2024 in Pro Wrestling Podcasts

[StuntmanCrowley]

23 hours ago, twiztor said:

i have generally enjoyed Bischoff's 83 Weeks Podcast. Yes, i take a lot of what he says with a healthy amount of salt, but he definitely provides an insight into the business from a different perspective than anybody else has really offered. And anything he says about Hogan you just know is bullshit. but despite all of that, i like hearing what he has to say.

but holy shit. whenever he started this gimmick of shitting all over AEW at every possible opportunity, it makes his show unlistenable. i guess he feels like he's mined WCW for all it's worth, so like so many others, he has turned to attention seeking hate. thanks but no thanks.

I had the exact same sentiment a few pages back.  I honestly enjoy the show for the most part, but i really enjoyed the shit out of it before his "Fuck AEW" stance really went redline.

[SirSmUgly]

My biggest issue with 83 Weeks right now other than Bisch desperately on some NOTICE ME SENPAI shit with TK is that Conrad sucks as a host.

He is either not mentally agile enough to effectively address Bischoff's nonsense or (more likely) not interested in an adversarial relationship with a guy who he's making money with. It's frustrating a lot of the time.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

1 hour ago, SirSmUgly said:

My biggest issue with 83 Weeks right now other than Bisch desperately on some NOTICE ME SENPAI shit with TK is that Conrad sucks as a host.

He is either not mentally agile enough to effectively address Bischoff's nonsense or (more likely) not interested in an adversarial relationship with a guy who he's making money with. It's frustrating a lot of the time.

Probably both. His only way of pushing back on a talking point is to scream at them (see him trying to rebut Bischoff on the DX invasion of the Norfolk Scope when Bischoff got his timelines mixed up by screaming IT WASN'T FUCKING NIGHT over and over again), which is extremely uncomfortable listening.

[Elsalvajeloco]

58 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said:

My biggest issue with 83 Weeks right now other than Bisch desperately on some NOTICE ME SENPAI shit with TK is that Conrad sucks as a host.

He is either not mentally agile enough to effectively address Bischoff's nonsense or (more likely) not interested in an adversarial relationship with a guy who he's making money with. It's frustrating a lot of the time.

 

2 minutes ago, Stefanie Sparkleface said:

Probably both. His only way of pushing back on a talking point is to scream at them (see him trying to rebut Bischoff on the DX invasion of the Norfolk Scope when Bischoff got his timelines mixed up by screaming IT WASN'T FUCKING NIGHT over and over again), which is extremely uncomfortable listening.

EXACTLY!

I think his (Conrad) brain broke with the Starrcade 98 stuff among other things. It's the same when Prichard has to address real lingering issues among certain topics that always are controversial. Bruce's flight or fight response though is always just nonsensical trolling (see the Red Rooster). Eric will just argue and then deflect. Yeah, it's definitely a bit of column B as Conrad has said several times he won't throw those guys under a bus cause he considers them friends. However, IMO, I think he also knows it hurts the quality of those shows. Sometimes, he will fight the good fight and TRY to get something out of them. However, usually it's fruitless. Those two in particular will answer what they want to answer. It doesn't matter WHO the host is. IMO Conrad is just a slightly above average as an interviewer. However, those two in particular (Bruce and Eric) vacillate between really funny and insightful to downright atrocious and banal as subjects. Unless you're an absolute professional (and there are virtually few in the space), you got your work cut out, buddy.

[SirSmUgly]

Good points, and I do think that what irritates me so much about Conrad's occasional spates of yelling is that it's all entirely performative. Yelling about what time of day the DX Invasion happened or screaming about Nick Patrick's count in the Starrcade '97 main event allows Conrad to present himself as some sort of interviewer who isn't afraid and won't shy away from the truth. 

Meanwhile, Bischoff is allowed to establish a narrative that what really killed business was Turner execs telling him in 1998 that he couldn't be edgy or go after the teen demo anymore even though a cursory watch of the programming reveals that we've got wrestlers doing alcoholism angles, Nitro Girls dancing around in skimpy outfits, and an increased amount of impolite language in interviews into 1999. And then in '99, they hire Vince Russo and let him put a bunch of Springer-esque schlock on TV for a few months on top of it all. 

Bisch says this "Turner execs wanted me to abandon my plan to go after the teen demo" every other episode, it feels like, but simply watching what WCW produced throughout '98 and '99 reveals that he's offloading his creative failures onto Turner. But since that's an actual issue with Bischoff's narrative rather than something harmless to yell about, Conrad says nary a word. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

Yeah, certain talking points don't really align with what's being pushed.

You can say Turner brass wanted a more kid friendly show but Konnan is out here talking about tossing salads and peeling potatoes. Flair is getting naked every week. Scott Steiner is trying to push the envelope every week. Two of Macho Man's valets were damn near half naked every week. What about that is kid friendly other than trying to attract overly horny barely teenage boys like WWF did with Sable, Sunny, and then later Chyna?

If anything it feels like WCW was caught between two worlds of trying to play catch up but with all these old characters like Flair, Piper, Nash, Hogan, Sting, etc. They were also hoping to recapture the magic of 96-97 of being new and exciting. Meanwhile outside of Vince, everyone on WWF TV at the top is 35 years old and younger. They were trying do all WWF storylines and angles at the time, but characters that didn't fit.

[odessasteps]

12 minutes ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Yeah, certain talking points don't really align with what's being pushed.

You can say Turner brass wanted a more kid friendly show but Konnan is out here talking about tossing salads and peeling potatoes. Flair is getting naked every week. Scott Steiner is trying to push the envelope every week. Two of Macho Man's valets were damn near half naked every week. What about that is kid friendly other than trying to attract overly horny barely teenage boys like WWF did with Sable, Sunny, and then later Chyna?

If anything it feels like WCW was caught between two worlds of trying to play catch up but with all these old characters like Flair, Piper, Nash, Hogan, Sting, etc. They also hoping to recapture the magic of 96-97 of being new and exciting. Meanwhile outside of Vince, everyone on WWF TV at the top is 35 years old and younger. They were trying do all WWF storylines and angles at the time, but characters that didn't fit.

You can add in the Nitro Girls to the list of things attracting young men. And all the other valets like Stacy and Terrie. 

[Curt McGirt]

I rewatched the original Chris Rock joke about tossing salads yesterday and that shit is hilarious.

[Technico Support]

13 hours ago, SirSmUgly said:

Good points, and I do think that what irritates me so much about Conrad's occasional spates of yelling is that it's all entirely performative. Yelling about what time of day the DX Invasion happened or screaming about Nick Patrick's count in the Starrcade '97 main event allows Conrad to present himself as some sort of interviewer who isn't afraid and won't shy away from the truth. 

Meanwhile, Bischoff is allowed to establish a narrative that what really killed business was Turner execs telling him in 1998 that he couldn't be edgy or go after the teen demo anymore even though a cursory watch of the programming reveals that we've got wrestlers doing alcoholism angles, Nitro Girls dancing around in skimpy outfits, and an increased amount of impolite language in interviews into 1999. And then in '99, they hire Vince Russo and let him put a bunch of Springer-esque schlock on TV for a few months on top of it all. 

Bisch says this "Turner execs wanted me to abandon my plan to go after the teen demo" every other episode, it feels like, but simply watching what WCW produced throughout '98 and '99 reveals that he's offloading his creative failures onto Turner. But since that's an actual issue with Bischoff's narrative rather than something harmless to yell about, Conrad says nary a word. 

 

13 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

Yeah, certain talking points don't really align with what's being pushed.

You can say Turner brass wanted a more kid friendly show but Konnan is out here talking about tossing salads and peeling potatoes. Flair is getting naked every week. Scott Steiner is trying to push the envelope every week. Two of Macho Man's valets were damn near half naked every week. What about that is kid friendly other than trying to attract overly horny barely teenage boys like WWF did with Sable, Sunny, and then later Chyna?

If anything it feels like WCW was caught between two worlds of trying to play catch up but with all these old characters like Flair, Piper, Nash, Hogan, Sting, etc. They were also hoping to recapture the magic of 96-97 of being new and exciting. Meanwhile outside of Vince, everyone on WWF TV at the top is 35 years old and younger. They were trying do all WWF storylines and angles at the time, but characters that didn't fit.

When you look back on it, the Attitude Era in many ways succeeded despite itself.  It was largely low quality garbage like Beaver Cleavage but you had generational talents in the mix and that elevated the whole shipyard.  Bischoff and Russo were "trying to attract young viewers" with stuff akin to the worst stuff Russo did in WWF and they didn't have a Rock, Austin, Undertaker, Foley, etc. to actually draw an audience.  It's like the old Eddie Murphy act where he says "I do put some jokes in between the curse words."  All Bischoff and Russo had were the curse words.

[SirSmUgly]

13 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

 

If anything it feels like WCW was caught between two worlds of trying to play catch up but with all these old characters like Flair, Piper, Nash, Hogan, Sting, etc. 

Nash is the only guy on that list who is even remotely able to keep up with the times. He was very wise to attach himself to Konnan throughout most of 1998, too. 

I was just watching a late '98 Nitro and Lex Luger is wearing a FUBU baseball jersey in one backstage segment, and it's like, man, Nash really was trying to get all of these old acts to at least look contemporary. Hogan dresses like Konnan would in a couple of January '99 Nitros, and it's the funniest thing ever. But even with the flannel and baggy jeans, he still can't get away from the late '60s biker aesthetic that is really the only thing he knows. It's funny as fuck. 

One guy on that list you didn't mention is Randy Savage, and while he did foresee where the business was going in 1999, I have a negative amount of interest in him wearing all black and slapping valets.

I digress, though. The point is that, yes, WCW started chasing WWF's programming style in 1998 and was doomed because there was no way they were going to beat the WWF at the WWF's own game. 

[RazorbladeKiss87]

1 hour ago, SirSmUgly said:

Nash is the only guy on that list who is even remotely able to keep up with the times. He was very wise to attach himself to Konnan throughout most of 1998, too. 

I was just watching a late '98 Nitro and Lex Luger is wearing a FUBU baseball jersey in one backstage segment, and it's like, man, Nash really was trying to get all of these old acts to at least look contemporary. Hogan dresses like Konnan would in a couple of January '99 Nitros, and it's the funniest thing ever. But even with the flannel and baggy jeans, he still can't get away from the late '60s biker aesthetic that is really the only thing he knows. It's funny as fuck. 

One guy on that list you didn't mention is Randy Savage, and while he did foresee where the business was going in 1999, I have a negative amount of interest in him wearing all black and slapping valets.

I digress, though. The point is that, yes, WCW started chasing WWF's programming style in 1998 and was doomed because there was no way they were going to beat the WWF at the WWF's own game. 

100% agree with this. The luchadors were really the "coolest" guys in WCW and that's because of MOVEZ to my friends and I. Outside of that, K-Dawg was seen as cool (cool enough that I got sent home for wearing the K-Dawg 187 shirt.) Wolfpac was cool at first. After that, it was like our dad's and grandpa's trying to look hip. 

Of course, both promotions lost their lustre when we started getting ECW tapes from a friend's brother. 

[Curt McGirt]

Is it funnier that Flexy Lexy was wearing a FUBU (which, if you didn't know, means For Us By Us) jersey, or Shadow WX in Japan was wearing what had to be like a multiple thousands of yen imported yellow one in bloody death matches?

Edited May 21 by Curt McGirt

[odessasteps]

Speaking of Lex, there was a social media post this week where he was putting over Gunther. I wonder what 1987 Lex would think about that. 

[Hamhock]

1 hour ago, odessasteps said:

Speaking of Lex, there was a social media post this week where he was putting over Gunther. I wonder what 1987 Lex would think about that. 

[Curt McGirt]

I want Fonzie to talk about that on Dark Side.

[odessasteps]

I wonder if Lex bio has enough for a Dark Side.i guess you get the downfall (including the Liz death), illness and then rebounding to at least be a better person now. 

[Technico Support]

15 hours ago, Hamhock said:

Has smart mark discourse on this event evolved yet?  I remember back in the day:

Brody = awesome real man, carny, outlaw, took no shit

Luger = musclehead who didn't belong in tha biz

And thus "fuck Lex Luger look at that pussy getting his" was the prevailing thought.

Looking at it as an older, hopefully wiser, person, I see it as "yeah, Brody wasn't cooperating (and if apocrypha is to be believed, flashed a blade) and Luger, being an actual pro, was like "yeah fuck all this dumb bullshit" and is 100% in the right.

Edited May 22 by Technico Support

[SirSmUgly]

5 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Has smart mark discourse on this event evolved yet?  I remember back in the day:

Brody = awesome real man, carny, outlaw, took no shit

Luger = musclehead who didn't belong in tha biz

And thus "fuck Lex Luger look at that pussy getting his" was the prevailing thought.

Looking at it as an older, hopefully wiser, person, I see it as "yeah, Brody wasn't cooperating and (if apocrypha is to be believed, flashed a blade) and Luger, being an actual pro, was like "yeah fuck all this dumb bullshit" and is 100% in the right.

Bro, don't you get it? Lex was a total stiff on 1999 WCW television, so he deserved it.

Also, Brody is one of the greats even though I haven't seen any of his matches, and one thing I know is that if you're great at pro wrestling, you gotta protect the business. 

[Technico Support]

9 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said:

Bro, don't you get it? Lex was a total stiff on 1999 WCW television, so he deserved it.

Also, Brody is one of the greats even though I haven't seen any of his matches, and one thing I know is that if you're great at pro wrestling, you gotta protect the business. 

Re-watching a bunch of 80s WWF, I found a lot of the conventional wisdom around "muscleheads" to be bullshit.  A lot of these guys were at least average if not above average.  Hercules Hernandez, as an example, was perfectly fine to pretty good.  There are always exceptions, like Warlord and the Ultimate Warrior (whose good matches I can count on one hand).  But really, you had to train with a reputable person and at least know how to not shit the bed to get to the bigs, for the most part.  On the flip side of that, someone in the AEW thread, discussing Purrazzo and Deeb, mentioned that, in a lot of cases, "great scientific wrestler" was the gimmick you got if you had no personality and/or no desire to work on your promos or presentation.  I guess what I'm saying is, and maybe it's Meltzer's fault for molding so much of wrestling's early discourse, people need to separate the gimmick and the appearance from the work itself.

Edited May 22 by Technico Support

[SirSmUgly]

6 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

 Hercules Hernandez, as an example, was perfectly fine to pretty good. 

Herc was legitimately good in Mid-South and was also a quality big man in Power & Glory. P&G have one of my favorite tag finishers of all time as an aside. 

He was washed by the time he was working under a mask in early '90s WCW, but he was absolutely a good worker before then. 

Quote

and maybe it's Meltzer's fault for molding so much of wrestling's early discourse

It is, but it's even more the fault of a bunch of Wrestling Classics-type posters who propagated, and still propagate, Meltzer's opinions as gospel without critically evaluating these guys themselves. 

[Elsalvajeloco]

1 minute ago, SirSmUgly said:

Bro, don't you get it? Lex was a total stiff on 1999 WCW television, so he deserved it.

Also, Brody is one of the greats even though I haven't seen any of his matches, and one thing I know is that if you're great at pro wrestling, you gotta protect the business. 

I think because we're so far removed from it now, it allows way more people to be far more objective. If you heard about that in 1996 or 1997, it had only been 9 or 10 years since it happened. If you heard about it earlier or when it happened, even more recent. And yeah, Luger's reputation in the business at that time vs. an almost deity like respected figure Bruiser Brody is no contest. The carny thing is always to defend the business even if it makes no sense at all. 

[Technico Support]

5 minutes ago, SirSmUgly said:

Herc was legitimately good in Mid-South and was also a quality big man in Power & Glory. P&G have one of my favorite tag finishers of all time as an aside. 

He was washed by the time he was working under a mask in early '90s WCW, but he was absolutely a good worker before then. 

It is, but it's even more the fault of a bunch of Wrestling Classics-type posters who propagated, and still propagate, Meltzer's opinions as gospel without critically evaluating these guys themselves. 

Herc/Steamboat might be the best match on Mania 2.  Damning with faint praise, I know, but still.

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

14 minutes ago, Technico Support said:

Herc/Steamboat might be the best match on Mania 2.  Damning with faint praise, I know, but still.

Mania 2 isn't all that bad, tbh. Herc/Steamboat, Funks vs. Santana/JYD, and Bulldogs/Dream Team were all good to great. I could even hear arguments for Orndorff/Muraco being decent for a double-DQ sprint and the battle royale being one of the best battle royales of that era.

[Curt McGirt]

16 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I wonder if Lex bio has enough for a Dark Side.i guess you get the downfall (including the Liz death), illness and then rebounding to at least be a better person now. 

That's more than enough. If they can do John Tenta just because they wanted to show the Shockmaster, they can do that.

[Curt McGirt]

Probably the best of these reversal-of-fortune discoveries was that Brody only was a good worker when he wanted to be, and that was almost never. If Sam Muchnick or Giant Baba wasn't paying him decently he would cruise by on a promo and squash, maybe a brawl. 

Is it fair to say that a big part of his legend could have been the wrestling magazines? Surely they got a ton of mileage out of featuring him, and vice versa. 

Edited May 22 by Curt McGirt