[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is a member of the Voices of Wrestling Podcasting Network.
[SPEAKER_00]: Visit VoicesOfRecelling.com to hear the rest of our great podcast as well as show reviews, columns, opinions, and updates across the world of wrestling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll tell you why in a moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: But first of all, let me state to anybody who's ever listened to this show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't have to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't have to spend your time listening to me ramble on about old 80s wrestling and how these kids today or whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did my best to be entertaining.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't always succeed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't always as engaging or as smart as I thought I could be on wrestling.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I was just not in the mood.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I was just being silly, but most of all, thank you for your time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your times as precious as anybody else is on this thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you to Rich and Joe at Voices of Wrestling.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have said, take some time off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Figure out what you want to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to bring it back.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't, that's also fine as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have been doing this since I was 39.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am now 53.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like it's time to grow up, honestly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've been sacrificing a lot of weekends for the last nine, ten years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some based on scheduling and trying to get this show on because I know that for a podcast you need you need to do it regularly and consistently to get an audience or else you're not going to get one.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's not a lot of money in wrestling podcasting as anybody will tell you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of funny one of the guys who When I was doing a fight for Rubin goes you make six feet years doing fight for right.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like dude Making 25 a show if I'm lucky and I never took a paycheck after a certain time from fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, because I thought the kids over there needed it So yeah, once a rich and Joe and Actually, well Rob owned half foot of voices a wrestling at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Robin rich.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is their baby
[SPEAKER_01]: And they brought us along to do the state side WWE because Joe really didn't want to at the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a bit it was going to be part of the interruption for wrestling and then Blabbermouth here at things he wanted to say.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it just became a show and then it morphed and then it morphed again and then eventually we're trying to find ways to keep me interested.
[SPEAKER_01]: NXT Black and Gold came around that kept me interested the 99 or the 100 matches to see before you die Vader club But a lot of the modern wrestling, you know, unless it was a hot angle Wasn't keeping me all that interested to be honest with you But from there we got a platform with fight full cuz Sean Ross Apple's nice enough to Higher both robin eye for post shows over there so I got a extended platform over there and I love the kids over at fight full.
[SPEAKER_01]: They do great work
[SPEAKER_01]: I would go back over there and do things, but I don't know my place over there either.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a young person's network, wrestling news and opinions and things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the modern day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a modern day, wrestling observer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know a lot of people will fight against that and Dave Meltzer standards and things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Sean Rossap does his good job at journalism as Dave.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he talks to probably more people than Dave right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not that Dave's doing a bad job.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dave's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like Dave.
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of which, thank you to Mike Sempervidi for giving me a couple of chances over at figure four daily in the afternoon.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a hoot in the holler to be on national radio sports byline.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I could tell my friends, hey, I'm on national radio.
[SPEAKER_01]: Take a listen for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was eighth through.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, thanks for the people that love wrestling who have had me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess over there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, any number of wrestling networks that no longer exist, it had me hosting there, you know, less more and talking sheet.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a blast doing that with Chris Miller, Chris Miller, and David Bixon span on between the sheets, blast doing those shows.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not stopping doing audio.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm stopping doing this audio for a while until I can figure out how I want to reconfigure it.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I do want to reconfigure it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll still be doing the dynamite show or at fight game media.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you to Gary Gonzalez and Paul Fontaine for having me come over there when, you know, they can pick other people and that's a small bit mighty network and I highly suggest you all listen to it, cause a lot of people over there doing great work people are doing great work everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the thing is wrestling media is very friendly with each other because we all kind of know at the fandom can be a little bit abusive at times.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we kind of
[SPEAKER_01]: grin bare its and each other dm's of hey keep going you're doing good stuff and move on but yeah everybody's kind of Yeah, there's nobody doing poor work necessarily out there to me And if you're doing podcasting right now keep at it grow your audience But do it for you don't do it like I thought when I first started doing this
[SPEAKER_01]: That if I was smart enough, because that was my job.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really liked Todd Martin when he was at Figure 4.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like his chemistry with Wade Keller as much, but I did like his chemistry with Brian Alvarez.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought there was room for somebody else like that, like a Jordan Brain of Share Dog, the late Jordan Brain, if you remember him at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very smart, very witty.
[SPEAKER_01]: a little bit too cool for school i could never pull that off and instead i became a morning radio co-host wacky guy so because i like the laugh and wrestling's kind of stupid at times but i thought if i had smart enough opinions maybe i could get another shot at a writing gig i'd already
[SPEAKER_01]: tried twice, but I was getting old and I, you know, they want pop culture people in WWE and I didn't necessarily want WWE.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have liked AEW when it came up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I could be good in the room, but I'm also going to be the guy that's going to be very critical in the room.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if they wanted that necessarily.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, when I left fight full, it was a take a job that was well into six figures.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I left that job and I got my afternoon's back, which was a godsend to do software and get out of legal, I had these afternoon's free and I was a little bit reinvigorated because I wasn't spending three hours a day commuting back and forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, honestly, the other thing is
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know my place in wrestling criticism anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't fit at voices of wrestling.
[SPEAKER_01]: You go on the discord.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll see plenty of people say that I shouldn't belong here, even though I've been through many people who have told me I shouldn't be on here.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they have since quit wrestling and gone on to other things and come back out, oh, you're still here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I go, yes, I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people do this for access and need it for their content and I have nothing but respect for the hustle that's involved with that, but it's not my kind of content and I don't need it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like having opinion and being honest about it and I don't feel I need to pull my punches.
[SPEAKER_01]: just to make people happy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, I've been far too critical of late to the point where I'm not having negative radio is fun for a short time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you're always negative, it's a drag to the listeners and drag to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was trying to find things that, you know, excited me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they aren't there a lot anymore because I feel like
[SPEAKER_01]: Modern wrestling, the format hasn't changed.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in in Arena.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's backstage at a television show.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been that way since 96.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wish somebody would do something to shake things up a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: But also, the athleticism has never been better and the personality has never been worse.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who's having fun being a heel other than maybe MJF?
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe CM Punk if you consider tonight what he was doing, Healish.
[SPEAKER_01]: who's having fun being a baby face being, you know, the people's hero and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: But who's out there having fun?
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe Eoski.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Eoski is having way too much fun because I, you know, just playing ours out and going, you know, it's, you know, nothing wrong with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But all these shows are just like there's this weird grimness to them, like, like, oh, if we have to be really good tonight, you know, that kind of,
[SPEAKER_01]: flop sweat pressure almost at you here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like mostly shows don't even need to be alive because nothing exciting enough happens on the shows That's some good editing and blanning wouldn't fix to be honest with you, but someone Dave Said out there well, you know people won't watch if there are spoilers out there, et cetera, et cetera as if
[SPEAKER_01]: as if people don't watch critically acclaimed television even though some of the spoilers are out on the internet what you do is you avoid the internet and yeah but gosh I've already gone off my point which was the thank you everybody
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll get to my AEW critique in a bit because there's going to be some wrestling content on here, but look, I'll list everybody if I can remember them, Rob McCarran, Chris Novemberino,
[SPEAKER_01]: Who are the talkie sheet guys?
[SPEAKER_01]: I know his real name, but I don't want to reveal it on the air, but his, his, his pen name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anywho, Dylan Hayles was on once Todd Martin came on Mike Semper VV came on Warren Hayes, I'm forgetting a couple other people who filled in and I apologize for that and I don't mean oh my Gilbert.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just know sort of pop comics I can't remember is your name and I don't want to don't want to ignore you and this Cause you came in a time when I was in Arizona, and I really needed somebody to co-host the show with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think I got all the guess and stuff that we had over the history of 14 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't very many because we didn't do a lot of guess because, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you got to be critical or something, you don't want to do that and God knows that Dave Meltzer interview was on the worst day.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was on.
[SPEAKER_01]: We weren't going to have come into like a preview of battleground or something dumb WWE paperview and Nick Bokwinkle and just died.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like that's not the day for Dave to do the less more.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: To do the to do the thing, but you know, eventually we got him talking about
[SPEAKER_01]: Nick Bockwinkle because I knew something about Nick Bockwinkle and that was always, you know, fun, dude.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just an interview that's not going well.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know everybody's afraid just going to take it, but Jeff knows how to talk to people occasionally.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, that was, that was fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, I'm going to try and bring something back in this feed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So keep the speed in your podcasts, catchers and whatnot, but I need a break.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my proudest thing is I think in the entire run of the show, I missed a total of two shows in terms of getting audio out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe three because the zoom screwed up some of the audio the first time, or second time, but And the other two were in the course of this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: But.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those of you have supported me during my cancer, those of you have supported me.
[SPEAKER_01]: When my father died, I really appreciate all of you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you once again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, as if on brand, a rant of sorts about the upcoming AEW all in.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I feel like people are dancing around this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know Brian Alvarez is on the right track.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to this a little bit on Wednesday night on the dynamite show over at fight game media.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this Will Osprey, Kenny Omega, Bill has been bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't care if the match is going to be good, the bill has been bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm a little confused if it's me or if it's my expectations.
[SPEAKER_01]: that should have had months of build two alphas who are heroes to the people staying away from each other, not doing passive aggressive barbs, no heelishness, whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a super fight that might change wrestling.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like this company has burned money.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really think
[SPEAKER_01]: with the right kinds of build.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, can you hear this base, by the way, I have Russian neighbors who just decide to have dance parties at all hours of the day, and I can't wait to leave Los Angeles.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, what I was rushing to have to do with it, I don't know, it's just a descriptor.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I think this could have been ratings changing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Tony Conne has a big problem with the personality of his show.
[SPEAKER_01]: He likes his length, he likes doing his long matches, and he likes the critical acclaim of the quality of matches.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those things can't be denied, but you have a large roster of people that aren't getting their personalities over to the point where the next time you put them in a match, people want to see them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: That kitty will ask for a sit down.
[SPEAKER_01]: Might have been okay if you had split it up into three weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And week one was, hey, do you remember the PWG match?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you get permission, because I'm sure X Calbrook could get permission to show the PWG match.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was there, it was a good match.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the next week, the New Japan stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you show highlights of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I felt you didn't need any of this healer stuff, and especially the end of that show where Will Osprey is petty.
[SPEAKER_01]: And comes out after the Don Callis family you shouldn't be there along with.
[SPEAKER_01]: Other enough, I didn't that you night Empire, but a D-level character should be in there 11 days before the pay preview, but here we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: But they try, they're saying break his neck, break his neck with Kenny.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Osprey comes out afterwards.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, sorry, I couldn't make it boss.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Kenny gets more petty after being saved.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was inexplicable to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this seems like the easiest building the world because everybody likes both guys and everybody should be stoked to the point where champion at the bit to get to this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you should be doing that kind of super fight media blitz for this.
[SPEAKER_01]: This should be everywhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just local, but everywhere, because WWE is for AEW's laziness, WWE is a different kind of lazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have the shelf space to be lazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are Coca-Cola.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have Coca-Cola, classic vanilla Coke, lime Coke, Coke, Coca-Cola, peppermint Coke, orange Coke, whatever Coke you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have the shelf space.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't need it.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have their format.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've been doing it for 30 years now.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're here live at this arena.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here comes somebody to talk for 20 minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody else comes out and interrupts them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody.
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, people were talking this week about Austin gun and, you know, that, you know, road dogs, the midst of his verbal diarrhea, saying that the guns were beneath the tag titles.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, really, when does anybody get the reps to be on the stick to prove that they can be that?
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the thing, you might get reps and matches, but you're not getting reps on the stick for 30 or 60 seconds at a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: These could be pre-tapes done during the day, so you do multiple takes as opposed to live, which is something that
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, why do these things have to be live?
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody cares about spoilers anymore, trust me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or it gives them a chance to see if the show's any good and skip it if it's not, but nevertheless, like Saturday Night Live, it's very rare that something live to the point that I need to be live happens on these shows.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I am just angry at AEW.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, my issue with their fans is different.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they get way too defensive when you could take them because they're afraid you want WWE to win.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not even a competitive match yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, let me know when the ratings in the viewership are kind of equal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we don't know that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we'll see in the House show attendance a little bit how things are going.
[SPEAKER_01]: That seems to be a pretty good barometer,
[SPEAKER_01]: And one group is doing 18,000 ones doing three.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I get that the match quality is good, but I don't watch this stuff like ice skating.
[SPEAKER_01]: I watch it for heat and promos and angles and build.
[SPEAKER_01]: The good wrestling can happen on the pay per views and I'm fine with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're doing a four and a half star match, that kind of means nothing to get to a four and a half star match that means something.
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe on a paper view because then we just go back to more four and a half star matches on on Wednesday.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's good for people who were tape collectors and maybe it's good for people in their 20s and 30s.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the that's the part that's getting me right now in terms of my place in this criticism sphere, because I'll go on the voices of net voices of wrestling slack and until they don't really care for my opinion and that's fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: hate lesson, get the downloads and you know, let me get paid.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's just a W has felt for a number of years like they are an underachieving brilliant kid who just doesn't want to put in the work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, there's these anecdotes that stick with you that become trueisms and wrestling
[SPEAKER_01]: Dave had critiqued a show that wasn't particularly good in terms of angle building and stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he relayed the story that Tony Conrich out to him and asked, but the matches were good, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And that has been burned in my brain.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think if you want AEW to be the best, number one promotion in America,
[SPEAKER_01]: You need to demand that some changes are made to the television format.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't need to go full Stanford.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not saying that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there are tricks and things to television.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of my screenwriting professors used to have the worst pun.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called tell a vision for a reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell your vision kind of a thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a bad pun, I'll admit it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But you have to show things.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't just say it on commentary and things like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, but if you're happy with them being your local bar band for five bucks a week and never want them to sell out to get that big record deal, I get that too.
[SPEAKER_01]: And are they doing fine?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm not saying they're going under like that Nickel Piccolo guy who's just obnoxious.
[SPEAKER_01]: Saying, oh, they're gonna cancel the TV deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think they're going to cancel the TV deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a TNT needs all the things, and TBS need all the things they can to get people to watch shows over there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that they've lost the NBA.
[SPEAKER_01]: But don't get on guys like Brian Alvarez, who are trying to make this product better and has an ear in there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know criticism is good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Negativity, necessarily, not so much, but I've tried my best not to be, oh, this sucks, I can't, you know, whatever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've tried to make it about the product, as much as I could.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also realize I'm kind of a glass half empty, kind of fill up, so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rant over, show over, I need a vacation.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope to talk to you later.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope I'm smart enough to think of something.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope I'm smart enough to become engaged again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I enjoy doing audio.
[SPEAKER_01]: But sometimes I feel like the stuff I'm doing audio about isn't fun and that leads to not fun audio.
[SPEAKER_01]: But again, the main message of this show has been thank you for 14 years of friendship and the listenership and criticisms and compliments.