English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Free Plan

In April 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the state of Florida&amp;nbsp;classified&amp;nbsp;professional wrestling (pro-wrestling) alongside hospitals, law enforcement, and grocery stores as an essential service. The state's decision made global headlines and was generally met with a mix of confusion and&amp;nbsp;surprise. This article investigates the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on&amp;nbsp;contemporary&amp;nbsp;television&amp;nbsp;wrestling. This article argues that the pandemic circumstances, coupled with the demands of serial storytelling, led to an evolution of a specific wrestling match type: the cinematic match. The article first&amp;nbsp;traces the influence that the television medium and media convergence have had on pro-wrestling before closely analyzing wrestling programmes that were produced without a live crowd during the Covid-19 pandemic (e.g.,WWE &amp;nbsp;Friday Night Smackdown,&amp;nbsp;Wrestlemania 36). This close-textual focuses on how pandemic wrestling programmes—in an effort to appeal to their audience—produced a number of cinematic matches that reconfigured the storytelling of television wrestling by combining distinct elements of genre filmmaking (e.g., action, horror) with the spectacular athleticism of pro-wrestling.

Then, Now, Forever: Television Wrestling, Seriality, and the Rise of the Cinematic Match during COVID-19