What If: AEW Had a Magazine?

Two things it should come as little surprise to find out that I’m a fan of: wrestling and print media.

I’ve been watching wrestling for more than half of my life, and when I first got into it, the internet was not much of a thing yet — certainly not to the degree it is today. As such, there were a lot of print magazines surrounding it at the time, including some from the then-World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) and their rival, World Championship Wrestling (WCW).

Naturally, as a fan who just couldn’t get enough, I routinely scooped up issues of WWF Magazine, WWF Raw, and WCW Magazine, to say nothing of the Apter mags released on a weekly basis. Ah, good times.

I was reminded of this period recently after watching the brutal main event match between Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D. and Thunder Rosa on AEW Dynamite‘s “St. Patrick’s Day Slam.”

The visual of a bloody Baker — particularly the one on the right above — reminded me of another iconic wrestling image: one of a bloody “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, who resisted submitting to Bret “The Hitman” Hart at WrestleMania 13 until he passed out:

Via stashpages

I thought this image had also been the cover of an old WWF Magazine. I was wrong, but not too far off:

Thinking about it all together, I felt it was kind of a shame that All Elite Wrestling (AEW) doesn’t have their own magazine. Granted, it’s not as practical in this day and age as it once was, but like Nintendo Force, Mega Visions, Old School Gamer, Retro Gamer, and others, I bet there would be a market for something released periodically.

Regardless, I decided to whip up my own sort of “what if” with some faux “AEW Magazine” covers. And thanks to some photographs provided by AEW themselves, here’s what I came up with.

The first one here is a little more traditional, a nice action shot from the match as Baker is being powerbombed onto the bed of thumbtacks. For the second, though, upon laying my eyes upon some of the pics, I knew I had to do an homage to the issue of WWF Raw seen above.

Ultimately, I wound up making two, in addition to the above. Hey, variant covers are a thing, you know.

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. It was fun to do, and I ended up learning/teaching myself some new techniques along the way as well.

I like to think I’ve achieved the desired effect. But what do you think? Do these hit the mark, and make you nostalgic for the more peaceful days of reading about wrestling in your room, rather than arguing with strangers about it over the internet? Do you have a favorite of the three? And is this something you’d like to see me make more of in the future?

Thanks for reading!

Photographs used for the AEW covers were provided by All Elite Wrestling. Everything but the barcode and AEW logo (including the “Magazine” logo) was all me. And all the Austin stuff is from WWE, of course.

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David Oxford is a freelance writer of many varied interests. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

David Oxford

David Oxford, or “LBD ‘Nytetrayn’,” as he is sometimes also known, is a freelance writer of many varied interests who resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

For a full list of places to find him online, click here.