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The fact that pro wrestling and Ring Posts isn’t respected by all and recognized as stellar journalism and an always fantastic read is more an indication of outsiders’ misunderstandings and biases than objective reasoning. As an interviewer Eck is a quote machine – for example his two Scott Steiner epics or Larry Zybysko Q&A – who possesses a set of contacts for his sport that Peter King or Peter Gammons would admire.

We wondered how his network of ready and willing Q&A subjects could be so vast and why no other website or newsletter interviews wrestling’s superstars with such frequency and such candor.  Eck traced the answers to the relationships fostered while working as editor at WCW magazine and his disciplined newspaper background.

These two answers also represent Eck’s two true passions, writing and pro wrestling, both of which were fostered at a very early age. On his blog he admits that “I fell in love with wrestling the first time I saw it on Channel 45 as a pre-schooler in the early 1970s.” and he revealed to us that “my parents were never fans but somehow (wrestling) found its way onto my television at an early age. I can remember the very first match I went to in December of 1973 at the Baltimore Civic Center. The main event was Andre the Giant vs. Stan “The Man” Stasiak. I was six.”

“I’ve also always loved writing. I can remember making up stories in the first and second grade, fiction-type-things, which I tried to sell to my classmates for a nickel or ten cents. It was inevitable that the two  (passions) would be combined.”

“A few days ago I was going through some of my old things and a found a letter a sent to Bill Apter (of Pro Wrestling Illustrated fame) when I was 12 asking him for a job. I wrote ‘I would love to be your Baltimore correspondent.’ So even at that age I was thinking that it would be great to write about wrestling for a living.”

Eck began at the Baltimore News American when he was just 17, starting as an unpaid intern.  Two years later the one-time Hearst newspaper folded after over 200 years in business and Eck moved to the Sun receiving a paid position as an editorial assistant. His first pro wrestling article, a personality profile of Randy Savage, came eight years later in 1994. “If the WWF or WCW was in town I would try to set up an interview I would try to write a story there, but once the Monday Night Wars took off in the mid-nineties then people at the Sun were more receptive to articles because they knew how popular (wrestling) was.”

His March 2000 move to become editor of WCW’s magazine was unexpected and, at the time, fortuitous. Eck’s future wife wanted to go on a cruise. Naturally, his compromise was a WCW Bruise Cruise. While on the ship they were seated at dinner with the WCW marketing staff. They put Eck in touch with the people in charge of shifting the organization’s magazine into an in-house operation.  Eck kept in contact with the magazine’s publisher hoping to land for some free-lance work but instead, about six months after the cruise, was offered the editor job.

Eck’s tenure at WCW was short. After relocating from his beloved Baltimore to Atlanta in March of 2000 WCW assured him that they were not a sinking ship. “Within a few weeks we starting hearing rumblings that the company was being sold,” he acknowledged. Within a year the doors had closed and all employees were out of work. “It was the probably the most fun I’ll ever have on a job but it only lasted twelve months.” Adding insult to injury Eck missed his hometown Baltimore Ravens Super Bowl run although he did manage to fly back to his season tickets for about half of the Purple and Black’s home games.

When Eck returned to Baltimore he went back to the Sun part-time and eventually worked his way back to a full-time editor’s position and print columns. Nowadays, though, most of his writing is centered on the very successful and very time-consuming Ring Posts blog.

We could tell you about Eck’s favorite current wrestlers (HBK, Y2J, Randy Orton), his soft spot for heels (“To have 10,000 people wanting to wish you bodily harm seems pretty cool to me”), or the most fun interview he’s ever given (Bruno Sammartino) but his words speak for themselves. Find your way over to Ring Posts; it is the best friend a wrestling fan or even just a fan of great sports journalism could ever want.

Post from: EveryJoe

Ring Posts Blogger Kevin Eck Profile and Interview Part Two

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Pro Wrestling reporting has long been characterized by the Bill Apter’s iconic magazine Pro Wrestling Illustrated and the you-are-an-insider conceits of Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

Both are still around but the immediacy of the Internet, the deluge of televised wrestling, and the power of Internet fan communities have made PWI a walking dinosaur. The Wrestling Observer, still subscription-based and recently merged with Figure Four Weekly, is also a victim of an information overload; its insider knowledge and spoiler results are available elsewhere. Both are still terrific publications but they are both caught in the Old Media/Print Age.

Kevin Eck’s Ring Posts blog (http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/wrestling/blog/) emerged a little over one year ago and quickly established itself as the New Media heir to the proud pro wrestling journalism throne. It is especially surprising that this New Media successor would come from an Old Media source, the Baltimore Sun; a venerable 175+ year-old broadsheet whose journalists were recently characterized in The Wire as resistant to blogging and stuck in a Buzz Bissinger world.

What’s not surprising is the author behind the byline: Kevin Eck. Mr. Eck is a lifelong wrestling fan, former editor of WCW Magazine, one-time writer for the pocket-sized and now-defunct Wrestling Digest (his articles are here), and 20-year veteran of the Baltimore Sun sports desk. Eck brings an intelligent, journalistic approach to our beloved sports entertainment. His frequent Q&A’s with pro wrestlers are already legendary and his encyclopedic knowledge of the sport is astounding.

The Ring Posts blog resides in Baltimoresun.com’s sports section and in a short year has outpaced many of its more athletically-accepted counterparts. Kevin explained in a phone interview with jabandgrapple.com, “We have roughly 40-some blogs across the board on baltimoresun.com and Ring Posts is always in the Top 10 in page views and is often in the Top 5.” He continued, “There may even be some people here who may write more traditional sports or serious blogs that roll their eyes at how well the wrestling blog does but you’re always going to get that with wrestling. People who aren’t wrestling fans – to them it looks like the most absurd or ridiculous thing. To say that these guys aren’t athletic is ridiculous. I think Kurt Angle is a lot better athlete than Kurt Busch.”

Nevertheless, one of Ring Posts’ best parts is the serious look it takes at the industry. Eck, who also works as the Baltimore Sun’s assistant sports editor overseeing high school sports, treats pro wrestling with the same earnest and devoted deference as football or baseball writers treat their subject. He doesn’t don a mask, he doesn’t use an insulting pseudonym, and he doesn’t insult the reader.

“There are plenty of wrestling sites out there that are ‘inside’ but the mainstream stuff is either not very good or it talks down to the reader. (With the blog) I try to bring (pro wrestling) a certain respect.” He admitted however that perhaps the blog “isn’t held in real high esteem (by newspaper colleagues) but I know that the people at Baltimoresun.com like the amount of traffic the blog is bringing to the website.”

Click Here to continue reading. Follow the link to Part Two.

Post from: EveryJoe

Ring Posts Blogger Kevin Eck Profile and Interview Part One