When I was younger, I had no desire to be a teacher.

It wasn’t that I disliked school or had an issue with my teachers, I just didn’t feel I had much to offer and that I wasn’t easily understood by others. As a person with ADHD, I tend to explain myself by going on multiple side quests and extra explanations before getting to the point. I thought people legitimately couldn’t possibly understand me. I sought work more in the sciences when I went to college, studying Psychology and Speech Pathology at first. I learned, however, that the experimental process, while fun, is tedious to a point that would drive me insane eventually and, due to my freshmen year grades, the Speech Pathology program would not accept my application.

So this drove me to a field I had grown up in my whole life: Special Education.

My mother ran group homes for people with disabilities that could not live independently. We would often visit, plan trips and otherwise interact with this population. This familiarity helped me transition to the field much easier.

Flash forward to now, I work in special education at the high school level, generally co-teaching within classrooms and making sure students with disabilities get extra support.

I preface with all the information about me to state this:

Teachers are, generally, trying to help

I give much of myself for my students to the point where I go home, many nights, too mentally drained for my own hobbies, too mentally exhausted for exercise, and too emotionally drained to be my expressive self. It’s a tough, but rewarding, job. I would not change my profession decisions as I know I make an impact every year when a student comes up to me after graduation and states “I could not have graduated without your help and advice”.

I’ve never pushed my own personal ideology on students, most don’t know and, probably, don’t care what my beliefs and/or views on things are and the few who ask, I don’t lie to but don’t stress the importance of my beliefs either, they are my own. I have never treated my job as a way to push my own beliefs but to make sure students can reasonably believe in their own. I try to help mold students who can critically reason and defend their beliefs, whether I agree with them personally or not. I want them to walk away from conversations with me curious about the world and the answers in it as my belief is having a healthy yearning for knowledge is important.

Those are many of the highs in education, those are the great parts of my job.

What, recently, hasn’t been great is watching subsections of the American population fully believe that teachers are out to get them or out to trick their students into believing something. While I can’t speak to all teachers, most teachers are not trying to trick, demean or otherwise confuse students.

Our purpose is to teach students how to best learn for themselves.

That comes with some corollaries though:

1. The student will struggle sometimes, if they aren’t, then they are not being challenged.

2. I cannot, and will not, do the thinking for the student. They must give me their own thoughts and learning.

3. Zero tolerance for students looking for shortcuts through learning. There are many ways to learn, but cheating is rarely, if ever, one of them.

I’ve also heard many of my generation, and the current generation, state that “school didn’t prepare me for real life, I don’t need to know the Quadratic formula, I need to know how to do taxes”. This is a fair statement if you are looking at content, specifically, being taught. Schools, to their credit, have pivoted to teaching, and some requiring, personal finance classes to graduate while offering many classes in trades and work programs.

But, really, content in school is a distant, secondary reason for schools.

To me, a teacher, there are 3, primary reasons for schools that help prepare you for the future:

1. School teaches you how to meet a deadline

• Whether you see the deadline as the due date set by the teacher, or a semester grade, in order to succeed, you must meet a deadline.

2. School teaches you how to work with a community of peers.

• Whether you want to or not, at some point, you will be in a group of students and you will be tasked to work together. In order to succeed, you will need to work together, or, at minimum, co-exist.

3. School teaches you how to do things you don’t want to do

• School is a general education system, it is not specifically tailored for your career or plan. Because of this, you will end up learning something you don’t want to learn and have little to no interest in.

School really can be a wonderful place of learning so many skills. Many remember the negatives greater than the positive, especially those who went through social trauma while in K-12 schools. If you open your mind to learning and possibilities though, it starts to become clear that school can be a great place to grow your skills, both in life and in content.

Keep learning in life, it will take you far!

How many times have you seen an internet post that mirrors this:

“Group A is forcing us this way”

“Group B are cowards who don’t have the spine to act”

“Policy A is worse than death”

“We cannot allow Group C to Policy B us out of OUR COUNTRY”

The last two days, my feed has been full of these statements as some primary elections come to a close in America. Thankfully, I have no interest in talking politics here, I’d be just another talking head if that were the case.

Instead, I’d like to call attention to the statements being made in these posts. Statements that are meant to make the larger community angry, scared, frustrated and, overall, controlled by emotion.

And make no mistake, that is what the person posting intends to get you to feel

There is a not so hidden algorithm in social media that fear and anger drive more engagement to a post than anything positive and happy. Strategy teams, large and small, cracked this code years ago and there are many studies linking fear and anger specifically to allowing short-term and long-term motivation for objectives.

Anger, specifically, was targeted in a Texas A&M published study in 2023. The study showed across 1,000 participants and 1,400 more people surveyed that anger proved to be a powerful motivator in problem-solving, physical reflexes and simply initiating a task. There is always a way to get better data in scientific research and 1000 participants, while not the sample size of a world population by any means, does present a significant correlation when specific factors are included.

How does this relate to social media and algorithms?

I challenge you to look inside yourself and remember the times that you really wanted to comment on/share a post on social media: What was the driving force behind that desire? How many times was it to say something positive? How many times was it to share something negative? I wager the ratio goes toward sharing something negative, even if you ended up deleting what you were typing before you actually posted it. That’s how these algorithms and strategy teams think. They know the powerful motivator they can use is your own anger against you. It’s also why you see YouTubers and streamers say something controversial and it goes everywhere on the internet whereas when they praise something, you won’t hear much of a peep. Recently, the problem has only intensified. Now near EVERYTHING on the internet is forced into a perspective of “you need to be angry about this”. Videogames being yelled at for daring to do something, movies being condemned for not doing something specific and anything in between. It’s exhausting.

But this is calculated

To manufacture a fight between groups of people is to drive engagement. Sometimes it’s just internet groups that drive it, other times it’s the actual people sponsoring/creating the art/policies so they can get visibility; however, who starts it is not the overarching problem for our society. People talk of division in society and “the powers want us divided” and while I don’t disagree, we WILLINGLY do this to ourselves. People wake up everyday and choose violence, hate and anger on social media, whether they want to admit it or not. This forces ourselves, not only into specific groups, but without a rich, positive community.

“How can we trust people when we see so much hate on the internet”

Well, to borrow from the generation that raised me (and now, ironically, does not follow their own advice):

Don’t trust everything you see on the internet

I am aware of the irony of myself, being on the internet, offering more opinions and offering advice, but I am not looking to gain from this, only inform/remind.

There are many people that want to bring about certain reactions from you on the internet so they can profit and they don’t much care how it is affecting the overall population or, perhaps, they have convinced themselves that it won’t affect a population long-term. I would, humbly, advise not to act in emotion at those times, unless you enjoy giving those people exactly what they want. Instead, I encourage you to spread positively in your own posts, maybe they don’t reach far but you never know who it inspires.

Or, alternatively, and perhaps more effectively you do what wrestlers call the “no sell”

You walk right past the post and don’t fall for their tricks

Have you ever had those moments in life where you have too much on your mind? How did it make you feel at that moment? Perhaps it made you want to quit. Perhaps it made you feel overwhelmed. Maybe it even drove you so far as to give up on something.

      “Your brain is like a sponge. Sometimes you have to go somewhere to wring it out.” - Ernie Ladd.

Ernie Ladd was one of the most respected wrestlers of his time. He was respected for his booking of territory wrestling, he was respected for his in ring work and, most of all, he was respected for his razor sharp mind for business. The above quote details a thought process of relieving stress, however, it also applies to what I want to detail today: The Booking Process.

To start, the term “booking” refers to the creation of stories and interactions within a wrestling show (often referred to as a “card”). In the days of the territories, this booker generally remained unknown to the customers of the wrestling show; therefore, the promotions had an easier time quietly switching bookers. This allowed a new influx of ideas as one booker ran out of ideas and allowed a new person to be in charge of putting together the card. Some needed help, some did not, most took some level of input regardless if they utilized that input. Much like the quote by Ernie Ladd states above, the outgoing “booker” was able to relax his brain and wring it out after using all his ideas.

But, in the year 2026, that process does not happen

Today, we generally remain with the same head booker of major companies, whether it’s Tony Khan at AEW, or HHH at WWE, though they both, reportedly, work with teams around them. Whether they work with a team or not, they are viewed as the “final say” (unless TKO would be the final say in WWE’s case, which seems slightly unclear). Given that they both have had final say for multiple years now, their “sponges” are WELL in need of wringing out. This is likely why we see the booking we do in this day and age where it has some semblance of problems, whether it’s WWE or AEW.

WWE tends to struggle with making their wrestling too much of a TV show rather than a wrestling product. Not to say you cannot have elements of TV within a wrestling program, but WWE can skew too far into TV tropes and general coasting to get week to week. In the anime community, they would call such “coasting” as a “filler” episode where nothing of consequence happens but by god Goku had a fun time at the beach. While this can work to break up serious stories in a fantasy world, in a simulation of a sports world, it is remembered from episode to episode. The stories of WWE are not forgotten for a week such as goofy anime episodes are, the stories are baked into next week’s story, or even next year’s story. When WWE books wrestlers to do ridiculous, sitcom-like angles, they are remembered and brought back up. This degrades the faith in talent over time for the audience. This likely stems from utilizing TV writers as, in their world, those events can be resolved and the show closes eventually.

That being said, what WWE does very well is a slow build to a big money match. They (generally) make sure they hit their spots and have a card prepared in advance to work toward. They, also, have MANY good workers and many TV walkthroughs to assist in scripts/bullet points for said talents. I’m generally not in favor of full scripts but some workers benefit from that level of direction.

I do feel, however, that a change in head booker (NOT saying to fire HHH, simply a move) may be better to see what new ideas people could bring.

This brings me to AEW. While AEW brings bigger matchups week-to-week with more steady action closer to a wrestling product, their booking tends to suffer from inconsistency in stories. AEW does what I refer to as “Match-up booking”. They have a dream match or a good match in mind and they simply need to find a way to get there rather than asking themselves first who would be most compatible to work together and/or how can we make interactions between these two wrestlers make sense in a story. This tends to work well for the audience until it comes to believing personal issues and getting behind a story. The fans are, generally, behind specific PEOPLE on the roster, but I don’t hear many people praise a specific STORY in AEW. This can present a problem over time as, eventually, you ruin out of match ups to book. What is a positive is AEW tends to allow workers and wrestlers to have more freedom to be themselves, though in an inverse situation from WWE, some of them REALLY could use more direction and agenting to maximize their career spans. AEW wrestlers, while not the WORST promos, are not generally able to hold longer promo segments. Given more direction, I believe this could be resolved. They have the talent, but not the organization of it, especially when booking matches. I’m not sure how many piledrivers I can see in an AEW card, but I counted no less than 12 on one PPV once and that is about 7 to 8 too many if I’m being generous.

I also believe AEW would benefit from Tony Khan giving up booking duties for a while and letting one of the retired wrestlers there take over, or make it a committee of retired wrestlers. Not that Tony books incredibly poorly, but he also needs his “sponge to be wringed out” so to speak.

In a weekly TV era where you are running multiple shows a week and trying to book SO MANY ROSTER MEMBERS, you burn out of ideas quicker and can become jaded or short-sighted without realizing. Both companies struggle with this on a yearly basis and it ends me with the same thought every time, to paraphrase the great Ernie Ladd:

When will it be time to wring the sponge for both companies?

What TV show did you rush to get home to as a kid? 

Personally, I never wanted to miss the next Digimon Episode where Tai, Agumon and the digi-destined would find new ways to explore the land and stop evil threats. It was my first anime and I never wanted to miss an episode. It aired at a 4PM time slot and you couldn’t convince me to change the channel for anything. However, while I was watching Fox Kids presenting Digimon, what programs did I miss? Batman? Pokemon? Godzilla? D&D The animated series? Spider-man? I had to make a choice at the time to prioritize Digimon over anything else in a time with a fair bit of entertainment and television.

But the amount of TV airing at that time pales in comparison to competition now

In this day and age, we have entire streaming services competing for the billions of people in the world to watch their brand of entertainment. Each will generally have 1 to 2 of your favorite shows and an absolute ABUNDANCE of other shows to try. Can it draw you to pay hard earned money to their service though? Can it draw you away from your phone, computer, social media, all of the other entertainment sources now?

Counter programming has always been at the core of entertainment sources, few more so than competing American wrestling companies. Since the mid 90s, and arguably before that, American wrestling companies run by various entities have tried to take viewers away from other promotions and get them to tune into “must see TV that you can’t miss”. Arguably, back then, you couldn’t miss an episode or you would be lost as to what happened and you would be, socially, left out of conversations with peers about last night’s TV episode. What made wrestling even worse in this respect is that there were rarely, if any, re-runs of episodes as a new episode would ALWAYS be coming next week, thus is the process of wrestling. It is continuous, neverending TV.

Now, however, we have many ways to consume media

Gone are the days of being reliant on catching the next episode at the exact time of airing because we can catch up on YouTube the next day.

Gone are the days of storyline subtleties that we had to theorize with schoolyard friends because there are 100 articles on dirt sheets to tell you the subtlety.

Gone are the days we have to wait and think about the programming presented or have time to form an opinion without gut reactions.

So then where does that leave the idea of counter programming?

WWE is still consistently trying to run against AEW on larger show days, offering a show you may already be paying for rather than having to buy AEWs PPV model. This may sound like it’s effective on paper (already paid for is better than spending more money in this economy), but it’s basically been proven PPV after PPV that AEW will draw similar numbers and buyrates. Furthermore, when WWE DOES counter program, they oddly do not use their biggest stars to draw against AEW. This concept fascinates me as I am beginning to believe the counter programming used is almost, intentionally, being sent out to draw less without their larger stars getting any of the blame.

Roman doesn’t run against AEW

Brock doesn’t run against AEW

So to what ends do they run? To take anything away from a diehard AEW fanbase? To spark online content (such as this piece) regarding their practices just to draw more eyes, regardless of optics being good/bad?

Regardless of the reasons in their heads, they are fighting a losing battle against not AEW…

But against all other forms of entertainment

WWE is already getting outdone by Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and any other social media site. WWE is already getting outdone by Steam and the videogame industry. Hell, WWE is getting outdone by having 2 TVs in the same spot so you can just watch both shows at the same time. American wrestling is fighting for scraps of viewership compared to TV shows, streaming services and social media.

I am, personally, a fan of the principle of “Occam’s Razor” that states “the answer is the explanation with the fewest assumptions”. If the numbers don’t change and they already know they are losing to other forms of media… Then that leaves one answer:

It does draw eyes to the perceived “War” between WWE and AEW

And the internet will always eat up a controversy

"In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." - Benjamin Franklin

This quote has been spoken out for many serious and, incredibly, unserious reasons throughout human history. The heart of this saying speaks to how so many of the human race likes to believe they know something for absolutely certain no matter the context around it or any other mitigating factors. Some hide behind science, some hide behind hearsay, but many just feel more comfortable feeling as if they know the outcome to a certain pattern before it begins. However, science changes year by year as more advances are made in fields, hearsay rarely stands up to scrutiny, and feeling so comfortable in your knowledge can lead to stagnation of the mind.

Words like “always”, “Never”, “nothing” and “everything”.

Definitionally, when pragmatics are applied to these words, they mean that a certain thing is at no time believable due to the outcome already being predetermined by what has been proven in the past based on patterns of tests and studies. This would invalidate the scientific method by practice.

This is generally how science works as many claims go through the 7 scientific steps:

1. Question

2. Research

3. Hypothesis

4. Procedure

5. Experiment

6. Analysis

7. Conclusion

This is generally followed by a “claim, evidence, reasoning” where the results are presented and next steps are decided

But what if we chose not to ask questions? Could we potentially make such scientific leaps in society without first asserting a question and testing it? I would argue no. Thus, if one simply believes an event will “never” or “always” be the same no matter the context or factors surrounding it, that is when humans decay in their abilities as questions spark critical thought and review of data. To say gravity will “Always” pull you down may negate any advances in anti-gravitational technology in the future.

This practice can get especially tricky when you happen to change your views on an issue throughout your life.

When humans change their absolutism based views, they can be misconstrued, or even correctly identified, as a hypocrite. Being labeled a hypocrite can stick with people, even if it is human to be a hypocrite at times. This practice and label can erode others' trust in you and, thus, people will be less willing to hear your opinion in the future, even if the next time it is correct. To put it in analogical terms, a person ends up being the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” eventually and the townspeople stop listening to you when real danger is at the doorstep.

It is human to change the nature of how you think, believe and interact with the world based on new data presented to you throughout life. I, for example, wasn’t familiarized with many other cultures prior to leaving my hometown and, thus, changed many of my beliefs based on new data after interacting and learning how different problems exist in different people. To close yourself off to these new points of data, likely, causes a person to be left behind rather than proceed forward. If one is so convinced of their beliefs that they are unwilling to question them, assess them, or change them, then they will likely lead an unhappy and unfulfilled life. This won’t be due to losing friends or power, many prominent leaders prove that as a fallacy daily.

It will be because if you aren’t learning, you are dying

And wouldn’t it be a waste of life to not learn as much about it as possible?

As we celebrated America’s 250th birthday in the states, my mind couldn’t help put drift off to how so many different instances drove our country to where it is today. The sheer amount of wars, internal conflicts, production changes, melding cultures and expansion of states has been a tremendous feat throughout those years. I am, generally speaking, proud to be an American.

We’ve begun to reach a point in history, though, where people are far more likely to simply stay on the side they are on rather than admitting they may not be as learned on a subject. It’s human to do this, especially given the ease of access to stay in one’s own thought process bubble these days (the internet algorithms and social media directly come to mind). This unfettered access to information can trick us into believing we fully understand a subject matter before we do or, worse still, we begin to trust too many influencers and pundits without making sure we hear every side. 

It is within these moments that we lose out on true growth of knowledge, understanding, and community as a society, both national and global. This is where personal bias vs. personal preference come into play.

With this piece, I will define personal preference as how one generally views the state of things. Given Wrestling fans talk about Tribalism constantly, let's use AEW vs. WWE fans as the example. A personal preference may be that an AEW fan “...prefers in-ring wrestling to be of higher quality while stories are told far more in the ring rather than outside of it”. This is a perfectly reasonable way to articulate a personal preference given that not everyone will agree with this opinion. The use of the word “prefer” does a great deal to articulate it being a preference rather than fact. A WWE fan may state the opposite, but, as long as it is stated as opinion rather than fact, both can co-exist, understand each other and, ultimately, agree to disagree.

This brings me to personal bias. For the purposes of this piece, I will define personal bias as being, overwhelming, supporting most (if not all) one company does and condemning most (if not all) the other company does. Take the instance of Cody Rhodes. Many AEW fans were happy to have him at the start of the company, given his name value and proven track record in the ring while a sub-section of WWE fans decided, outright, that Cody was not a valuable asset. While Cody did sour with AEW fans near the end of his run, when Cody left the company, personal bias for many people creeped in. Upon Cody's return to the WWE, these same fans were jumping from their seats about how big of a get it was while a sub-section of AEW fans reverted to believing he was terrible. Personal bias such as this can create hypocritical loops in one's opinions and actions where the rules “apply to thee but not to me”.

Personal bias can be quite harmful in forming relationships and communicating with people if you are unaware of your own thoughts/experiences and how they may have shaped your thinking. Trauma is one of the leading dictators of personal bias as, by human nature, we tend to remember the bad consequences of actions before we remember the good consequences. Given this, humans tend to be, inadvertently, ruled by their traumas to some extent. This can cause them to start sheltering themselves, slowly but surely, away from oppositional minded people which is, generally, a mistake. There are exceptions to this such as people who wish to do you direct and immediate harm as those people should be avoided, but those who may be doing indirect harm with thoughts, speech or, more likely, their own personal biases based on trauma, are far more easily convinced to have a conversation. Being able to speak with people and search for personal biases within ourselves and others is a foundational piece of growth that, globally, we are starting to lose out on. The internet provides a great resource but, as Uncle Ben would say, “with great power comes great responsibility”.

It is still incredibly important to get out of our bubble online, to not spring into attack mode the second someone disagrees or, even, if they try to attack verbally first. We all work toward a better tomorrow together or we all die in separation.

Humanity is a social species, it’s probably time we all began to embrace that even further again.

Professional wrestling has one of the most passionate fan bases in entertainment. Unfortunately, it also has one of the most divided. While fans argue over promotions, match quality, and booking decisions, one rivalry often goes unnoticed: the battle between the fair-weather fan and the Internet Wrestling Community.

The irony is that both groups believe they’re protecting professional wrestling, yet both spend an incredible amount of time criticizing it—and each other.

The fair-weather fan is easy to spot. They make their annual appearance around Royal Rumble season, stick around through WrestleMania, and then disappear until the next celebrity appearance or major headline brings wrestling back into the mainstream. Their opening line is almost always the same: “I haven’t watched wrestling in years, but…”

Within minutes, they’re explaining why wrestling was better when they were growing up. Whether they came from Hulkamania, the Attitude Era, Ruthless Aggression, or another generation, their favorite era conveniently happens to be the one they remember most fondly. Nostalgia becomes evidence, and memories become facts.

The problem isn’t that these fans love the past. The problem is that many of them don’t actually want wrestling to evolve—they want it to recreate a feeling that can never truly be reproduced. Wrestling didn’t just change; they did. What they’re chasing isn’t better booking. It’s their childhood.

On the opposite end of the spectrum sits the Internet Wrestling Community.

The IWC doesn’t simply watch wrestling—they consume it. Every television show, every premium live event, every independent recommendation, every backstage rumor, every contract update, and every five-star match becomes part of an endless cycle of analysis and debate. There’s nothing wrong with being invested in the product. Passion is what keeps wrestling alive.

However, passion has a funny way of turning into entitlement.

Many online fans claim they want surprises while simultaneously reading every spoiler, every insider report, and every leaked creative plan available. Then, when a debut or return isn’t shocking enough, they blame the company for failing to surprise them.

That’s not bad storytelling.

That’s self-inflicted disappointment.

The IWC also prides itself on being objective, but wrestling discussions online often become less about enjoying the product and more about proving who predicted what first. Every storyline becomes an opportunity to claim victory, every booking decision becomes evidence in an ongoing argument, and every opinion is presented as though it’s an undisputed fact.

Ironically, many of the same fans who insist a company is “unwatchable” continue dedicating multiple nights every week to watching its programming, discussing it online, and recording podcasts about it.

Most people don’t invest that much time in things they genuinely hate.

Despite their differences, fair-weather fans and the IWC have far more in common than either group would care to admit.

Both believe they’re the voice of reason. Both insist they’re seeing wrestling more clearly than everyone else. Both are convinced the other side is responsible for everything wrong with the industry. Meanwhile, wrestling continues to thrive because of both groups.

Casual fans help create those massive cultural moments that bring new audiences into the product. Hardcore fans keep the conversation alive between those moments, filling podcasts, social media, YouTube channels, and message boards with constant discussion.

One group fuels mainstream attention.

The other sustains year-round engagement.

Neither is the enemy.

The real hypocrisy is believing that your way of being a wrestling fan is the only correct one.

Professional wrestling has always been built on larger-than-life characters, emotional storytelling, and the willingness to suspend disbelief for a few hours. Somewhere along the way, too many fans stopped trying to enjoy the show and started trying to win the conversation.

Perhaps that’s the strangest contradiction of them all. Every wrestling fan claims to love professional wrestling. Yet some seem far more interested in proving they’re the smartest person watching it.

And maybe that’s the greatest work in wrestling today.