Dead Format is a home for everything that refuses to stay buried — a celebration of the formats, fandoms, and cultural moments that shaped generations. From VHS tapes to cassette bootlegs, forgotten wrestling angles to early PlayStation classics, we spotlight the media others left behind.
We’re not just about nostalgia — we’re about context. Why did that weird straight-to-video horror film still haunt your dreams? Why was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 a cultural reset? What made 90s wrestling entrances hit harder than today’s algorithm-produced themes? Dead Format digs into the details, tracking the evolution of media, subcultures, and everything in-between.
Expect retrospective features, deep-dive analysis, opinion pieces, and music you won’t find on the front page of Spotify. Wrestling fans will find old-school tributes alongside modern takes. Gamers will get lost in pixel-heavy memories and weird peripherals. Music lovers? You’re in for playlists, legacy breakdowns, and the odd lovingly overthought track-by-track.
Our name is the mission: we’re here for the so-called “dead” formats — not to mock them, but to remind people why they mattered. We believe physical media tells a story. That intros still slap. That liner notes still mean something. That the B-side might be better.
From TWM to Dead Format
Before Dead Format, we was TWM — The Wrestling Mania, later TWM.News. What began as a grassroots wrestling blog in 2013 grew into a full-fledged magazine site, blending match reports with deep-dive retrospectives and editorial features. At it’s peak, almost half a million views, with an exceptional following on social media back before Twitter broke itself.
TWM made its mark not by breaking niche scoops, but by championing thoughtful, fan-driven coverage. It spotlighted UK wrestling during the BritWres boom, hunkered down during COVID, kept pace with AEW and NJPW, and carved out a niche for itself through long-form history pieces, “By the Numbers” stats, and music-meets-wrestling crossovers that few others attempted. For many writers, TWM was a launchpad — a place to cut their teeth, build their voice, and join a passionate community.
By 2025, TWM had outgrown its skin. Wrestling was still at its heart, but the vision had expanded: music, film, gaming, pop culture, all viewed through the same obsessive, retrospective lens. Dead Format was born not as a replacement, but as an evolution. The DNA is still there — the love of detail, the refusal to let cultural moments fade — but the scope is wider, the ambition greater.
Yesterday’s Media. Today.
Whether you’re reliving the past or discovering it for the first time, Dead Format is your rewind button. We’re not here to dwell — we’re here to explore, explain, and get a little obsessive.
Welcome to Dead Format.
Welcome to the next chapter.