WOW Magazine

WOW Magazine (World of Wrestling Magazine) was a professional wrestling magazine which existed from 1999 to late 2001. It was originally launched with its debut issue in March 1999 by Mike Morris and H&S Media, with Blake Norton as the Editor-In-Chief. It promised to cater to the smart population of wrestling fans; breaking kayfabe, writing about backstage events, wrestling politics, and not treating storylines as real.

WOW was the first publication of its kind to use insider terms - such as “mark” and “shoot” - and also conducted out-of-character interviews with wrestlers from the WWF, WCW, ECW and the independent circuit.

Other magazines available during this time period, which covered wrestling storylines and feuds as legitimate, have earned the moniker “mark mags” or more specifically, “Apter mags,” in reference to the man, Bill Apter, who was the Senior Editor of such periodicals. A few examples of these magazines are Pro Wrestling Illustrated (or PWI) and Inside Wrestling.

In late 1999, Apter left his job with the aforementioned mark mags and took over the position of Editor-In-Chief of WOW Magazine. As a result, the publication appeared to gained more notoriety, due to Apter’s 20+ years of experience. However, according to many industry insiders, WOW’s initial appeal - as a cutting edge, innovator of wrestling journalism - soon lost its luster as the magazine slowly became the latest incarnation of mark mags, only with glossy, full color pages.

In mid-2001 the Kappa Publishing Group - who just happen to be the longtime publishers of PWI and thus Bill Apter's former employers - took over the rights to WOW Magazine from H&S Media and shortly thereafter the magazine folded.

WOW had a sister publication, ECW Magazine, which featured columns, show reviews, and interviews with wrestlers working for the Philadelphia based promotion, Extreme Championship Wrestling.