"A Decade in the Making"
In July 2012, I decided I wanted to create an e-magazine for folkstyle wrestling officials called “Mat Boss Magazine.” For various reasons, I never managed to follow through on that vision I had. A couple of years it was heavy professional demands that got in the way, a couple of other years it was sheer laziness,1That’s probably closer to “a few” than “a couple.” Oh, who am I kidding, it’s probably more like “seven,” but let’s not get lost in the weeds here. but whatever the reasons, the bottom line was that I had not really moved the project forward in any meaningful way since then.
What was my vision, exactly? As it turns out, I can show you.
Fast forward to July 25, 2022. I was archiving some old computer files to free up some disk space, when I happened to come across an image file with a creation date of July 25, 2012 (literally ten years to the day):
Realizing that it had actually been ten years since I first conceived of the idea and I still had done nothing to move it forward was precisely the swift kick in the pants that I needed. Immediately, I resolved that this would be the year Mat Boss Magazine turns into a reality, and if it does not, I would simply stop thinking of MBM as a realistic and serious project to undertake, permanently. Sometimes, the pressure of committing to a firm deadline can provide the needed motivation to really get the ball rolling. Whether this would be a sufficiently effective strategy here is something I would find out, one way or the other, in 82 days — the amount of time remaining until the October 15 deadline I had just set for publishing the first issue.
Realizing that it had actually been ten years since I first conceived of the idea and I still had done nothing to move it forward was precisely the swift kick in the pants that I needed.
Realizing that it had actually been ten years since I first conceived of the idea and I still had done nothing to move it forward was precisely the swift kick in the pants that I needed. Immediately, I resolved that this would be the year Mat Boss Magazine turns into a reality, and if it does not, I would simply stop thinking of MBM as a realistic and serious project to undertake, permanently. Sometimes, the pressure of committing to a firm deadline can provide the needed motivation to really get the ball rolling. Whether this would be a sufficiently effective strategy here is something I would find out, one way or the other, in 82 days — the amount of time remaining until the October 15 deadline I had just set for publishing the first issue.
There’s rarely a “perfect time” to start any long-term project. There will always be reasons to put it off, rationalizations for why some better moment will surely present itself down the road a bit. Then, next thing you know, a whole decade has flown by. This is clearly how people end up going their whole lives telling themselves such things, only to still be claiming that they “just haven’t found the right time” thirty years later. I don’t want to have those kinds of regrets.
The Format
MBM will publish three issues per year. The first is the preseason issue, which goes live around October 15. That will be followed by our in-season issue around January 15, with the final issue, the postseason issue, publishing around April 15.2“Around” means the issue will be published either on or within one week of that date (our objective is the former whenever possible). We may also publish some occasional bonus content during the summer months, though I haven’t made any final decisions on that yet.
Read more from Mack after this quick video preview of what you can expect in the coming issues of Mat Boss Magazine:
These kinds of video interludes within articles are intended to be a regular part of the MBM multimedia experience. They are not advertisements trying to sell you something, they are a part of the presentation itself. Don’t skip over them!
This same video appears in several different places throughout the first issue, so after you’ve watched it here, you can of course skip over it elsewhere. (Though you are always welcome to rewatch anything on the site as many times as you wish!)
Our Name: There's Literally No Other Decent Choice
I have had a full decade to ponder the question of what to call this magazine. I actually came up with “Mat Boss Magazine” almost immediately, so I thought that, given sufficient time, I would surely manage to come up with something even better. However, what I eventually discovered was that, other than calling it “Wrestling Officials Magazine,” there is no other title which, in no more than two words plus the word “Magazine,” reasonably conveys that it could possibly be a magazine intended only for wrestling officials.3And not, say, a magazine for wrestlers (thus removing names like “Mat King Magazine” or “Mat Skills Magazine” from consideration) or some kind of warehouse logistics magazine (thus removing names like “Mat Management Magazine” or “Mat Control Magazine” from consideration). In fact, having come up with zero other viable names, I think I actually would have just settled for “Wrestling Officials Magazine” (truly an uninspired title if there ever was one) had “Mat Boss Magazine” not existed. I am fairly certain this is as good as the name is ever going to get, and so I am perfectly content with it, but just for the record, it’s not as though I had any other decent option here.4You’re certainly welcome to try to do better, but I believe you’d just be wasting your time.
Built for Desktop Viewing, Though Still Optimized for Mobile
This is an e-magazine; therefore, it will naturally contain a lot of text. This means that when you view the site on a mobile device such as a phone, it will be hard to avoid having large walls of text on your screen when you are trying to read the articles. This is definitely not as visually pleasing as the way the content is presented on larger screens, such as tablet, laptop, and desktop. This site was specifically built to be experienced on those larger devices, though it is still optimized for those who wish to view it on a mobile device, for whatever reason. The content presented will always be identical in all material respects regardless of the device you use to view the site, though it may need to be displayed differently to be able to accommodate smaller screen sizes while still keeping text to a minimum readable size.
Where Can We Find MBM on Social Media?
Actually, you can’t. It takes lots of additional time and energy to set up and maintain social media accounts in addition to the website, and we’d rather just put those key resources into the website itself. MBM has exactly three publishing dates per year (October 15, January 15, and April 15), so there aren’t going to be any surprises in that regard. If you wish to be reminded by email when new issues are published, you can subscribe to our new issue reminder list, which will be displayed prominently on the home page in a few weeks. One benefit of subscribing to this list is that you will also receive a notification email when any summer bonus content gets published.
If you want to send us a message, definitely use our contact form! We check for new messages at least once per day, and you have our promise that we will read each and every one of them, even if we are unable to personally reply to each of them.
Still Groundbreaking, Ten Years Later!
Ten years ago, Mat Boss Magazine was supposed to be “breaking new ground for you.” Well, ten years later — and I really cannot say this is totally shocking — that ground remained as new and unbroken as ever.
Until now. The first and only magazine for folkstyle wrestling officials is finally here, and that ground is officially broken! Be sure to tell all of your fellow officials and officials’ associations about us, because this kind of hyper-niche publication really depends upon our audience eventually finding out about us that way. Don’t just assume your fellow officials already know that we exist!
Comparison: 2012 vs. 2022
I thought this was pretty cool. You can compare the original and the new covers by moving the slider in the middle. Check it out:
Here’s what it looks like with the website header. The zebra stripes, which we were still using back in 2012, was certainly an…interesting design choice for the background, but it made the text way too difficult to see. Also, I’m required to mention to you that looking directly at it for any sustained period of time could potentially induce seizures.
Yours in officiating,
