PWI 25th Anniversary

Has anyone picked this up yet?

I've got to admit -- from the time I was a kid, up until maybe six or seven years ago, I bought so many of the PWI family of magazines that I probably financed Bill Apter's vacation home. But ever since those magazines became passe (after the evolution of the Internet, WOW Magazine, etc.), I really haven't bought any. The closest I come is sneaking a peek at one in a bookstore every once in a while. But the quality has gone waaaaaay downhill from the glory days.

Yet when I saw the 25th anniversary one today, I decided what the hell and picked it up. I was very surprised by the dry humor it had -- how the magazine was able to laugh at itself and also have some fun at the expense of wrestlers that were featured over the years. For example, there's a "Then and Now" type section that shows how Dustin Rhodes, Kevin Nash, Bob Holly, etc. looked at different stages of their career. Then they show Lance Storm, looking exactly the same in both pictures. Cute.

The REAL bonus, though, is that they replicated the entire first edition of PWI with Dusty Rhodes and Mil Mascara on the cover and included the reprinted magazine with the anniversary issue. It even has all the original ads for guns, guitar lessons, trading cards, etc. Very cool!

Anyways, in my opinion, for about $12 Canadian (36 cents U.S.), it wasn't a bad deal at all.