Substack Grow + July - August is NJPW G1 Climax 32 coverage

Marie Musings #3. Thank you for following my journey, now I have some fun updates!

Jul 02, 2022

Welcome to Marie Musings #3! I’ll be discussing what to expect in the upcoming weeks of the newsletter! For anyone that doesn’t know, before changing the name of the newsletter to Squared Circle Info, it was originally called Marie Musings. I decided to change it to gain new readers and so the new readers can understand exactly what the newsletter was all about.

Marie Musings has become a backdrop of updates and will have the occasional lighthearted debates about wrestling or whatever stupid wrestling take I come across.

Today, I have some stuff to update everyone about.

Substack Grow

Yes! I have been accepted into Substack Grow. It’s a program that helps me explore different ways on how to grow, successfully retain loyal readership through free and paid content. Substack Grow started on June 22 and we just finished out second session on June 29 out of a six-week program. I’m learning so much and I’m looking to apply what I’m learning to this newsletter as a whole.

Day 1 we discussed our ‘who.’ Our ‘who’ is the essential part of growing a newsletter. The ‘who’ (not the band) is every single reader — signed up or not — and these readers are the ones who cares about what I write. So, when asked, it’s simple: wrestling twitter and the nice people over at the NJPW Sub Reddit who continue to click on the post links to view and interact with.

Then I had to answer: Who is important to the future of your work? My readers and the potential of getting hired by another wrestling. After WWE let me go, I immediately jumped into podcasting not knowing where this will take me. It’s been a good ride and I can’t wait for more opportunities to open up. But now, I know that one day I want to sign with NJPW (New Japan Pro Wrestling). I’m in love with the way they carry what it means to be a pro wrestler and I can easily breakdown the stories, characters, feuds, and more. I wanted to work for All Elite Wrestling at one point, but CEO Tony Khan doesn’t want to hire a team he so desperately needs to help him smoothly control four shows plus his newly acquire Ring of Honor promotion. I can no longer break down stories and feuds like I once did with AEW and recently been falling out of love with AEW. I tune in from time to time if I know that a NJPW wrestler will show up or to see if anything changes. Most of the time, nothing changes for the betterment of the company. So, NJPW is my important ‘who’ for the future of my work because I want my work, all of it to support the goal of getting hired. I want my work to speak for itself when it comes to interviews, practice commentary, articles, delivering reviews that can help gain news fans with the way I explain and analyze. I have these big dreams and big dreams come true.

Then we had to go deeper. My readers are curious about the wrestling business, the backstage drama, and fans who enjoy wrestling as a whole. If this, isn’t you, by all means, reply to this email and let me know. But you are here for the most part to learn something new — about my time in WWE, about my time as Ring Crew on the indies, about who I help in the business — and that collectively we all have this genuine interest in a crazy ass sport that often defies gravity and physics, contain violence, contain drama, and more.

I appreciate you guys. You guys are my ‘who'.

Day 2 we discussed our ‘why.’ Seems straight forward, right? Why will people read Squared Circle Info? Normally, some other writer will quote from statistics to explain the psychological reasoning. But let’s paraphrase here and explore. We as human beings are curious by nature and so we seek out information to quench our curiosity. Do you read something because of the following:

My main reason for this whole newsletter, even though it can change at a moment’s notice, to give fans an understanding on how to make wrestling better than what it was yesterday. That’s still the goal. Wrestling will always be messy and unique but if we can lower the number of seeable, caught-on-camera flaws for the sake flaws, it’ll be magnificent. I want to help the fandom — wrestling twitter — to improve their outlook on pro wrestling. That’s the hardest part. Older, white men who were once important in the business has raised toxic ideas, critiques, and more that are often regurgitated with no originality through podcasting. They are all well paid — by wrestling fans — for critiques and analysis that are super blunt, sometimes spill rumors that can be lies, and more. They hide this under the guise of *subject to change* while someone like me who creates originality in the wrestling content creation space doesn’t get the same or nearly a square of that pie like them. I guess it’s because I don’t deal in high school drama, spreading lies, trying to compete for an imaginary popularity contest, and I’m not about to backstab or be cutthroat in a sloppy tabloid business that’s — in my opinion — worse than TMZ. That’s right, worse than TMZ. Let me say this: when wrestling media broke the stories of Sasha Banks and Naomi leaving and the MJF-Tony Khan were both messy stories. No one could keep their stories straights. People from within the business — sources — would email or text or DM the wrestling media to release information to the public to create a buzz, well this one looked completely 100% amateurish that I stopped following both stories and now we don’t even talk about it anymore. There’s no new information and the wrestling media won’t dare to dig for fear of losing access to “backstage news” that can be falsified even if the “spoken to multiple sources.” These are just tiny frustrations to deal with when running a small newsletter with loyal readers with no backing from larger wrestling sites and I still have to fight to be seen. I’m being seen in other ways such as being asked to be on podcasts, behind the scenes with wrestlers I’ve reached out too and made connections with. Don’t think I’m not happy or satisfied, I just want a little more. And this is just to everyone aware of what I deal with in a male dominated wrestling community. They know my name, but I would love to be the go-to girl about wrestling that doesn’t just gawk at the muscles or sexy features. The wrestlers know they’re sexy/sex appeal.

Small goals for Squared Circle Info

Have a total of 5 subscribers (ideally 10 subs). We are currently at 3. 2 are yearly subs and 1 is monthly subs. Take advantage of the discounts when provided. They help unlock feature posts that’ll be for paid subscribers. For example, all the MLW content that I decided to do free and paid posts. Wanting something for free is great. Who doesn’t like free stuff? I know I do! But the hard work that comes into creating wrestling content every day is amazing but hard work. Countless hours of watching wrestling shows, taking notes, setting up, recording, editing, maybe doing a livestream, and more to make sure that everyone gets wrestling content daily. This isn’t me pressuring or trying to bring on guilt, but I want to put things into perspective. If any one of my readers thought, I get paid by any of the companies I cover or whenever I get media passes, I don’t.
Gain 58 new readers that enjoy wrestling to reach a total of 200. We are currently at 142. That number tends to fluxate. And I think it might be because I’m dropping content daily. This is the 1 time where I’m being consistent with something. If I’m not dropping content daily, then I’m working on content to drop, or I’m reverting back to my bad habits, and I don’t want that. Apologizes for dropping wrestling content daily, but I’m proving to myself that I can be consistent. It’s an imaginary challenge I have with myself. I have to prove that I can create as much work, for the right price, to do this FULL TIME because everyone with me on this journey believes in me and genuinely wants to support me. I hope none of this guilts you at all. Again, I want to put things into perspective since I know most aren’t so deep into the wrestling community fandom like I am. I rely on those fans that hangout in wrestling twitter to sign up to this newsletter so I can go further on this journey. But because I have very strong opinions, I’m often blocked or muted on the bird app. But everyone’s lord and savior in the wrestling media world can do no wrong when proven time and time again he’s super toxic.

Available for iOS and Android

Let’s talk G1 Climax 32 and Ideas

The G1 Climax is an annual NJPW tournament to determine the number 1 contender or at least given a title shot at a later date against the current IWGP World Heavyweight Champion. Our current champion is “The Catalyst” of Professional Wrestling, Switchblade Jay White.

This year is the biggest tournament to date. They created 4 blocks with 7 seven wrestlers in each block. We have Block A, B, C, and D.

Block A

Block B

Block C

Block D

I’m not going to discuss their affiliation because everyone except Tom Lawlor belongs to a group in NJPW. NJPW is big on factions or stables. I can list the names from Japanese names since I’ve watched these guys wrestle for so long.

The G1 32 starts on July 16th and ends on August 18. It’s a round robin style very similar to this year’s Best of the Super Jrs 29.

Remember:

2 points for a pin or submission
1 point for a draw
0 points for a loss

Ideas & Goals

I will be running a sale during the whole G1. I want to give all my readers a chance to unlock exclusives. Keep in mind that nothing is set in stone and things can change or fall apart.

Discount of 28% off yearly and monthly subscriptions will start on July 16th. When upgrading to a paid subscription you will be emailed a special G1 Climax 32 calendar that lists all the matches on the all the days. If you don’t want to use the discount and would love to purchase the calendar, that would be $10.
Goal: I’ve reached out to some NJPW contacts and asked if they would like to be a co-host with me as I preview and talk about the G1 32 via Twitter Spaces. I want to get back into twitter spaces. I think it’ll be a nice feature to add every once in a while.
Goal: Interview some of the G1 32 competitors such as: Jeff Cobb, Aaron Henare (again), Will Ospreay, David Finlay, Juice Robinson (probably will be the hardest one), and Lance Archer. As a reminder, interviews will be a locked feature. Interview prep plus reaching out to wrestlers and waiting for a response take a while.
Goal: Interview non-G1 32 competitors such as Davey Richards, Lance Anoa’i, and others from MLW.
Hoping the preview for the opening days for the G1 Climax 32 will be twitter spaces to promote everything. The G1 Climax has small down time. For example: July 16 (Saturday) & July 17 (Sunday) and then July 18 (Monday) & July 19 (Tuesday) are free and then the G1 continues on July 20th (Wednesday). Individual Podcast Eps will be up the next day at 10am est. Wrap up twitch streams will be during the down time.
Discussions threads for the G1 Climax!

That’s everything. Please, please let me know if you have any suggestions, feedback, questions, concerns! I would love to hear your thoughts! This is all a work in progress.

I AM PROUDLY PROUD OF EVERYONE IN THAT HAS SIGNED UP AND STAYED WITH ME ON THIS JOURNEY! I TRULY AM! I LOVE YOU GUYS!

I want to create more content that we can interact with, discuss, and learn from each other.

If you see an email, a simple heart will let me know that you got it. A simple heart goes a long way. And I’m always interested in reading your thoughts!

Again, nothing is set in stone. This is super ambitious for me!

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