Well, hello. This is probably one of the hardest intro paragraphs I’ve had to write, yet it’s conversely one of the easiest. “Why”, I hear the assembled 30 odd people who still care cry… or at least think inwardly.
Because, gentle reader, it’s the last EVER Live Wire. I’ve been debating this for a while now, and quite frankly, I think I’m just about done. I’ve been writing for nigh on 5 years now, with four years worth collected at my site, and I think I’ve said pretty much everything that I have to say about wrestling.
It’s been getting harder and harder to come up with anything that I would deem worthy of reading week after week, and you probably noticed that I haven’t been keeping the ‘one column a week’ deadline I always set myself for my writing recently, falling back to one a fortnight.
Well, that was a mistake… the weeks I DIDN’T have to write a column were great, and the week’s where I DID, they actually started to make me physically ill with worry about what to write – that’s no way for a supposed ‘hobby’ to take over your life. It should be mentioned here that I do not get paid for any of this, I merely do it for the love of the sport.
Or, I did until recently. I’m tired of staying up until the small hours of the morning trying to track down someone’s real name because a reader has asked it. I’m tired of taking most of Monday night every week to write up this column. I’m tired of it all, and there’s only one thing I can do about it. That is why this will be the last column. At the risk of sounding like Shawn Michaels, I’ve lost my smile. I don’t enjoy it any more.
To everyone that’s carried my column on their site or in their newsletter, I thank you profusely. Despite the way things have turned out, I genuinely wouldn’t have swapped the experience for the world. To the people that emailed me without wanting anything or even just to discuss what I had written that week, I thank you too.
It’s been a great flight… shame the landing was so rough. Have fun, and as always, go mad.
Thanks.
Tony Cottam