2024 in Pro Wrestling Podcasts

[Elsalvajeloco]

I believe we should start a new one since it's a new year.

Anyway, I was listening to the Grilling JR episode on the final years of Mid South, the transition to the Universal Wrestling Federation, and ultimately the sale to Crockett. A few things piqued my interest.

1. The forced advertising JR brought up by slipping in $5 coupons for orders going out of Popeyes, then more of a regional chain than it is now, for balcony tickets to Mid South Wrestling. Holy crap, I couldn't imagine that now especially with the price point for tickets being much different. This is basically "it's a crap place to be in the building BUT it's essentially free." I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when that deal was brokered though.

2. They played a segment relevant to the episode of Conrad's interview with Crockett Jr. before Jimmy passed away, and it struck me funny how Jimmy knew the deal was shit and was matter of fact in how desperate times call for desperate measures in a way. David was basically the voice of reason trying to convince his brother not to do it, and he still went through with it knowing he was being sold a bill of goods via Jim Ross. This is likely simplifying it a bit, but the whole "If you don't buy it, Watts will just sell it to Vince" working when Jimmy stated HIMSELF that Vince wasn't buying anything makes wonder if Jim legit knew the war was over before it even started.

3. When Jim goes in depth about the Mid South/UWF TV deals, how he got the syndicated deals, and talks about their time slots, I am amazed how the TV landscape has changed dramatically cause no way in the blue hell forty years later almost is ANYONE getting premium spots before or after the local news in certain as well as Sunday morning. Moreover, sports have completely overtaken and inherited the huge local ratings in markets across the country. So a basketball game can get away with a slightly above average nationwide if the local ratings in both respective market is great, which it would likely be. You would expect both home markets for the two teams to be above and beyond all other places in terms of viewership. WWE and AEW run a fair amount of the lower 48. I highly doubt that everything in terms of their respective viewership is equal across the board. So you can do a 7.6 in Atlanta or Houston but like a 1.5 in Dubuque, Iowa. The only adjustment being made is not pulling TV in that place since your show goes across the country, but just adjusting your live event routing so you don't go to that particular market. That seems to be a bit crazy.

[odessasteps]

I’d think most UHF stations showing wrestling in the 80s didn’t have newscasts, except maybe in the biggest of markets. I don’t think 29 in Philly had news until they became a Fox station when the network started. I would love to see a breakdown of vhf vs uhf stations in any of the territories before Fox started in 1987.

[Technico Support]

22 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I’d think most UHF stations showing wrestling in the 80s didn’t have newscasts, except maybe in the biggest of markets. I don’t think 29 in Philly had news until they became a Fox station when the network started. I would love to see a breakdown of vhf vs uhf stations in any of the territories before Fox started in 1987.

Yeah, I can absolutely tell you 45 in Baltimore (which aired UWF at 3pm on Saturdays briefly as a lead in to WWF Wrestling Challenge, its longtime 4pm slot) didn’t do local news until it became a Fox affiliate.

Also, it seriously sucks that Peacock has no UWF content.

Edited January 3 by Technico Support

[Elsalvajeloco]

14 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Yeah, I can absolutely tell you 45 in Baltimore (which aired UWF at 3pm on Saturdays briefly as a lead in to WWF Wrestling Challenge, its longtime 4pm slot) didn’t do local news until it became a Fox affiliate.

Also, it seriously sucks that Peacock has no UWF content.

Hell, that had to be a stark contrast in terms of content for two hours. Production as well. At least you wouldn't be able to complain about having a choice though.

 

[odessasteps]

Thanks to getting both Baltimore and Philadelphia stations, I could watch watch the 2 Crockett shows back to back on Saturday afternoon.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

It wasn't the 1980s, but I used to have a low-power station that had a "midnight madness" block weeknights at midnight, and I suspect it was called "midnight madness" because they couldn't say it was wrestling since they threw American Gladiators in there. It was WWF Superstars, USWA, SMW, American Gladiators, and ECW. The USWA and SMW tapes were definitely bootlegged because they were a few weeks behind, and I distinctly remember seeing an ad for a SMW Thanksgiving Thunder show in February. ECW was bootlegged to start but they eventually got legitimate because there was a major time skip at one point, I think we jumped from January 1995 to April 1995 in one week. I forget what replaced SMW and American Gladiators when they ended, but I know USWA was replaced with Music City Wrestling before the station outright folded in 1998.

[Technico Support]

1 hour ago, odessasteps said:

Thanks to getting both Baltimore and Philadelphia stations, I could watch watch the 2 Crockett shows back to back on Saturday afternoon.

Couldn't wait for Sunday?    (Channel 54 in Baltimore had Crockett at noon on both Saturdays and Sundays).

[twiztor]

On 1/2/2024 at 7:08 PM, Elsalvajeloco said:

I highly doubt that everything in terms of their respective viewership is equal across the board. So you can do a 7.6 in Atlanta or Houston but like a 1.5 in Dubuque, Iowa.

not too often i see my hometown brought up. i popped.

[Elsalvajeloco]

I dunno if this would apply to @bobholly138 as he likely was in a different part of the state if he got it all, but I think I finally got ECW in Mississippi like eight or nine months before the ECW on TNN debut. However, it was very sporadic and late at night. With regional wrestling, we certainly got Memphis cause I was close enough to get WMC. So I was able to watch it transition in different eras all the way to the very end with those compilation/best of shows with Lance (who hadn't really been a part of Memphis wrestling for a minute), Lawler, etc. sitting down watching old classic footage. However, I am trying to remember any other wrestling outside of the syndicated WCW/WWF shows. We had WLBT (NBC affiliate out of Jackson, Mississippi), Channel 5/WMC-TV out of Memphis as I said, ABC affiliate WABG/channel 4 out of Greenville, Mississippi (keep in mind, right across the bridge from Lake Village, Arkansas), and our CBS affiliate WXVT/channel 8 out of Greenwood, MS. Mid-South ran Jackson obviously out of the Fairgrounds Coliseum (informally called the Big House) but also did shows in Greenville and Greenwood. I think my part of Mississippi (the Delta region of small towns like Indianola, Greenville, Greenwood, Clarksdale, Drew, Yazoo City) and Jackson was as east as that territory went. Like I've mentioned before the area two hours north of me was Memphis stomping grounds. The rural eastern part of the state and border shared with Alabama was Southeastern/Continental stomping grounds. So yeah, I basically remember bits and pieces cause as a kid before a certain age, all the wrestling was the same to me. I didn't make any real distinctions until about 91/92 when it was just WWF and WCW and the remnants of Memphis.

It was cool this morning while I am working from home Shannon Sharpe on one of his podcasts (the one last night w/ NBA talk co-hosted by Gilbert Arenas) confirming that he did indeed grow up watching Georgia Championship Wrestling and went to a bunch of shows with his cousin in Savannah and the smaller towns near Savannah. He also brought up seeing Championship Wrestling from Florida and Mid-Atlantic, which caught me by surprise. However, in that part of Georgia, I am guessing he close enough to get those TV shows. I mean he even listed Pak Song as one of his favorites, and I don't remember hearing about him having much success outside of Florida. Doing a quick Google search, he did win the GA version of the tag team titles so I guess he had to be there at some point. He also listed Dusty, Bockwinkel, Arn, Ric, Ox Baker, Greg Valentine, Mr. Wrestling I & II as the other favorites I remember him saying. I am surprised he didn't list Thunderbolt Patterson. Shannon strikes me as a Thunderbolt Patterson type of dude and those areas he named off were Thunderbolt strongholds.

[bobholly138]

Yea I grew up in the southeast corner of MS. Like a 3 minute walk from the Alabama state line. So until WXXV in Hattiesburg started up in the late 80s only channel I got from MS was 13 out of Biloxi. All my other channels were from Mobile AL or Pensacola FL.

 

As far as ECW syndicated tv. It never aired on the MS gulf coast while I lived down there,left Feb 21st 1997. Then summer of 97 some channel on the coast picked up the show. 

By then I was living near Beaumont TX,where ECW didn't air. So until TNN days all I saw was the ppvs.

 

 

[Casey]

Bryan Turner’s VHS Rehab channel on YouTube is like a snapshot of the early 2000s indies that I would get throughout that time period on various channels at 3am on the weekends.

Except I don’t think I ever got TNA Xplosion, oddly enough.

On 1/4/2024 at 11:06 AM, Elsalvajeloco said:

I dunno if this would apply to compilation/best of shows with Lance (who hadn't really been a part of Memphis wrestling for a minute), Lawler, etc. sitting down watching old classic footage.

This is weird you mention that - it’s clearly a different show, since there’s no Lance Russell and this was from a few years ago - but that same YouTube channel I mentioned has a Lawler episode where he does that.

[odessasteps]

Dutch discussing his health issues 

[driver]

I don't know how many fellow Meatsacks there are here, but this week Dan Cummins' Timesuck covers "The Curse of The Von Erichs". It's three hours long, it's funny and Andrei Chikatilo makes an appearance. 

[Brandon Bones]

 

I wasn’t sure where to post this.  But since there is lots of wrestling stuff on the Dudesy podcast I figured it might fit here.  
 

It’s nuts how closely it plays to the experience of one of his HBO Specials.

[Curt McGirt]

You can take that shit and flush it down the toilet right now.

[Cobra Commander]

We have a podcast crossover with McAdam on Between the Sheets today talking 1993.

Next week BTS goes directly to hell. They’re covering the week that CM Punk walked out of the WWE in 2014.

[odessasteps]

I’m moderately suprised they had an Arcadian Vanguard host as a guest. I know Semp has been on before, not sure when last time was, though.

i was hoping to be on for the first 2014 show, to discuss Un Busca de Un Idolo. 

Edited January 22 by odessasteps

[RazorbladeKiss87]

I saw what week was coming up and really hoped someone would request it and was very happy listening today at work.

The podcast John mentioned at the end about top 100 of the 70s sounds interesting. 

And a question, does anyone know of a good indie wrestling podcast?

[Cobra Commander]

Today's BTS episode is the first one done in the period of this current board. Of course, you might have to work a little to find old posts on here.

January 2014, when the big WWE issue was fans hijacking shows because they wanted Daniel Bryan to get pushed. How quaint.

Also BTS posted their 4 part Titangate Patreon from a few years ago if you have like 18 hours of time to fill.

[odessasteps]

Plus, a special one hour of discussing the Vince story as a separate pod (remarkably feee of poo or sex toy talk) and the new Patreon about the Finger Poke of Doom, some welcome levity this week.

[Octopus]

EDIT: how the hell did I end up in this thread?!

ugggh. Must See Matches is a fun podcast even though I often disagree with their critiques.

sorry folks.

Edited January 30 by Octopus

[Technico Support]

I recently re-subbed to F4W after probably a year and change.  When did Meltzer get divorced?  He referred to his girlfriend on an ep over the weekend and I was taken aback.

[zendragon]

Mongoose McQueen was on Full Metal Jackie this week

[Cobra Commander]

On 1/29/2024 at 2:43 PM, odessasteps said:

Plus, a special one hour of discussing the Vince story as a separate pod (remarkably feee of poo or sex toy talk) and the new Patreon about the Finger Poke of Doom, some welcome levity this week.

I listened to the detached halftime hour they did on Vince on Friday night, so it was only sorta out of date with the news that had happened in-between Thursday and Friday night. But it was fresher than if they had found a way to include it on an episode released on Monday, so.

[RazorbladeKiss87]

If I subscribe to the BTS Patreon, can I download the shows? I've been blowing through the last two years worth of normal shows at work and am debating moving to the specials.