This article is about the magazine. For the professional wrestling move, see
Powerslam.
Power Slam is an independent monthly non-kayfabe wrestling magazine published in the United Kingdom by SW Publishing, with co-publishers Findlay Martin and Colin Bowman. It began life as Superstars of Wrestling before altering to its current name after 30 issues in 1994. The magazine's UK-wide release occurs on the last Thursday of every month. In February 2011 Power Slam achieved its 200 issue mark.
[edit] Columnists
- Findlay "Fin" Martin, current editor. He has an edition of the wrestling blooper web series, Botchamania, named for him.
- Mohammed Chatra, also known for presenting Pro Wrestling Noah on the UK's satellite sports channel TWC Fight! (formerly The Wrestling Channel).
- Greg Lambert, a respected British journalist, wrestling manager and promoter for the XWA.
- Patty Therre, former editor of WCW Magazine, editor of Wrestling On The Fringe[1] and contributing editor to GardenandHearth.[2]
- Ernie "Stately Wayne Manor" Santilli,[3] the only featured columnist to - as Stately Wayne Manor - maintain kayfabe, living up to his image as an ultra-conceited heel manager. As Manor, Santilli joined the staff halfway through the "Superstars of Wrestling" period. He recently put his autograph up for sale on Yahoo auctions with a starting price of $9,000,000.[4] It failed to sell.[5]
- Oliver Hurley, author of Wrestlings 101 Strangest Matches
- Phil Jones (also a photographer)
- Ant Evans, formerly editor of boxing news site SecondsOut[6] and writer for Boxing Monthly magazine. Evans now works for the UFC in the UK.
- Matthew Randazzo V, author of Ring of Hell: The Story of Chris Benoit & The Fall of the Pro Wrestling Industry
- Alex Dale
They are joined by Senior photographer George Tahinos, the only lensman with the magazine from its debut to the present; Ryan Brenna and Dave Smith.
[edit] Content
The magazine is geared more to pro-wrestling than sports entertainment, covering promotions from all over the world (particularly Japanese puroresu), and has also on occasion covered MMA events. This has often partly been to do with involvement of professional wrestling personalities, for example Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipović has appeared in the pages of Power Slam numerous times due to Japanese promoters (especially K-1) pitting him against wrestlers in legitimate shoot fights.
Power Slam takes an impartial view on the wrestling world being non affiliated with any wrestling promotion or organization, and is not afraid to criticize the promotions it covers. Contributor Greg Lambert has been an on-screen talent and behind-the-scenes promoter/booker for Britain's Frontier Wrestling Alliance but the magazine has never crossed the grounds of journalistic integrity by inviting/allowing him to promote his real-life business.
Every year the magazine presents the PS 50 (akin to the PWI 500) listing the 50 wrestlers whom the writers believe to have had the most successful year, in terms of workrate and performance. Rey Mysterio came top in the most recent PS 50 for the first time, followed by Kenta and Hiroshi Tanahashi.
There is also an annual reader's poll for various awards ('match of the year', etc) similar to that carried out by RSPW. Many of their polls listed, for their time, surprising and unsurprising results (at least two polls once labeled popular wrestling stars like The Undertaker and John Cena as the "Most Abysmal Wrestlers" of their respective years, Undertaker in 2001, John Cena in 2005. Cena was again voted most abysmal wrestler in 2010)
Despite their criticisms, their readers polls always crown WWE as the top promotion of the year until 2005, where TNA overtook the company for the first time. TNA would follow up that victory with another in the 2006 reader awards, although in 2007 the percentage of votes for TNA dropped considerably.
[edit] PS 50 podium
[edit] Awards
[edit] Wrestler of the Year
[edit] Babyface of the Year
[edit] Heel of the Year
[edit] Match of the Year
[edit] Card Of The Year
[edit] Tag Team
[edit] Character of the Year
[edit] Most Abysmal Wrestler of the Year
[edit] References
United Kingdom
USA
Canada
Japan
England
