The Steve Austin Show

[DreamBroken]

Just to point out, General Hospital does not open with recaps. Sometimes continues from the ending of the previous episode and it ends with "next time on General Hospital.." preview but never a "here's what you missed" recap.

 

Never thought Cesaro was necessarily bad on the mic. Always liked his pairing with Aksana and wished that lasted longer.

[Cobra Commander]

The Ted Fowler/SCSA conversation on U2's iPhone album finally inspired me to listen to the U2 album that was put on my phone

EDIT: tracks 10 and 11 were pretty good. I listened on a shuffle. So I liked Cedarwood Road and Raised By Wolves, which were the 10th and 11th tracks on my shuffle. The rest was a blur. U2's last good single, in my POV, was Vertigo

[jstout]

I remember when Steph got that boob job done - she really went a few sizes too big.

 

Hate boob jobs anyway - Smoky Mountain Tammy Sytch was much more attractive to me than WWF Sunny. Probably not as much of a pin-up model to the public, but ...

 

Oh, and couldn't 90 percent of the people who need recaps get them off the Internet at the WWE's site? Promote the recap site during the show. Doesn't the network do a recap show before Raw?

[Big Fresh]

I remember when Steph got that boob job done - she really went a few sizes too big.

Hate boob jobs anyway - Smoky Mountain Tammy Sytch was much more attractive to me than WWF Sunny. Probably not as much of a pin-up model to the public, but ...

[thee Reverend Axl Future]

I never get tired of boob jokes about The Rock.

emmis,

RAF

[nofuture]

It's a shame there's no video footage of Austin trying to teach Cesaro a reverse mule kick.

[Cole Miner]

Finished the full Austin and McMahon interview. This doesn't really surprise me but the person Vince reminds me most of is Michael Jordan.

 

It sounds like those early moments defined him. Like people looking down on him over money. Coming from the trailer park. Like those events were constant motivators throughout life similar to Jordan not making the high school team.

 

Both have abnormal work ethics and at times have a hard time relating to people without that work ethic. Thought it was kind of sad that Vince is his age and still struggles dealing with people that have normal motivations like family and friends and aren't 100% committed to the job. Unrealistic expectations.

 

Both show obvious signs of narcissistic personality disorder. It is a major part of what drives them though.

 

It was kind of cool hearing Vince talking about how it was his dream to wrestle and him getting to see that come true.

 

I was surprised that he was so transparent with his distaste for the word wrestling among other things. Even in the course of the conversation he was essentially guiding Austin's verbiage. I just didn't expect it to be that obvious.

 

I just wish Austin had brought up Zack Ryder when Vince talked about the importance of social media. Which was ridiculous considering even he rolled his eyes over twitter at the end.

[evilwaldo]

I think there are some tax reasons for calling it sports entertainment rather than wrestling but he is right in that the programs are just as much entertainment as they are about wrestling. 

[The Nature Boy]

In regards to his background, I get the feeling that Vince has worked his whole life to overcome it. I can't imagine that going from trailer parks in North Carolina to Greenwich, CT has been easy and I'm sure he has trouble fitting in with his neighbors and feels he has had to work harder to be accepted. I imagine that his whole "I'm the Stone Cold character" thing is a defense mechanism that he has come up with over time to cope with having to constantly prove himself. 

 

Vince discussed his childhood more in a Playboy interview back in 01 but he basically went through a string of abusive stepfathers and had to stand up for his mom frequently. He didn't even meet his dad until he was 12. When Vince said that he loved being around his dad, I felt sad because you can still see little Vinnie pining for his dad's attention and seeking his approval. I almost wonder if his workaholic nature is him trying to prove to his dad that he IS good enough. 

[Mick32]

I get that he was on Vince's network and all, but I thought Thursday was a little late for Austin to go on a "it's fucking pro wrestling" rant like he did.

[thee Reverend Axl Future]

I often picture Mr. McMahon as the Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele character from the "The General Flipped At Dawn" episode of M*A*S*H, who berates the series regulars with his looniness including the statement "M*A*S*H means 'Mobile' " and moving them closer to the front. The pedantic/bureaucratic/irrational New Owner who takes over the Family Business and steers it away from it's Original Purpose, Meaning or Soul is a common trope (usually resulting in the workers taking over and restoring the circus/carwash/taxi service/college/etc to it's former values, y'know, for the kids). VKM's literal insistence on the "Entertainment" aspect is understandable, but to me "Wrestling" encompasses the entertainment aspect anyway, and to emphasis the "E" dilutes the S.I.O.P. Isn't baseball entertaining, or Shakespeare In The Park, or the Olympics?

I dunno,

RAF

[Greggulator]

The Michael Jordan comparison is really great. A lot of really successful people develop their work ethic as a means to fuel their success. But at the same time, you lose part of your humanity doing so. Jordan has all of the rings and accomplishments and is the best player ever, but Charles Barkley seems like a much happier person. I'd rather be Barkley.

[jstout]

I think there are some tax reasons for calling it sports entertainment rather than wrestling but he is right in that the programs are just as much entertainment as they are about wrestling. 

If he calls it "wrestling." some states want to apply their athletic commission rules and fees to it, which McMahon doesn't want to do.

 

So he called it "sports entertainment" instead of an athletic contest. I think that started in New Jersey.

 

And hasn't Austin been on "it's pro wrestling, not sports entertanment" for a while on his podcast?

[AxB]

My friend Riot is from Connecticut. He says everyone round there thinks of the McMahons as Hillbilly yokels.

 

He might be lying.

[The Nature Boy]

I'd say that Linda has done a better job of assimilating than Vince has. She was the GOP nominee for Senate twice at least. I assume that the Connecticut GOP is full of rich people but that may just be a stereotype. 

[Cristobal]

My friend Riot is from Connecticut. He says everyone round there thinks of the McMahons as Hillbilly yokels.

 

He might be lying.

This would be the Riot who I unfriended because he kept forwarding me "If you send this to 50 people, Sony will give you $200" messages on PSN, so let's not leave out the dimwit factor as a possible influence.

[Niners Fan in CT]

Everyone knew Linda had...no chance in hell. WWE is pretty popular around here in many circles. They do a bunch of stuff with local charities and the Special Olympics.

[The Nature Boy]

Does anyone have footage of Vince McMahon with a Southern accent? Linda has somewhat retained hers over the years but Vince seems to have completely shed his. I imagine that he still had traces of it in his early commentary.

[The Nature Boy]

And this is random but here's a YouTube clip of Vince McMahon's 94 year old mother. 

 

 

Longevity runs in the family it looks like. 

[Josh Mann]

Was that her shooing Heenan out of the Slammys women's dressing room?

If you've just rewatched it you know what I'm talking about.

[Dank]

As a quilter

 

I guarantee this is the first time a wrestling board post ever started off like this.

[bink_winkleman]

 

I think there are some tax reasons for calling it sports entertainment rather than wrestling but he is right in that the programs are just as much entertainment as they are about wrestling. 

If he calls it "wrestling." some states want to apply their athletic commission rules and fees to it, which McMahon doesn't want to do.

 

So he called it "sports entertainment" instead of an athletic contest. I think that started in New Jersey.

 

And hasn't Austin been on "it's pro wrestling, not sports entertanment" for a while on his podcast?

 

 

Yeah, that's a staple for Austin.

 

Vince's insistence on "sports entertainment" reminded me of movie studios (maybe pre-Avengers?) insisting on calling comic book movies "based on the graphic novel by."  Hell, I think AMC still does that with Walking Dead.  It's very much like he doesn't want to scare off advertisers/investors.

 

It was great hearing Vince tell Austin how hard he was to work with, and I kind of enjoyed how he still talked to Austin as just another employee.  That's a huge change from Austin's normal guests, who revere him. 

 

I thought Vince came off as extremely out of touch in the interview, which I finally watched last night.  The "millennial" stuff was horrible.  The "social media is BIG!" reminded me of conversations I've had with older people at my work who wanted to invest in "social media" but had no actual clue how it works, how it's used, what its social function is, or the fact that "social media" isn't even one thing.  Now, this is great for me, because I'm the "media guy," and there's no harm in it because I actually know what I'm doing, but it's clear to anyone watching that Vince's social media people are clueless and feeding him buzzwords to inflate the importance of their jobs. 

 

Austin: What about Cesaro?

Vince: Brass ring!

Austin: Well, you undermined his push.

Vince: He needs IT!

 

Meanwhile, yeah, Roman Reigns.  And Daniel Bryan not coming up once.  I'd loved to have heard Austin ask Vince about what happens when the audience is the critic, since Vince said repeatedly that he listened to audiences and not critics.  He came off as very Jerry Jones in places. 

 

Not that I find Vince nearly as despicable as Jerry Jones, mind you, and while I'm being critical here, I actually really enjoyed the interview and Vince being full of shit did very little to lower my opinion of him, since of course Vince McMahon has always been full of shit.

[Big Fresh]

The audio version of the Vince interview is up. I haven't listened yet, so I don't know if it's extended from what we saw on TV or not.

[Jingus]

My friend Riot is from Connecticut. He says everyone round there thinks of the McMahons as Hillbilly yokels.

 

He might be lying.

Isn't that common knowledge?  Remember, Triple H's original gimmick as "Hunter Hearst Helmsley, blue-blooded Greenwich snob" was a shot at Vince's old-money neighbors.  Complete with his first feud being against the blue-collar garbageman Duke Droese.  

[AxB]

That was 20 years ago (Riot's only 19 years old (physically. Much younger mentally)). All this time later, Billionaire, listed on the Stock Exchange, political candidate, owns own TV network, lived in CT for several decades, and they still think they're Hillbillies.