Welcome to Spearsovations
May 27, 2022
Since Everything Elite wrapped up a few weeks ago, I tried to make sense out of what was next for me. EE was a great show with cohosts I loved and we created content that I thoroughly enjoyed. AEW, however, became a rapidly changing time sink that exploded from two hours of television weekly in Fall 2019 into nearly tripling the hours of television by Fall 2021. We did what we could, but unless EE became an enterprise with double the personalities and work hours that were entirely unrealistic about how we valued our personal time, collectively EE would burn out. So this was the fated conclusion of this incarnation of EE.
In the last few weeks, I took stock in what I think worked with EE, what didn’t really work for us, and what content I enjoy creating. I’ve always believed that if I get enjoyment out of writing, recording, or streaming that someone else will probably get enjoyment out of it as well.
Let’s test this idea.
June 1, 2022 will be the launch of Spearsovations, my new project where I explore the pro wrestling industry from my unique position and mindset I’ve carved out for myself.
So what is Spearsovations?
$3/mo
Spearsovations Bulletin
A weekly newsletter, the Bulletin comes out every Friday morning (my time zone is Eastern). Wrestling has a rich tradition of newsletters and fanzines dating back to the 50s and the rise of television. To be clear: this isn’t an attempt at a Torch/Observer “dirt sheet.” Each Friday, you’ll get a 2500-3000ish word newsletter. Each Bulletin has a dedicated column devoted to a topic within wrestling that either interests me or if I have some analysis about something, a weekend preview towards what I find interesting, a wrap around of weekly business, and my reviews and recommendations. The Spearsovations Bulletin will only be available for Spearsovations subscribers.
An example newsletter is provided below:
Spearsovations Weekly Show
I really loved doing AEW Lite. The EE Weekly Show was our morning zoo show where three people tried to make the others corpse on air where AEW Lite was our chilled mental health check where we talked about the most random things and previewed wrestling. I view the Weekly Show as the next evolution of Lite. Every Wednesday (Yep! Filling that void!), I will be joined by friends and guests trying to make sense of this world of wrestling and life. EE got to about 80% AEW / 20% rest of wrestling towards the very end, and I see the weekly show right now at about 34% AEW / 66% Rest. Because it’s me and I also cover Dragongate on Open The Voice Gate/Voices of Wrestling, I should add that yes, it’s my bread and butter, but I’m not going to pull too much focus from those outlets in my DG coverage. The Weekly Show will only be available as a podcast for Spearsovations Subscribers.
The Stream
I felt like we never really got streaming right with EE. I really want to figure out this medium, so I’m incorporating streaming into Spearsovations. First and foremost, my launch plan with the Spearsovations Stream are free streams twice a week, Wednesdays from 12 PM Eastern until 2 or 3 PM, and Thursdays in the evening starting around 8 to 9 pm. The Wednesday stream will also have the Spearsovations Weekly Show as a part of it and will be more segmented while Thursdays will be more free form/probably games with folks. I will also be up for Subscriber Streams randomly. So this is the inverse of EE which had the streams paywalled. In retrospect, I think this was pretty short-sighted in terms of growth, and for the first period I want to try this method.
Other Stuff
I am planning on keeping everything relatively flexible to start, so if I want to do a post about whatever I’m currently watching, or starting a podcast series, or remembering random wrestlers, I have the ability to do so. I don’t have anything planned at this time outside of talking about what I’ve been watching, but felt like this catch-all was needed.
Periods and Flexibility
As this is a new project, I’m going to stress that I’m planning on being flexible with it. If something seems like it’s working or I’m enjoying it more, I’m prepared to pivot Spearsovations to adapt. Part of this is through the period system I’ve made up for this. Every few months I’m going to take a step back and reassess and get subscriber input on the content that’s being created. I’ve set the current time period to being from June 1st until September 9th (All Out 2022 basically). From there I will take a beat, talk to ya'll, and we will see what might be changed for the next one.
So I think that pretty much lays out the Spearsovations concept! I hope you are as excited as I am to start this journey.
-m