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Goodbye Armpit

The Armpit Closes its Doors... Again

by the Wrestling Professor

January 21, 2008   

...and this time, we only lasted 4 months.

Yes, dear readers, as you've heard us say 5 times before: we quit.  Go ahead and yawn; you've heard it from me all before.

In 2002, I wanted to start a humorous wrestling website that would comically air out my frustrations with a pro wrestling industry in shambles.  You remember, it was the era of HHH and Stephanie McMahon's egos running rampant, and Raw was the most boring show on TV.  WCW and ECW had shut down, and wrestling fans were not taking it well.  All we had was the WWF.  TNA was just starting and even worse than it is now, while ROH had just run its first show.

WrestlingProfessor.com, as we were known back then, did well.  Dave Meltzer was kind to us, and we wrote some pretty innovative stuff.  Two years later, we quit. 

Then we started up again, this time as The Armpit.  Before long, we were rocking and rolling, peaking in both popularity and creativity.  We started up a newsletter, printed up thousands of copies, and gave a shot at living our dream.

It bombed, and we quit again.

Somewhere in between all that, we quit a bunch of times and started up again.

So on Labor Day of '07, we launched yet again.  This time, it was different.  I was personally no longer owner of the site, and we thought of ways to actually make money from our hard work.  Plus, we figured, we'd cover MMA too, ushering in a hot, growing, web-savvy audience.  At long last, we'd finally take over the world.

Except we didn't.  Here's my personal opinion why:

1.  The wrestling audience that would "get" what we do has disappeared.  In its place are teenagers and kids who stay home on Friday nights with their parents to watch safe, impotent, stale, canned, boring-as-Hell WWE shows.  They think John Cena is cool and that Rey Mysterio is their hero.  They have no f*ckin' clue who the Midnight Express, Jim Cornette, the 4 Horsemen, Rick Steamboat, Terry Funk, and the Fabulous Freebirds are.  They chant "this is awesome" at matches that suck.  And then there are the ROH fans who think Gabe Sapolsky is God and that short-haired, flabby, dorky-looking, pale-skinned ghosts who do nothing but crazy high spots are cool.  (Sorry to offend you ROH fans, but I'll never, ever "get" their product).  Apparently these people never saw ECW circa '94 and '95; THAT was cool.  Indeed, most real wrestling fans have either given up and moved on or turned their attention to UFC.  I've personally done the latter.

2.  The jokes are over.  Sometimes, things run their course.  Maybe we have too.  I thought our writing was still damn good, but it seemed no one was in the mood to laugh or care.  If we've overstayed our welcome, then we'll own up to that and graciously say goodbye.  It was fun while it lasted.

3.  We just don't care anymore.  Raw is watchable, but I haven't seen SmackDown or Impact in months.  SmackDown is like Thunder at its worst (and again, today's fans are too young to even know or remember what Thunder is), and I don't have the patience or time in my life to put up with Vince Russo's stupid booking anymore.  I just don't care.  And when I can't watch the product, I can't spoof it.  I can only make fun of Russo, Stephanie, Dusty, and HHH for so long until it becomes stale.

4.  Not enough of you watch UFC.  We did lots of MMA spoofs and enjoyed writing them, but they got the least amouunt of pageviews.  The message is clear: you guys don't want to read about MMA, and MMA fans don't want to read us either.

5.  You're so sick of us quitting, that you don't bother coming here anymore.  Hey, that's understandable.  We've cried wolf so many times.

In any event, we quit.  I'm done writing and spending time on something that doesn't give me any satisfaction.  And since wrestling fans refuse to spend money, there's no chance of making money off this site either.  The dream is over.  If no one is going to care, then I don't care either.  Judging from Jimbo's column, he feels the exact same way.  If you want to do what you love in life, you're going to be broke.  I've got a good job and my wife and I live well.  But we want to live even better, so we're going to start doing things that will actually turn us a profit.  The Armpit is not one of those things, no matter how much fun it is (or was).

For those of you who have stuck with us from the very beginning, and even for those who just discovered us recently and would visit us once a week: THANK YOU.  Even though we don't make a dime, even when you'd write in and say that a certain article made you chuckle, that made us feel so f*cking awesome.  A heartfelt compliment goes a long way.  Whenever I read something I enjoy, I drop a note to the writer and tell him/her so.  That's all people ask sometimes.  You guys did that, and it's very much appreciated.

To those of you rolling your eyes and saying, "Oh, this assh*le will start up again in 12 months like he always does," well, maybe you're right.  But this time we really might call it quits for good, at least until I'm 55 and can retire off my 401(k).  That's 25 years from now.

So until the year 2033, this is the Wrestling Professor signing off.  Thank you all for the memories, and thanks especially to our guest columnists like Stephen Rivera, Jimbo, and Mike Shannon.  You guys rock.

See ya around,

WP

PS.  For those who still need their comedic fix of wrestling, the closest thing to the Armpit (and some would say it's better than the Armpit) that we endorse is Stephen Rivera's brilliant blog, The Swerved.  He has new entries every Monday, and of course Stephen is a long-time contributor to this site.  Please support him and make The Swerved your weekly stop.

PPS.  Thanks to Jimbo, who won an Americal Idol-like contest to become a columnist here.  Jimbo went on to write ECW reviews for TheWrestlingFan.com.  However, since Jimbo is now giving up on wrestling, that gig might be coming to an end as well.

PPPS.  Mike Shannon wrote the most viewed pages on this site, which were the PPV reviews.  Mike put so much damn effort into those, and we appreciate that very much.  Mike rules, and his hilarious PPV recaps will be missed. 

PPPPS. Just because we can never REALLY say goodbye, our weekly quizzes will continue on WrestlingObserver.com, WrestleView.com, OnlineWorldOfWrestling.com, and the Board With Everything every Monday.