The Greatest Podcast in the History of Our Sport

We live in interesting times. As social progress struggles to avoid backslide in the US at the hands of one of the most repressive and unpopular cryptofascists to ever take office, the UK is being reimagined as a battlefield between working class people, and the elite and the media they control. It’s terrifying to watch as freedoms are stripped away; and it’s exhilarating to watch as previously unassailable public figures are suddenly within reach, eminently fallible and flawed, and that chaotic mix of greedy without a sense of self preservation. Make no mistake, we have spent 2017 watching the government structures that control and limit our lives crack, rust and bow at the hands of people who were nowhere near as smart as they thought they were. Because of this, at the midpoint of the year that was supposed to finish us off, we now find ourselves laughing a lot longer and harder than we probably should be, but fuck you, because we weren’t supposed to be laughing at all right now. In this climate, we decided to have a free-form, no-notes sorta discussion about the nature of wrestling after the end of capitalism. Because sometimes, the prey doesn’t know it’s prey unless you speak plainly about it as such. And as some of us know, hunting’s no fun when the prey doesn’t know to run. Tonight, on what will surely go down as the Greatest Podcast in the History of Our Sport, just why is it that scary clown gimmicks can turn babyface and the fans just go along with it?

We’re back after a long while, with more delving into the dark Gordian Knot of McMahon Self-Satisfaction. This time, the main course, WWF Invasion itself, a show that upends the toybox of professional wrestling into the promise of the sort of spectacle wrestling fans were waiting their whole life for, only to promptly light them on fire and make you huff the burning plastic fumes. In this first half, we examine an ultimately meaningless but totally entertaining encounter between Lance Storm, Mike Awesome and Edge & Christian that could make you believe this was worthwhile. Then a referee fight follows, and pretty much so does the rest of the show, save for Kidman vs. Xpac, a match that was as entertaining as it was dead silent from the crowd. At this point, we should introduce our new guest, Our Combined Psychic Pain and Angst Over This Damn Angle. Tonight, on what will surely go down in history as The Greatest Podcast in the History of Our Sport, why did nobody else counter the Bronco Buster with a boot to the jewels??

Stuff happened. Stuff always happens, but this time it happened in sufficient quantities that we took an unscheduled break. But we’re back, and we’re hauling with us a payload of dollar bill ashes. Yep, we’re talking about the creative ways WCW found to burn their money again, and we’ve gotta dump it out right here, on you front lawn. Yes, this is legal. On tap? First, we take a journey into a very expensive junkyard. Then, we explore the impact of games without frontiers and wrestling events with no gate. Plus: Plane tickets! Shoddily fulfilled contractual obligations to Telemundo! A long digression about Sons of Anarchy! Tonight, on what will surely go down in history as the Greatest Podcast in the History of Our Sport, how many times have I yelled “a man almost died” while laughing, and now many more times will I yell it?

Welcome to the New Year! Did you miss us? We’ll fix that, as we unleash upon you the polygonal horrors of a game so misbegotten, it could only have come out at the end of both WCW and the Playstation’s life. Yes, we’re talking about WCW Backstage Assault, a wrestling game that makes the bold choice of not having a wrestling ring at all, thus breaking the seal on a glimpse into a reality where wrestling is a televised bloodsport of men punching men on loading docks and in filthy restrooms, often to death. Folks, you’ve never seen athletic competition like this before, and there’s a damn fine reason for that. No, it’s not because the rapidly glitching and oscillating competitors would break space/time. It’s more of an ethical reason. Tonight, on what will surely go down as the Greatest Podcast in the History of Our Sport, we neglect to question why Z-Gangsta wasn’t in this game. ZEUUUUUUUSSSS!!

We’re back after a bit of a break, and in our journeys away, we have brought you this: a game in which the all-stars of WCW past shout at you from a highly compressed bitmap hell, while twitching and gesticulating from their character select prison. This is not a good game, folks, but we managed our own fun with it, in two very distinct ways. For one, we enjoyed exploring an alternate reality where Scott Steiner’s finishing hold was a Tombstone Piledriver, followed by exactly one dozen elbow drops and a pin. Two, we explored the possibilities of applying this game’s good points (and there are a few, they’re just either not complete or used in really silly ways) to theoretical, not-actually-real-but-we’d-like-them-to-be wrestling games. Tonight, on what will surely go down in history as the Greatest Podcast in the History of Our Sport, it’s not Rick Steiner’s fault, though we don’t know what he did, and given that he’s a Steiner, we should probably not ask.

We continue on into the Vince McMahon show, featuring WCW and ECW, and things are not particularly sunny. We examine the exciting new kink of Erotic Denial of a Stunner (Receiving), Vince leaving the venue, which for some reason was its own segment, a modicum of wrestling and another fucking Alliance beatdown to cap things off. But hey, there were a couple of suplexes thrown in, so that’s something, right? Right? Tonight, on what will surely go down as the Greatest Podcast in the History of Our Sport, we continue or tally of adjectives used to describe Paul Heyman, and realize we’re going to need another page before we’re done all this.

Come with us, listeners, as we are about to delve deeper into the ennui of the greatest squandering of wrestling talent in the history of the industry, now with much improved audio! With Raw, you saw the emergence of the Invasion, and the group of WCW and ECW talent called the Alliance, except when they aren’t and are called the Coalition instead. With Smackdown, you see the status quo of this period. Let us observe this once, and then never again. We’ve got 3 minute matches, we’ve got Tazz picking a fight with an announcer, again, and we’ve got endless Vince segments. Witness us witnessing this, and derive pleasure from it. DERIVE, damn you. Tonight, on what will surely go down as the Greatest Podcast in the History of Our Sport, we speculate on the nature of the Edge and Christian panopticon- Death to Videodrome, Long Live Reeking of Awesomeness.

Welcome back to our reckless fanboat ride through a miserable swamp of wrestling history. We have for you today part the second of our first recording session, discussing a truly crushing episode of Raw, one that is fully Bad, and staring over the precipice of Worse. Topics of discussion include unending backstage segments, unclear face/heel alignments, Big Show busting out a Steenalizer out of nowhere and Goofy-Ass Kurt Angle being an island of good in a lot of bad. You’ll notice there’s not a lot of mention of WCW in this copy, and there’s a reason for that. His name is Vince, and you and him probably won’t see eye to eye on what makes an entertaining two hours of wrestling. Just sayin’. Tonight, on what will surely go down as The Greatest Podcast in the History of Our Sport, Scotty 2 Hotty was thrown out of the ring, rolled over on the mat and died, RIP Scotty.

That’s right, fans, you know when a title’s got that many colons in it, business is picking up. We’re joined by Lucas Brown and Alex Hardison to talk about one of the greatest squanderings of talent in wrestling history, and no, we’re not talking about Stan Hansen being saddled with a comedy cowboy gimmick (JIM HERD.) No, we’re talking about the Invasion Angle, in which WCW and ECW converged in conflict with Vince McMahon’s WWF, and the only thing that came out of it was fan disappointment, wasted potential and enough ego wankery to be tantrically stored. We’re descending into the true underworld of wrestling, folks, so I hope you brought some nice bloody steaks to help get past Cerberus. Tonight, on what will surely go down in history as the Greatest Podcast in the History of Our Sport, Meng once walked through a drive-thru; 3 dead, 11 injured.

The Invasion crossover is in the pipe, but we’ve got something to tide you over until we can get everything zipped up. Namely, another delve into the deep barrel of awful gimmicks WCW talent got handed over the years. Come along with us, as we explore the world of baffling bodysuits, Barry Darsow’s violent putting challenge, things that got done to poor Brad Armstrong and awkward skateboarding. Tonight, on what will surely go down in history as the Greatest Podcast in the History of Our Sport, Jim Herd is an extradimensional muppet pokemon. JIM HERD.