Grading Essay R

Grading Essay R
Grade: D+

While the author seems to know about wrestling and compare and contrast wrestling then and now, the author is largely ineffective at communicating his points due to lack of a thesis, textual evidence and well-expressed thought.

First off, the author fails to state a clear thesis, or even point out which facets of wrestling they will be examining. This shows, from the beginning, that the paper is not entirely focused. The writer tried to prove that they were knowledgeable about wrestling but could have structured their paper better to talk about the business, the wrestlers, and the show. Instead, they bounce back and forth between subjects and conclude the paper saying that “[they] think that all the changes that [they] have mentioned have been good.” They made gallant attempts to compare present and past but went off on so many tangents that I lost track of what they were actually supposed to be writing about. For example, did they need to mention the “faces” and “heels” of wrestling? This doesn’t seem to be a relevant point in a compare-contrast essay unless these figures were newly introduced when the spectacle of became more important than the wrestling. They try to instill some credibility in themselves by saying that they “have been there to watch it evolve into what it has become today” and that they “have seen or heard about every major superstar there has been in this industry.” While this may be true, the author mentions little about the specific wrestlers themselves, missing out on an opportunity to back up his statements.

The assignment required that the author “smoothly incorporate the use of some outside textual source material.” The author only uses one outside source in their paper, which is only cited for statistics pertaining to the market business of wrestling within the last few years with no data from the 1980’s. A quick Google search brought up that there were action figures made of 1980s wrestlers; marketing is not a new thing for sports and athletes but the author seemed desperate for a source, inserting sales figures from only the past few years. In order to better verify their statement that “all the superstars of today are considerably more built and have more strength,” they could have cited an interview or even a biography or autobiography from a pro wrestler about their fitness routine. Instead, they generalize and editorialize, saying that, for instance, the women are “some of the most beautiful women in the world.” There are surveys that they could have incorporated to back up this point but instead, the author seems enthralled with women in general and says how the women are “succeeding in a male dominated business.” If this were true, shouldn’t they have included, possibly, salaries that these professional athletes are paid in order to confirm their point?

They made several grammatical and spelling mistakes, and expressed very subjective opinions that weren’t cited. It was written very casually, giving the reader a much too cursory glance of the world of wrestling as they tried to touch base with everything. It also seemed rushed, as there is even a missing sentence that just begins with “then.” It might have been successful, had the author actually refined their points and vocabulary. The conclusion especially seemed loose, basically stating that despite the changes over the course of two decades, wrestling will continue to change as it always has but I’m not sure I see how. If the wrestlers already have to keep in “top cardiovascular shape,” how would the wrestlers improve on that? If the women have already posed for one of the most popular men’s magazines, how would that change in the foreseeable future? Will wrestling simply become a show and not an actual test of strength? Or has it already reached that level with the fireworks and taped promos?

From this essay, I got the sense that the sport of wrestling has changed to become more of a business, a campaign built upon celebrities who bulk up not for actually wrestling but rather for the show. Thus, what the fans of wrestling are now watching staged performances for the spectacle rather than the gritty realism of people sweating bullets locked in battle to avoid being thrown off their feet. Basically, they got their point across that yes, some things are different but they failed to prove it and present it in a clear-cut fashion.