn’t quite ready for Hustler.
Josh Olsen is a librarian in Flint, Michigan and the co-creator of Gimmick Press.