What is Whizzered?

A not-so-brief introduction and mission statement

I started my writing career way back in 1995 by writing about pro wrestling.

Okay, I need to fact check that first sentence. Otherwise we’re getting off on the wrong foot here:

1. It wouldn’t become a writing career for nearly a decade. Writers like to pretend that we are having an amazing career doing important things, when in reality we are often just unemployed folks with more pretentiousness and less self-awareness. I wrote for a long time before I ever made a dime — much less turned it into a full time job where I work from home while sometimes not wearing pants. Or underwear. Still, for the sake of sounding impressive, I will say my career started in 1995.
2. “Writing about pro wrestling” actually means “I ripped off Dave Meltzer’s news from the latest Observer and re-posted them as my own scoops without crediting Dave.” I am thankful to call Dave a friend these days, because I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t claimed his news as my own like a little shit. Of course, everyone in the pro wrestling industry in those days ripped off Dave’s stuff; I just wasn’t smart enough to monetize my thievery.

I’ve been writing for over twenty years at this point. It started off with pro wrestling and then morphed into mixed martial arts, and for the past eight years I’ve been fortunate to make a living writing about people crushing each other in the face area.

Last year I moved to a company here in Austin, and that’s when I wrote the pitch that eventually turned into the FloSlam subscription streaming service. I managed FloSlam on my own for nearly two months, which at times felt impossible since I needed to continue managing the multiple publications and teams I had before FloSlam launched.

But FloSlam never felt like work, because I loved it and it was my baby. And after I departed FloSports, I decided it was time for me to create something on my own. I wanted something fresh.

I spent time brainstorming over the Christmas holidays, and this is what I came up with.

It’s called Whizzered.

What’s a Whizzered, I’m sure you’ve already asked.

For starters, it’s a bad-ass name. I like that it’s a standard amateur wrestling move, of course, but what I like more is that it sounds like “wizard.” This appeals to the Harry Potter obsessive in me.

It’s a new publication that aims to combine my two great sporting loves (mixed martial arts and pro wrestling) with two other passions of mine: top-notch writing and great design.

Quality is key, not quantity.

Our mission is to bring you nothing but high-quality writing and journalism, whether it’s a column or a piece of breaking news. Anything we publish, whether it’s from myself or a contributor, will have gone through an editing process before hitting the front page.

When we share news from other outlets, we’ll only link to high-quality sources with a track record of accuracy in breaking news, like the Wrestling Observer, MMA Fighting, Pro Wrestling Sheet, Pro Wrestling Torch and other similar publications. And before we publish, we’ll make every attempt to confirm the story on our own.

In our writing, we’ll always strive to give you the whole truth of any matter, to the extent our reporting can prove it.

This plays into one of our main editorial standards: We will never find ourselves beholden to, or compromised by, any of the subjects we cover.

We will not be fearful in our writing. We don’t care about or need press credentials. We don’t need a promotion to help us get interviews. We won’t bury stories because someone might get their feelings hurt. We won’t do favors for an agent or manager.

We will write what we know to be the truth. It’s that simple.

And we promise we’ll never publish something controversial just for the sake of boosting our metrics. You’ll find zero clickbait here.

We’re also looking to entertain the reader. You’ll find quite a bit of snark, some foul language and a few good jokes buried amongst many failed attempts at writing good jokes. We take writing seriously, but we promise to never take ourselves seriously at all.

Being a hardcore fan is tough. There’s just way too much going on in MMA and wrestling, and staying on top of it all means spending a lot of time on media consumption.

But let’s say you’re just a regular fan of the sport, maybe a little more involved than a casual onlooker, but far less inclined to watch everything available to you. How do you sort through the endless news stories to find the stuff that piques your interest?

It’s an impossible task. Which is why we’re doing it for you.

We’re here to curate

We’re going to do the legwork and pinpoint the topics and stories that truly matter, and then we’ll curate those important stories for you. We won’t even cover the vast majority of news stories, because the truth is most of those stories hold little interest for the everyday fan. We aren’t going to cover every little fight booking or event announcement.

We’ll break our own news from time to time. But other publications do a fine job of keeping us up to speed on the insane worlds surrounding MMA and wrestling. You don’t need us to add more noise.

Our new Watch Guide is a perfect example. We look through the MMA and pro wrestling calendars and hand-pick the events we believe you need to see. The Guide will be updated constantly with a concise listing of those can’t-miss events, and we’ll also explain why we think you should watch.

One important note: You won’t find daily stories here at Whizzered. We’ll publish our stories when they’re ready for public consumption. We know this is a bit strange in this world of constant updates, but we’d rather take the time on a great story than post something just for the sake of posting something.

Stay in touch

Follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook to stay on top of our latest updates. MMA fans should subscribe to The Weekly, our email newsletter. It will feature exclusive stuff that will never be published on the site. We’ll have a newsletter for pro wrestling fans soon.

If you have feedback or questions, please reach out. And if you’re a writer or aspiring writer and want to contribute, we’re hiring.