The British Wrestling Magazine War

Since the demise of Bill Apter’s Total Wrestling magazine two years ago, there’s only been one British-based wrestling magazine that consumers have been able to buy - Powerslam. But with the recent launch of Fighting Spirit, Powerslam once again has some competition, and even though it’s early days, let’s take a look at the current king of British wrestling magazines, and new pretender to the throne.

Powerslam magazine has been around for years. Edited by Fin Martin and boasting a writing team consisting of Anthony Evans, Greg Lambert and Mo Chatra, the magazine has firmly established itself in a market that consisted of the often hard to get Pro Wrestling Illustrated and the kayaked WWE publications. In an era when the majority of wrestling fans get their news from the internet on a daily basis, Powerslam clearly aims itself at the smart mark market, and while the magazine is very well researched and put together, there are aspects of Powerslam that don’t sit too well with it’s readership.

Firstly, there’s the lack of coverage with regards to the ever-growing British scene, which many consider inexcusable for a British-based magazine. It seems that unless a promotion is willing to fly in plane loads of overseas stars, Powerslam isn’t interested. Perfect evidence of this is the fact that there have been only two articles dedicated to British wrestling in the past five years, while promotions in Japan and the American independent scene appear in the magazine on a regular basis.

Powerslam is also known for being overly negative about the current wrestling scene, often to the detriment of certain aspects of the business. A clear example of this is Fin Martin’s almost constant criticism of Ric Flair, which seems to be something of an obsession for him. Indeed, Fin always seems to be overly critical of wrestlers of a certain age.

While the actual layout of the magazine is fine, when you compare Powerslam to a publication like FHM or Loaded, it looks very bland.

Currently priced at £2.90 for forty pages, it’s a magazine which can often be read on a short train journey.

Fighting Spirit, the new kid on the block, published it’s first issue just a few weeks ago. Editor James Denton has assembled a top notch writing team, including Bill Apter, Phil Austin, Bryan Alvarez, Scott Keith, R.D. Reynolds, and in the first major difference from Powerslam, wrestling veterans in the form of Lance Storm and Dan “The Beast” Severn.

The next major difference is in the style of coverage Fighting Spirit provides. While Powerslam occasionally covers the mixed martial arts scene, Fighting Spirit has made covering the MMA scene one of it’s major selling points. Indeed, in the first issue there’s a great article on Chuck Lidell, and Dan Severn pays tribute to the retiring Randy Couture.

The British scene also gets extensive coverage here, not just in the news section, but in a feature on the FWA Academy. There’s also more extensive coverage of the Japanese scene.

The reviews section is also more extensive. Whereas Powerslam’s review section is sometimes missing for issues at a time, Fighting Spirit gives us six pages of book and DVD reviews.

Layout-wise, Fighting Spirit is certainly more eye-catching, and priced at £2.99 for eighty-plus pages, it’s definitely better value for money.

While it’s still early days, it’s clear that Fighting Spirit is more than capable of giving Power slam a run for it’s money, and it will be interesting to see where both publications will be in twelve months time. Will Powerslam change it’s somewhat tired format to compete? And will Fighting Spirit be able to maintain the momentum it’s built after it’s first great issue? Only time will tell.