I’m sure I’m the laziest person on the planet. Last weekend my laziness rose to a level that had more in common with a sloth, than my fellow humans. I won’t bore you with the details, because I’m too lazy to type them.
My laziness is getting so bad Channel 4 could easily get one of their weirdly popular ‘shame-ucational’ documentaries out of following me around and trying to get me to change my lazy ways. It’d be boring as hell, but I’m sure Channel 4 could get an hour out of it.
So while I did practically nothing for a full 48 hours, I discovered one of my new favourite pastimes, which is to watch a World Cup game with the sound turned down, because let’s face it – every single commentator and pundit on TV is horrible. At least they are on British TV.
I’m assuming every other nation employs people who actually know what they’re talking about and can do so in an entertaining and informative way. I can’t imagine every nation has their own versions of Robbie Savage, Phil Neville or Andy Townsend – all of whom should be barred from even owning a TV, let alone regularly appearing on one.
Anyway, with the footy on and the sound off, I realised I needed something to sound track my lazy hours of watching football and occasionally managing to chuck a Dorito into my mouth. I decided it was time to take some of my own advice and listen to some podcasts.
I hit the main wrestling personality podcasts – Austin, Jericho and JR. I jumped between their shows, checking out recent ones, as well as some of their earlier shows. I listened to so many shows over the weekend I lost count.
I was immersed in great interviews with the likes of Paul Heyman, James Storm, Bully Ray, Vader, Court Bauer, MVP, Dusty Rhodes, Ted DiBiase, Michael Hayes, Edge, Lance Storm, Drew McIntyre, Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo.
I enjoy all three shows for different reasons, but Jericho’s is my favourite show of the three. I love Jericho’s delivery, he’s got a perfect voice for podcasting and his comedic timing is great. He’s also got the best interview technique out of the three, which is surprising because I would have sworn JR would conduct the best interviews.
Jericho has a good rapport with his guests. When they talk, it sounds more like a conversation than an interview. If you only listen to one of Jericho’s shows, make it the most recent one with Paul Heyman and Edge as co-host. It had me rolling with laughter and the hour of chat between the three of them flew by.
Austin’s show is a ton of fun too. He’s always good for a story from back in the day, although I don’t need to hear the story about how he and Brian Pillman became tag partners for at least another 50 episodes….
“…we’re in Dolthan, Alabama and Pillman walks up to me and goes,
‘Kid, we need a finisher, we’re a tag team now.’
And I’m thinking, what the hell are you talking about? I’m supposed to be getting a singles push and the US Title. So I go to Dusty and it turns out Pillman was right and it was the best thing that could’ve happened to me…”
Austin also has a great sense of humour and he’s got a much deeper knowledge of current wrestling than you’d expect from someone of his level of stardom. He’s clued up on WWE, TNA and the indy scene and that current knowledge really helps with his interviews.
JR’s podcast is the one that surprised me. As someone who went to see JR live when he was in the UK (and loved every single second of it) I was sure his podcast would become a weekly must listen appointment. Unfortunately that isn’t the case.
I find JR’s show very slow, dry and preachy. I know a lot of that is to do with JR’s personality and his vocal delivery on the show, but it’s not really a fun listen. Don’t get me wrong, the show is insightful, interesting and sometimes very enlightening. It’s just not much fun for the first 20-25 minutes when JR is talking about things in modern wrestling that he hates. Ok, that’s a little unfair. He gives his opinion on current events or issues within modern wrestling, most of which he hates.
When his guest comes on he does lighten up and the natural sarcastic humour that JR is famous for shines through. He seems more energised and interested when he’s got someone to talk to. That’s not to say it’s a bad show, it’s just a bit…well…boring. I realise saying that will probably ostracize me from large swathes of the IWC, but screw it. I’m calling it like I hear it.
After sitting under the learning tree with Jericho, Austin, JR and all their knowledgeable and experienced guests, here are my highlights and what I’ve taken away from all those hours of expert wrestling related discussion:
Start presenting wrestling seriously – evolve the in-ring style.
There are so many aspects to this I could write for three days solid and still not scratch the surface. The main issue that kept getting mentioned on the various shows was, “if you take wrestling seriously on your show, the public will too and that’s where you draw money. They know it’s not real, but if you present it as real, they will be willing to suspend their disbelief.”
This can be something as simple as using fewer punches in matches. The world has changed and UFC has shown everyone what a real fight looks like. The days of multiple punches to the face in wrestling need to stop because everyone knows what getting hit in the face really looks like (and you can’t do it ten times in a row without leaving a mark). Wrestling needs to evolve. It doesn’t have to be MMA moves and shoot fights. It just has to be presented slightly more realistically and seriously.
The same kind of comments kept coming up on the shows. Stuff like: when you’re building a feud, keep the combatants away from each other and build anticipation for that first clash. When it’s time for angles and promos, keep them short, serious and based around wrestling. Protect and build your Titles so everyone has a reason to keep fighting. Stop having so much talking on every show.
The days of silly storylines taken from soap operas and movies has to end. If everyone in wrestling is smirking and winking at the product they’re putting forward, why should the public ever be expected to take it seriously, emotionally invest in it and pay serious money to watch it?
A parody of wrestling (which is what most of WWE and TNA programming feels like these days) is never going to be a success or bring back the millions of fans who left wrestling in 2001 and never came back.
Start treating the fans like fans again.
The issue here is one of constantly pandering to your fan base. In the old days a promoter would never say to a crowd at a wrestling show, “you’re the most important people in the world, everything we do we do is to entertain you and make you feel happy. Love us, please love us and buy our stuff.”
Instead they would put on a show and let the wrestling and promos provide the entertainment. There was no “we’re only here for you” bullshit. There was never a promise to fans that the show was all about them and how much it would entertain them. Yet in WWE and TNA they pander and suck up to their fan base at least three or four times a show.
It gives a sense of entitlement to fans, because they’re constantly told they are more important than anything else on the show. WWE now have a spoilt fan base, which has been constantly told that THEY are the most important thing about the show. They’re told they’re more important than the wrestlers and the Titles they fight over.
Instead of presenting a show and letting people make up their own minds if it’s entertaining, WWE (in particular) beat their fan base over the head with the idea that the show is to entertain them and they should ALWAYS be entertained by what WWE produce.
With this constant fan pandering, promotions build expectations they can’t ever possibly achieve. They give far too much power to their fans, who have, in some cases, become entitled brats. Come on, you know we have.
We expect. We demand. We criticise. We don’t like 90% of what the promotions serve up to us. We still watch, for some reason. When we don’t get EVERYTHING we want right NOW, we crap all over the promotion. It wasn’t always this way, maybe it doesn’t have to keep going this way?
JR doesn’t think they’re any real heels left these days.
Ok, he’s got a point and he makes it on nearly every show he does. As JR points out, it’s incredibly difficult for heels to get real heat these days because no rules are enforced in matches (apart from break by 5 count). Getting over as a heel these days is also hampered because the fans are smarter. When a hot heel comes along (most recently Bray Wyatt) fans cheer them in appreciation of how good of a heel they are and how much they entertain them by playing a bad guy.
True, the anti-hero is popular in modern TV (Dexter, Walter White) but this is WRESTLING and if you’re going to be successful at WRESTLING (this IS NOT a dark episodic drama), you need clearly defined babyfaces and heels. That’s one of the fundamental pieces of wrestling psychology that you just can’t mess with. Yet WWE and TNA constantly do.
Being a true heel in 2014 is almost impossible. You have to go to the lengths that CM Punk did with Taker in the build up to WM29 to truly get people’s emotions involved. So many people in wrestling have forgotten that being a heel is not about being entertaining; it’s about being so hated people will pay money to see you get your ass kicked.
While I don’t always agree with JR, he’s bang on the money here. Wrestling needs less cool heels that smarks can cheer and more bad ass and evil heels that Joe Public will pay money to see get their comeuppance. Call me old school but that’s how I see it.
No one knows why Chris Benoit did what he did.
Be it Jericho, JR, Lance Storm, MVP or anyone else that’s asked about the subject, only one answer is consistently given: no one knows why he did what he did and no one saw it coming. The contrast between the stories of Benoit from his friends and peers and the final weekend of his life are eye-opening. The Benoit story remains a tragic and seemingly unforeseen nightmare weekend that everyone in wrestling – especially those who worked and travelled with Benoit – still can’t fully comprehend or comes to terms with.
Even the guys in TNA don’t understand TNA.
AJ Styles recently did a much talked about interview with Chris Jericho. In that interview he revealed a lot about his time in TNA and specifically how poorly managed the company is and how financially precarious their current situation is. James Storm and Bully Ray were more diplomatic (obviously) but they both voiced frustration at TNA’s lack of leadership, creative direction, growth and fan interest.
Sadly most TNA fans I’ve seen on social media have written-off a lot of what AJ said as him being bitter at TNA not renewing his contract. Which is funny given how much more money he makes today in NJPW and on the indy scene, compared to what he made in TNA. You know, there’s nothing that gets a person more bitter than leaving a job that doesn’t appreciate their skills, to go to a higher paying job where everyone loves you…
No matter your opinion on AJ, Dixie Carter or TNA, if you listen to these interviews, you’ll learn a hell of a lot more about TNA and why it’s in the rough shape it currently is. It’s not bitter haters or people burying TNA because it’s not WWE. It’s people who experienced it first hand, sharing that experience and if you’re a fan or a hater of TNA, it makes for some very interesting listening.
And WWE isn’t much better.
I’ve got to play fair here. While there are plenty of complaints about TNA, WWE aren’t given a free ride by any means. Drew McIntyre’s recent interview with Jericho is a nice peak behind the creative chaos of WWE. If you really want to get the inside scoop on the WWE creative team, check out Austin’s interview with former WWE writer Court Bauer. Given some of his stories, I have no idea how they even produce one hour of TV every week, never mind twelve (or whatever ridiculous number it is).
Paul Heyman is too funny.
I’ve been a Paul Heyman guy for years. He’s one of the best promo guys in wrestling history. He’s always entertaining, no matter what he’s doing on TV. He sells an angle better than anyone else in WWE. Plus, no matter how it all ended up, you can’t deny that with ECW he truly did revolutionise the wrestling industry as a whole.
Thanks to listening to a few interviews with him I’ve now discovered he’s also funny – like, really frigging funny. If it’s not hilarious Vince McMahon impressions, doing amazingly cheesy puns, or telling great road stories about Austin and Rick Rude, then it’s the amazing tale of how he became the official publicist for the infamous Studio 54 nightclub in New York when he was only 19 years old. Heyman’s new DVD (if they let him talk the way he does on these podcasts) is going to be one of the most entertaining they’ve ever done. If he ever releases a book it’ll be an absolute must-read.
Of course, there are hundreds more wrestling lessons contained within these podcasts. I’m only just scratching the surface. I don’t want to spoil them for you too much. There’s a wealth of knowledge, stories, theories and laughs available now that just would never have happened a few decades ago.
As fans, we don’t appreciate how lucky we are to have all this wrestling knowledge at the click of a button. I wouldn’t recommend wasting an entire weekend listening to them, like I did, but I would encourage everyone reading this to check the shows out and educate yourself on professional wrestling.
There’s no doubt now that I’m criminally lazy. I just wrote an article about listening to podcasts…let that sink in for a while. Yep, and you read it! Dummies. Join me next week as I squeeze a couple of thousand words out of what it’s like to read Wrestling Observer…
Remember, you can follow me on Twitter which is @MFXDuckman. You can also check out the MFX podcast every week, where I’m joined by my partner-in-crime Sir Ian Trumps as we talk the week in WWE and TNA in a hilarious and entertaining fashion that only Jericho, Austin and maybe JR can top. Who are we kidding? They can’t top MFX. Go listen and find out for yourself.
You can find the show on the MFX page here, or by heading to www.mfxpodcast.com. We’re also on Stitcher and ITunes – just search Marks for Xcellence Wrestling Podcast and subscribe today! I would, but I’m too lazy.
As always, thanks for reading and be sure to keep supporting SLTD and everyone who contributes here.
Until next time…
Peace
Duckman
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