I'm back!

Many years since I was here
On the street I was passin' my time away 
To the left and to the right
Buildings towering to the sky 
It's outta sight 
In the dead of night 
Here I am, again in this city, with a fistful of dollars 
And baby, you'd better believe 

I'm back, back in the New York Groove 
I'm back, back in the New York Groove 
I'm back, back in the New York Groove 
Back in the New York Groove, in the New York Groove

I felt this Ace Frehley/KISS classic was perfect to open up the brand-spanking new Off The Turnbuckle blog site, almost 10 years after I stopped writing what I consider to be the "Golden Era" of OTT -- the Sunday sports page staple that ran in the Lorain (Ohio) Morning Journal from 1998-to-2003 -- and almost five years to the week that I dusted off the OTT moniker for one last ride on the Morning Journal's Web page that fizzled out after six months due to a lack of promotion and my realization that I just didn't care for the professional wrestling (or sports entertainment) product like I did during the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Tonight, I will kick off OTT in style, bringing back the WrestleMania preview that many of you readers said was one of their favorite columns to read. I hope I can recapture some of that magic. However, I'm going to take a moment to talk about WHY I've decided to reclaim Off The Turnbuckle and bring it back.

I got extremely lucky when OTT was launched in November of 1998. WWE and WCW were both red-hot, cranking out must-see TV every Monday night. Pro wrestling was at its most popular since "Hulkamania" burst on the scene in the 1980s and I, in my 20s, became a huge "mark" (fan, in wrestling lingo) for wrestling again. The paper was considering capitalizing on the phenomena and purchasing a syndicated column. I quickly sent the editor of the paper (the late John Cole) a memo pitching that I (who was just a mere part-time sports writer still attending college) should be the one to do it. To my surprise, Cole gave me the ball.

There were a few times I juggled it, but I didn't drop it. And, to I think everyone's surprise, Off The Turnbuckle (which was one of a handful of titles I wrote on a piece of paper that they liked) became extremely popular.

At one time, OTT was the second-most read piece in the Morning Journal sports page other than the late Hal Lebovitz's sports columns. So, they would run OTT and Hal's Sunday column on the same page, which got tremendous positive feedback. Of course, there were a few complaining about pro wrestling being on the sports pages, and a few other colleagues of mine dissed it at every turn. But, it sold papers, and my stock quickly rose within the paper.

Ten years after, with the urging of the Journal's sports editor at the time (who never liked it), I pulled the plug on OTT in the print section of the Morning Journal, I suddenly got the urge to bring it back. Mostly, it was because of fans like you.

Yes, YOU, who clicked on a link that didn't have any posts yet because, simply, Off The Turnbuckle was coming back. YOU, who would stop me on the street and say, "Weren't you the guy who wrote Off The Turnbukcle? Man, that was my favorite thing to read in the Sunday paper. Why don't you bring it back?" YOU, who would drop hints to my Facebook page and suggest that I pitch it to one of the newspapers that I'm now writing for.

It's because of fans as passionate at YOU, who still remembered a little wrestling column after 10 years and still maintained how excellent it was.

So, thank you for reminding me just how awesome OTT was back in the day and reminding me that there's still a fanbase for it.

With the newspaper industry being what it is, I've decided to launch this on my own. I will update this blog site with an OTT that fits the familiar format that I used back in the day. Hopefully, it gets popular enough that I can start generating revenue off it based on advertising and hits. For now, I do it for free, simply to reclaim what is OURS.

I'm not going to lie, though. I kind of quit being a wrestling fan after 2003. The product just didn't suit my tastes. I'd turn on an episode of Raw and within 10 minutes I'd be checking the guide to see if there was anything else on. I realized that during the six-month "Web-only" OTT that ran in 2008. I just didn't have the passion for it, and it showed.

Within the last couple of years, mostly starting from just watching WrestleMania every year, I started getting back into it. I like some of the newer guys coming up, guys like Daniel Bryan, Alberto Del Rio, Dolph Ziegler (who I saw wrestle in high school at Lakewood St. Edward), Jack Swagger, Ryback, etc. I'm glad that some of the guys I liked during my heyday are still going, like The Rock, Triple H, Big Show, the Undertaker. I like how John Cena has become the new franshise of the WWE and how a guy I once watched wrestle at Jamie's Flea Market in South Amherst become the No. 1 heel in the industry -- CM Punk.

While I'm not as hooked on it as I was 15 years ago, I'm at least entertained by the WWE product again.

And, while I don't have as many "Internet goon" sources as I once did during the column's heyday, I'll at least try to keep it as entertaining as I did.

Lastly, I brought Off The Turnbuckle back because I realized that there were others out there trying claim this title as their own. Some of which were people I knew, who never even had the common courtesy to ask me if using the dusty moniker as their own would have been OK. That was the final kick in the ass I needed.

There can be only one Off The Turnbuckle, and the Off The Turnbuckle that became a big name was the Off The Turnbuckle that I, Dan Gilles, wrote for five glorious years and ran every Sunday morning. Like the Highlander, I'm back to reclaim what's mine.

Hence, my blogger handle, "TheOriginalOTT." This is the original -- often imitated, but never duplicated.

Thanks for sticking with OTT and keeping the faith all these years. With your support, hopefully, OTT will reclaim the mantle of one of the most read "insider" columns on professional wrestling.

This is gonna be fun!

Happy reading.

-- Dan