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FSM Magazine closing down after next issue :-(


Maikeru

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Brian Elliot announced it in the penultimate issue delivered to subscribers today. That really sucks. I kinda assumed it had a viable enough niche to keep it going, especially after Powerslam went under and there was no homegrown competition to speak of (sales of the latter were down to about the 7k mark towards the end of its days, from a 20k peak in 2005 or so). 

Always enjoyed Lister and Alan4L's stuff in particular; Cornette's column also always taught me things I never knew. 

For those who say it's all online anyhow, sorry but where are you going to find a 6 page article on the history of Silvervision, that concentration of BritWres coverage and bios, as well as a ton of other interesting stuff tailored directly for the UK wrestling fan? I'm tired of all the click bait and top ten countdowns. 

End of an era after 15 years. 

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That's shit. I love it as a bath read. Unfortunately it was a pain to get hold of as many places didn't stock it. Also I'd have done many more historical pieces about US stars. Sadly some of the columns became similar which didn't help. I loved the review sections, opinion pieces etc. Maybe it was not WWE centric enough for the casual fan as there was alot of non WWE coverage too. 

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Didn’t like the magazine at all. Gave it three our four different subscription attempts over the years but never enjoyed it. 

 

Sucks its going though. Print media, especially something with as little popularity as wrestling, seems to struggle. The internet will be our demise. 

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1 hour ago, Yakashi said:

Didn’t like the magazine at all. Gave it three our four different subscription attempts over the years but never enjoyed it. 

 

Sucks its going though. Print media, especially something with as little popularity as wrestling, seems to struggle. The internet will be our demise. 

What didn't you like about it?

For me it was repetitiveness of the type of article that they put out. 

I would have put the following articles:

Career retros for - Bret Hart, Jerry Lawler, Roddy Piper, Great Muta, Barry Windham, Kenta Kobashi.

Focus articles on - G1, Wrestle Kingdom, WCW and ECW 'this month' type articles too.

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It is a massive shame and I was a regular reader for many years before I started to just be a casual wrestling fan and mainly watch British wrestling more than anything. 

The major problem with any sort of printed publication is with everyone and there dog having smartphones and tablets ect we have the incoming news at our fingertips 5 minutes after there reported, for a magazine to be monthly they are by default so behind and reporting on news we knew about and have discussed and had updates on 3 weeks before the next issue has hit the shelves. It's the same with stuff like kerrang and there weekly readers/subscribers have plumited quite significantly.

The cost for them to print and distribute must be quite high and I would be interested to know what there monthly profits if any have been for the past year or so. I think if it was to go online like powerslam has become (if I'm correct) they would still get the subscribers that have enjoyed and love the articles that they are actually very good at doing  (history of X..inside/backstage scoop on X event/ppv).

This is just yet again another heavy reminder of how big of a impact the Internet and online news sites/twitter has become and how many huge industry's are effected by it 

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Very sad to hear this. On Brian Elliot's watch the magazine evolved from the mess it had previously been into a much more slick and interesting publication that I had naively assumed was doing at least reasonably well for itself after seeing off PowerSlam.

Very much hope John Lister finds another 'mainstream' outlet for his writing on wrestling, if such a thing even exists at this stage. 

I wonder if this is just a casualty of the slow demise of print media, or if it is at least in part related to the collapse of WWE's ratings in the UK the last few years? It seems like interest in wrestling is at a real low ebb in this country right now - although various BritWres organisations seem to be doing okay for themselves, so perhaps that's not the case.

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I think the Internet is absolutely to blame and I think in the next few years the magazine industry will be gone all together. I know that the local newspaper industry is dying out and will be gone in 2/3 years if that. 

I love reading books and magazines but like I said when you can get your news as it happens 5 minutes after on twitter it becomes old news reading it 2 weeks later in a magazine you have had to pay 3 quid for 

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I bought every issue of FSM back in the early years, used to enjoy the articles and it taught me most of what I still know about MMA, even if one of the writers took against me in several articles because I told him I didn’t care that Undertaker buried Mike Awesome in 2001.

My purchasing of the magazine got a lot more sporadic in recent years - the issues I bought were mainly for @JNLister‘s excellent Brit pieces - coinciding with my more sporadic interest in wrestling as a whole. But it was still nice to spot it on the shelves sometimes and it’s a shame to see it go.

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4 hours ago, mdh85 said:

I wonder if this is just a casualty of the slow demise of print media, or if it is at least in part related to the collapse of WWE's ratings in the UK the last few years? It seems like interest in wrestling is at a real low ebb in this country right now - although various BritWres organisations seem to be doing okay for themselves, so perhaps that's not the case.

I wondered the same. The thing is the popularity of the BritWres promotions, still a niche interest, is no indication of the level of casual fan interest in wrestling as a whole, which if TV ratings are anything to go by is probably the lowest it's been in the UK in living memory.

Edited by Maikeru
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Been a subscriber of FSM since Powerslam closed down in 2019.  Want to eco @mdh85's comment that the magazine improved significantly under Brian Elliot's watch. 

 

The early years of FSM under James Denton were insufferable, with its constant moral crusades on social issues in wrestling, lack of impartiality when critiquing British and women's wrestling (everything was amazing apparently), shit load of MMA articles, and self-indulgence from Denton (his infamous "I'm so affected by Benoit I'm going on holiday to Vegas" editorial).  It put me off buying the magazine for about five years.

 

Under Elliot the magazine provided a more balanced and fair coverage of the UK scene, tremendous long form articles of both the current and historical product, and some interesting columns (Cornette being the best).

 

A shame the print media is dying.  For me, reading a physical copy of a magazine helps me engage in the writing a lot more than scrolling through text on an i-pad screen.  I can only hope Wrestletalk magazine can keep going for a while yet.

 

 

 

 

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FSM did a great job of hanging on when the likes of Powerslam failed purely because it recognised the strengths of print media over the internet - Powerslam's bread and butter was breaking news, results, and comments on recent happenings, and in the age of Twitter no one's buying magazines for that. FSM focusing more on deep dives and offering insight over immediacy was exactly what a wrestling magazine should be doing, so it's gutting to see it going under.

Also, they once printed my favourite ever typo in a photo caption, in an article on pageantry and showmanship - "The Undertaker always puts on a shoe".

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