Jump to content

FSM Thread


Vipes

Recommended Posts

I've always enjoyed reading FSM and think it's quite a good read. My only little problem with this month's issue was the cover advertising a review of TNA's 50 Greatest Moments DVD but inside I couldn't find it in the reviews section, I may not have looked well enough though.

Unfortunately, the TNA 50 Greatest Moments review was bumped at the last minute. I will try to find some time to put the review on our website, so that you can read it for free.

 

That's fair enough, thanks Brian! Also any hints on trying to get into wrestling journalism? I've finished a degree in Journalism and English Literature and would like to try getting into wrestling journalism but don't really know where to start.

Start a blog (Wordpress etc) and write as many different types of articles (news, features, live event reports, DVD reviews etc) as you can, and send a link to each new article to every pro wrestling news/information site that you can find. Once you've found a style of writing which suits you, start contacting those same websites asking if you can contribute to them. Once you've created a good resume of online work, then it's time to start pestering newspapers and magazines...

 

Thanks a lot Brian, I appreciate that. At the moment I am actually on Suite 101 and have a good number of articles on there, about 26, but obviously I'm still trying out my writing style until I can find one which seems a bit more professional, at the moment my articles seem a touch amateurish and not overly intelligent. I've done a fair bit on wrestling, some on music, football, sitcoms and soaps but I am trying to think of something to write about that is a bit more serious and something I could write in an intelligent way. I think the site had quite a strict ruling on giving too much opinion on certain things or writing in first person but I had a lot of practice of not using first person in uni anyway so I think that writing style has stuck with me now, it's just trying to come across as a more intelligent writer but I guess the topics I write about have an effect on that. Thanks Brian!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do agree there has been some noticeable improvement in the last couple of issues. In particular there are FAR less typos and grammatical/editorial errors. I presume this is largely down to Brian coming in and actually doing the job of an editor rather than camping around in a cowboy hat or leaping around his living room throwing karate kicks and pretending to be Lyoto Machida, which seemed to be what that Denton fellow spent his time doing.

 

What I really like about FSM is that their features are usually based on an interesting concept and are often thought-provoking. The problem is, they are also often badly constructed, meandering, and either come to very wishy-washy conclusions or just end without reaching any kind of conclusion at all. For example, the "When They Were Kings" feature this month was a good concept, but it got a bit lost at the end with this tangent about "who's hard in wrestling today?" which for me is a completely different subject - and one PS has done to death over the years. The article then ends on some random point about Big Show 'maybe' being hard (of course he is, there's no maybe about it. He's 7 foot tall and about 500lbs - regardless of boxing training he could kill most people with a single swipe of his bear-like paw!) It would've been much more interesting, and a logical conclusion to the article, to discuss how MMA represents the modern equivalent of "legitimate" professional wrestling.

 

That said, most of this month's issue was very interesting. The "Turning Japanese" article was a good concept, and one I can't believe PowerSlam has never attempted given Fin Martin's obvious love of Puro. I've been out of touch with the Japanese scene since about 2004, so that really helped bring me up to date. I've enjoyed the "School of Vince" stuff, and the RoH article this month even though I don't follow Ring of Honour - which is always a sign you're doing something right, if you can get people interested in new areas. I did find it a bit odd that the RoH stuff was at the front of the magazine though. Might that not be off-putting to new readers who are mostly into WWE?

 

Maybe its time to think about changing the columnists at the back of the magazine? Much as I like the idea of this section, I've really got no interest in hearing any more from Nick Aldis, Lance Storm or Bill Apter. At least Alex Shane had something thought provoking to say, even he is horribly in love with himself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe its time to think about changing the columnists at the back of the magazine? Much as I like the idea of this section, I've really got no interest in hearing any more from Nick Aldis, Lance Storm or Bill Apter. At least Alex Shane had something thought provoking to say, even he is horribly in love with himself.

I would agree there as well.

 

I think Apter is past his sell-by date, and Aldis just isn't very interesting. I quite like Lance's stuff, but he does a show on Meltzer's site so I hear enough from him.

 

Maybe someone like Doug Williams?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Been hearing that they are starting to turn a corner under their new editor but I have not managed to get a copy to see for myself.

 

So has the quality of the mag improved recently or is it still pretty much the same?

In the last two issues, we've turned FSM on its head in terms of the style of writing, and overall voice of the magazine. We've overhauled our staff to meet professional print journalism standards, and we've expanded the scope of our wrestling coverage tremendously. Furthermore, FSM is now unquestionably a pro wrestling magazine - which, from my understanding, was a bone of contention at some points in its history.

 

I'm coming from a biased position, obviously, but if you have not checked out a recent edition of the magazine (issue 62 came out on Dec 30; issue 63 is out on January 27), then I would recommend you do so if you have been previously put off by the tone of FSM or other publications.

 

In all honesty, the feedback to the new regime, so to speak, has been very positive indeed, but I'd value any opinion from the UKFF that was made constructively and thoughtfully. I'll do my best to answer questions that I can.

 

 

Brian Elliott

Editor, Fighting Spirit Magazine

 

Hi Brian,

 

I thought the current issue was excellent, with a vastly noticeable improvement in the tone and professionalism of the articles. Certainly the best issue I can remember for a long time in the 2 and a half years I've been buying FSM. This was vastly welcomed, because I had felt the magazine had been going downhill in recent months, with the recent MMA-filled issue that James Denton guest-edited almost putting me of buying FSM altogether as a final straw! (that isn't meant as a cheap dig towards him, I'm just being honest!)

 

That said, I have read FSM for 2 and a half years now and have largely enjoyed it, so I am very glad that a turnaround is on the cards, and look forward to the continued improvements. The Japanese wrestling article was excellent and I look forward to many more of this ilk. That said, a few improvements that I would suggest are:

 

- Please please please sort the typo errors out!!! This has been going on for years, and if continued, it would seriously put in jeopardy me buying the magazine every month. If the magazine can't be bothered to read what they have written, why should I?

- As said by a previous poster, I often find the guest columns to be very weak and samey (and in some cases now, irritating and self-appreciating). Perhaps cutting down on the numbers, and a total change of columnists would freshen it up (and no I'm not talking about Gorilla Typhoon!). Perhaps one of the UK guys like Mark Sloan etc to cover the 'what it's like to be a wrestler' type of stuff, and someone like Mark Madden for an edgier column? And keep them on topic with stricter column guidelines! If I wanted to read about Wayne Rooney, I'd buy FourFourTwo!

- Just as there is a small and brief roundup section for UK action, similar for International and U.S. indy would be much welcomed (kind of like PWI do at the back of their magazine). Perhaps space could be made by dropping a guest column. I feel this would bring a more total coverage of pro-wrestling, and one that, hats off to you, is very positive every month and constructive (unlike, say, Powerslam).

- Dropping MMA content and coverage, barring that which relates to pro-wrestling, such as this month's good article on how MMA uses the pro-wrestling template to draw money. It has never made much sense to me doing a hybrid magazine as I feel you are always alienating someone. MMA fans will be annoyed if there isn't enough MMA, and pro-wrestling fans such as myself will be annoyed at not enough pro-wrestling. As the saying goes, you can't be all things to all people.

 

I hope these points come across as constructive, and I look forward to the next issue!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
I might be gullible as hell, but I'm gonna have a buy of it tomorrow now. It'd be nice if FSM was picking up the slack now the rival magazine's gone down the toilet.

Let me know how you get on. FSM was bog roll the last time I tried to read it. Tried too hard to be pretty and clever and forgot about the key points in a magazine, being informative, interesting and well written.

 

I've always bought PS and will always defend the quality of the writing. It's become impossible to defend the opinion though. I think that PS 50 was the straw that broke this camel's back. I think I'll use my

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do they do much british wrestling or is it like powerslam?

Ah, good point. If there's too much british wrestling in it, I'm not buying it.

 

No I meant id like it if they did British wrestling

 

never mind, took me a few minutes to get your sarcasm :sleeping:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

It wasn't sarcasm. I don't mind a little bit of britwres coverage but too much of it means I'd be skipping a big chunk of the mag.

 

Here's a bit of advice that would seperate you from PowerSlam, Brian. Find writers with varying opinions. If you have 2 guys who hate TNA, sack one of them and find someone who loves it and vice-versa. And don't let one guy slap his opinion all over the magazine.

 

4 pages out of 84 isn't too bad. Though in most magazines 20 pages out of 84 are adverts.

Edited by tiger_rick
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We have four pages of British wrestling, which is not a huge amount considering that the magazine is 84 full-colour, glossy pages. However, it's still much, much more than you can find anywhere else.

 

Is there a lot of scottish wrestling covered Brian? I see much more of that. True that I havnt ever seen a magazine that covers British wrestling

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members
We have four pages of British wrestling, which is not a huge amount considering that the magazine is 84 full-colour, glossy pages. However, it's still much, much more than you can find anywhere else.

 

Is there a lot of scottish wrestling covered Brian? I see much more of that. True that I havnt ever seen a magazine that covers British wrestling

 

 

The Scottish coverage gets mixed in with the British coverage so it depends if much has happened on the Scottish scene to be written about.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a bit of advice that would seperate you from PowerSlam, Brian. Find writers with varying opinions. If you have 2 guys who hate TNA, sack one of them and find someone who loves it and vice-versa. And don't let one guy slap his opinion all over the magazine.

We would never employ a writer who "hates" WWE, TNA, or whichever promotion you care to name - to do so would be to go against any professional journalism standards. But that doesn't mean that we won't call out (insert name of company) when they make serious errors of judgement. It simply means that the writer doing so will have logical reasons, rather than any sort of wild bias.

Edited by Brian Elliott
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Paid Members

I'm really pulling for FSM now, ever since I stopped buying Power Slam a few months back for being really shit. Power Slam is gash these days. Hopefully Fighting Spirit will get good. I still cant buy it, as its still got the aura of that tosser with the cowboy hat on it. Fans need a good wrestling mag, though. Good luck. Admire the professionalism of the editor for coming on here, because a lot of people in the wrestling circle in this country prefer to come on here and have a go, instead of getting to why we dislike something.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...