I was huge into wrestling in the ‘80s and early ‘90s ((even had a letter printed in Pro Wrestling Illustrated, with the Rock’n’Roll Express on the cover!)), but lost interest right around the time they admitted it was work ((and/or right around the time my band started playing out every weekend and I could no longer sit around getting stoned and watching WCW wrestling for two hours each Saturday evening)). I’ll still pop over to a friend’s house for a pay-per-view, or watch a few lucha libre DVDs when I get the itch, but, as far as following wrestling on a weekly basis goes, I think I’ve pretty much hung up my tights for good. Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to read page upon page of the author’s angst about how the storylines are progressing: Will they turn out well for the wrestlers he likes? Will they be good for the promotion? Will they be good for business? What will the fans think? I used to be at work, mopping stairwells or scrubbing toilets or whatever, and look at the clock and realize I had been completely lost in thought about fricking WRESTLING for like two hours straight—like serious, contemplative, The Thinker-style meditation about how some scenario concocted by some dweeb in a run-down office was gonna play out. Wrestling takes on this insanely large dimension of sincere importance in the minds of the true fans, and it’s cool to be led, Aaron Cometbus-style, thru the psyches of some current devotees of the art form, now that I’m in retirement and all. The only part of the zine that had my inner slob chanting “BO-ring!!! BO-ring!!!” was the five pages spent asking a friend if various maneuvers and wrestlers were “Tight or Not Tight,” as the tiny photographs accompanying the piece did little by way of conveying the Tightness or Not Tightness discussed. FANTASTIC AMAZING TRIVIA FACT: I have eaten at cover boy Abdullah the Butcher’s restaurant ((“Abdullah the Butcher Ribs and Chinese Food”)) in Atlanta. No turnbuckles were on the menu. –Rev. Nørb (Hug It Out, PO Box 73691, Washington DC 20056)