Sportskeeda's own Kevin Sullivan talks about his odd injuries, writing about wrestling, WWE, battling mental health issues and more (Exclusive)

Kevin talks about writing about wrestlers, his interactions with a former WWE star and more

Kevin, his cat, and his daughter

AB: When did you first start to write?

KS: When I was younger, I was never athletic or good at math. I was good at English class and really got into creative writing, short stories, and things like that. That’s what got me into writing in general. The only thing that I knew of writing at the time was journalism. I went to Iowa State for that initially, before I switched to an English degree. Looking back, that was not one of my wisest decisions. So when I started looking into journalism, that’s when the online writing started taking off.

That’s when I got into writing about wrestling and video games and stuff like that.

AB: You’ve founded a lot of online sites and had experience running them. Is there any experience you’d like to share from this time?

KS: Nothing really stands out, but starting those really helped me get to what I’m doing right now. I either started sites or got on board right after they started. There’s nothing that I wrote for or started that’s around today except one site, which is Nuclear Salad. I don’t work for it anymore, but my friend Barbara does. Starting all these sites helped me self teach myself on how to do a publishing schedule, managing writers, editing styles, and also learned how to contact different companies and talk to PR people.

Today it’s harder than it was back then. Video game companies were anxious to get their products reviewed online back then wherever they could. Even the bigger ones. I worked with Konami and Nokia. When Metal Gear Solid 3 came out they sent me a copy of the game with binoculars and a t-shirt. It was a good time to be writing back then.

I was able to carry a lot of that over to what I do now. I went to E3 a number of times and got invited to industry parties and nearly ran headfirst into Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo. I nearly did, but thankfully I didn’t as I would have gotten beaten up by his security, no I’m just kidding. It was a great experience and everything I’m doing today I would not have been able to do if I had not done that.

AB: How did you start watching wrestling?

KS: This was late-1989. My friend Adam was sleeping over. It was late night and we were watching TV. It was a late night when they were airing a show of Superstars. We saw The Ultimate Warrior and just thought it was crazy. My friend Adam thought, "this can’t be good for kids. He’s talking about darkness as he’s shaking the ropes."

And I was like "Dude, it's basically a cartoon, settle down. Also, you'rea kid. Shut up."

That was the first time watching it. The first time we watched it from beginning to end was an episode of Superstars just before SummerSlam 1990. The first match was a squash match with Earthquake and some enhancement talent. I wanted to watch more of it because I thought my parents didn’t want me to watch wrestling, and other than the entertaining part it was like I was getting away with something. I got into learning as much as I could and I used to research in the library. I did the same for anything I got into and read about bands and other things there.

For wrestling, I scoured the TV guide and I scrolled the TV listings and would wait for any wrestling show to pop up and then would write it down so that I could watch that. Be it WCCW, NWA anything that they were showing. I would buy wrestling magazines at the stores as well. That’s how I learned about smaller federations as well. There was a period in between the Ruthless Aggression Era and 2010 that I lost touch with wrestling for a bit but then got right back in.

AB: How did you start writing about wrestling for the first time?

KS: I started writing for fun. I enjoyed it and I was also eager to see what free stuff I could get (laughs). The first site I started was Steamworks.net. It was movies, video games, and wrestling. I got to know Men on a Mission’s Oscar. There was a site called WrestleCrap which once did an interview with Oscar and posted his email address. So I sent him an email asking him if he’d be interested in doing movie reviews, or would be on an interview, and I thought that would be hilarious. He replied saying he will get investors for us and will get us to talk to Hulk Hogan. He promised to hook us up to Hulk saying that we would be getting in on it. He offered us $10,000 cash, and we just had to fly him out and put him up in a hotel. At that time it would cost like $1,000. We were out of college and we didn’t have any money. When I told my buddy, he was like "stop taking his calls". That’s something that I was really skeptical about.

I also wrote for a men’s site called Rugged.com. That site is not around anymore. The guy who bought the site (not the original owner), and ran it, got divorced and then I found out he was a felon. He not only ditched the site but wiped it from existence. The only proof that I have that I wrote for them, I’m still in touch with some of the guys I wrote with there. I’m still in touch with them. The editor there's named Justin Baker, who’s a really nice guy, but he hated The Rock. That’s the first time I got paid to professionally write about wrestling… that is until I found out about Sportskeeda.

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Up next: Kevin talks about mental health issues and overcoming them