Spotlight on Pro Wrestling writer Richard Othen.
Well, it’s been a hot minute! Hi, my name is Richard (Ric or Rich for
short) and after an 11 month hiatus from writing I have been given the
opportunity to write again, this time for KO News. Before I get into my
body of work, allow me to tell you all a little bit about myself.
I was born in Farnham, Surrey, England, where I spent the first 15 years
of my life before moving to Australia in 2002, gaining citizenship in 2005.
I guess that makes me an English Australian. I have been a wrestling fan
since a very young age and count myself lucky to be a child/teenager
during the amazing Attitude Era. Austin, The Rock, DX and a lot of T&A
(and I don’t mean Test and Albert,) it was a magical time. I watched the
big 3 promotions during the late 90s and early 2000s, WWF (before that
stupid panda made them change to WWE,) WCW and ECW. Imagine
that, a fan watching multiple promotions and enjoying them all, ah the
good ol’ days.
I grew up a massive Shawn Michaels fan but as I grew into adulthood, I
became I fan of CM Punk. Fast forward to the present and now Jon
Moxley has become my go to guy, I even named my Dog after him, much
to my wife’s chagrin.
As technology and streaming has become easier and easier, I have found
myself watching other wrestling promotions other than WWE. The main
promotions I watch now are NJPW (New Japan,) TNA (formally impact)
ROH and AEW, the latter being what I watch more so than anything else.
Why may you ask? The answer is simple. They are primarily more sports
based, hard hitting (strong style) promotions. Thats not to say that there
isn’t a place for the soap opera aspect of pro wrestling, it’s just not what
I look for first in my wrestling anymore. If you want an example of what
I’m talking about go check out one of my favorite matches. It was
between Katsuyori Shibata and Tomohiro Ishii from WrestleKingdom 10
for NJPW.
I have been writing and creating content about wrestling for the past
couple of years now, having landed my first job in writing for a small
wrestling news site based in England. This progressed into making a
weekly show on YouTube for the company focusing on a weekly recap of
AEW Dynamite. Moving on from the first wrestling news site, I got the
opportunity to write for NoDQ.com. This was a big step up as NoDQ has
got a much larger following and is a bigger brand compared to the place
I wrote for previous. I still wrote primarily about AEW, only this time
they were more opinion based articles as they are more fun to write
about and it allowed me more creative freedom. My favorite piece and
most polarizing piece I wrote for NoDQ was titled “The hatred and the
hustle of the Young Bucks.” As you can imagine it garnered a lot of
strong opinions and responses to the article. In February 2023 I stopped
writing for NoDQ to focus on a new podcast my Friend Allan and I
created.
Taking a hiatus from writing gave Allan and I a chance to try and get our
own podcast and YouTube show off the ground. Our podcast is called
Second Rope Marks, where we talk about ALL things wrestling related
and not just AEW. Allan and I challenge each other’s knowledge on
wrestling past and present with trivia episodes as well as spotlight pieces
on different wrestlers. You can find us on YouTube and Spotify, just click
the link below.
Second Rope Marks Podcast – YouTube
I will continue to record for my podcast as well as being a part of the
amazing team here at Knockout News. I look forward to this new journey
I’m on and I cannot wait to share it with you all.
