Welcome to Pro Wrestling Stories, your daily source of professional wrestling history and nostalgia since 2015.
Step through the curtain and back in time with us as we uncover professional wrestling’s rich past through tales of its celebrated, bizarre, and darkest moments. As you’ll discover, what happened outside the ring was often just as fascinating, if not more so, than what happened within it.
About Pro Wrestling Stories
At the heart of Pro Wrestling Stories today are over 100 writers from all corners of the globe, from El Salvador to Adelaide, to Canada, the United Kingdom, Asia, and beyond. Our team includes former WWE Superstars, Olympians, Playboy models, TBS executives who oversaw the running of World Championship Wrestling (WCW), teachers, accountants-turned-historian and podcast hosts, best-selling authors, and more, many of whom founder JP Zarka now considers family. Together, they’ve built a home for over 1,000 articles and a passionate global readership, all in service of honoring and preserving the history of professional wrestling.
But it didn’t start that way.
It began in 2014, when a young JP Zarka, then a full-time teacher and assistant principal, read Bret Hart’s autobiography and found himself drawn to the real-life stories behind the ring: wrestlers spending up to 350 days a year on the road, away from their families, and the camaraderie and rivalries that played out backstage. That curiosity turned into a Saturday morning ritual: writing about the wrestling stories that fascinated him most on Reddit’s Squared Circle community.
What began as a handful of posts among fellow fans quickly grew into a weekend series, known as “Wrestling Stories,” which would be voted “Best Post Series” of 2015 by the subreddit’s million-plus members. That same year, a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” session Zarka hosted with Savio Vega was voted the subreddit’s “Best AMA” as well. Those early honors gave Zarka the confidence to give the stories a proper home, and on May 16, 2015, Pro Wrestling Stories was born.
Just days after the launch of ProWrestlingStories.com, legendary commentator Jim Ross shared one of the site’s stories on Twitter, about Owen Hart. Soon after, Sports Illustrated featured the site in its “Extra Mustard” column, calling it “a great website full of behind-the-scenes anecdotes and a good way to lose 30 minutes of your life.” For Zarka, whose first-ever magazine subscription as a kid had been SI, that moment made it all feel real.
For the site’s first year and a half, Zarka wrote every article himself, still teaching by day and building the site’s following by night and on weekends. By 2018, with readership climbing, he faced a choice: stay the course in education or take a leap of faith into Pro Wrestling Stories full-time. He chose the leap. That same year, he began “The Genius Cast” podcast with the late Lanny Poffo, a project he has called one of the most joyful and meaningful experiences of his life, which opened doors to further collaborations with the BBC, ITV Studios, and Amazon MGM Studios. You can read the full story of how Pro Wrestling Stories came to be here.
That same commitment to real stories, told with care, still guides the site today. Our writers commit to sharing accounts fully and factually, without bias or sensationalism, drawing only on trusted primary sources: original interviews conducted ourselves, or reputable accounts such as autobiographies and shoot interviews.
With over two million readers a month and nearly 250,000 followers across our social media platforms, Pro Wrestling Stories has become a trusted authority on pro wrestling history since 2015.
Our work has earned recognition from some of the industry’s most respected voices. Sports Illustrated celebrates us as “a great website full of behind-the-scenes anecdotes and a good way to lose 30 minutes of your life!”
Acclaimed professional wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer says, “Love your stuff. Real wrestling history.”
Pro Wrestling Illustrated awarded us their highest honor, 5 out of 5 suplexes, praising our site as “consistently sensitive in its reporting and storytelling, with its writers and editors mindful of their obligations as authors and archivists. Even the most somber fare is never sensationalized.”
And most recently, WWE Hall of Famer Gerald Brisco, a legendary professional wrestler, backstage producer, and executive who served as WWE’s chief talent scout for over three decades, discovering stars like Brock Lesnar, Chad Gable, and Jason Jordan, praised our commitment: “I’m really enjoying PWS. Most sites like this are BS, you guys stick with the facts and that makes you guys the best. Keep up the fantastic work.”
Enjoy your stay, and if you have any story requests or want to get in touch for an interview, do not hesitate to contact us.
You can learn more about our incredible writing team here.
If you want to write for Pro Wrestling Stories, visit our Write For Us page for details.
Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok to keep informed about our latest.
And never forget: our professional wrestling history is gold!