Sean Liska

I'm glad you're all enjoying the show! I really wanted to do a show that people like you would enjoy. We'll definitely play the random names game again. We have a ton more to do on Vince and WWE but he doesn't want to make it too NY-centric since it's called Booking Memphis. And the man also has an interesting Rolodex, there are some names that have been floated where they could catch up and tell some real fun stories.

They're finally starting to put these online! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwG8tm-dZVur_4S1DnGMaeA/search?query=lawler

I think a fun one this week. If you love Memphis and really want to know where the spirit of it came from, we went deep this week. The initial premise was the art of booking TV, but we go off into Jerry's love of literature, romantic poetry, how watching a late-night B-movie inspired the idea for the scaffold match, stuff like that. I think this is an episode perfectly geared for a place like this that likes to go into depth on things. As always, we're at http//www.bookingmemphis.libsyn.com.

Watching this match felt like going back in time 35 years. I loved it. Bless these two men and their efforts to preserve the type of wrestling I love.

So I really think everyone will enjoy this week's episode. We decided to do a more Memphis TV-style fast-paced episode, I just throw about 25 names from Jerry's history at him and he tells the first story that comes to mind. Why was Randy Savage the most honorable man he ever met in wrestling, what did Lou Thesz do in a match with Dory Funk to lose Jerry's respect for a time, how did Terry Funk try to get him in trouble at an NWA convention, why did Eddie Graham stop talking to him for a year, hear him talk about holding The Rock in his lap while Rocky Johnson worked the MSC in the late 70's, just tons of random gems that you can probably only get from Jerry, Bill Watts, or Vince McMahon. And the other two don't have podcasts yet. Thanks for the kind words so far! I just want people to feel like I'm taking advantage of this great opportunity. Listen here - http://bookingmemphis.lisbyn.com.

Thanks so much much for the nice feedback, putting yourself out there to be judged by the Internet can be stressful and negative. Funny you say I'm blessed with a good voice, I hear myself as being cursed with a nasally high pitched voice but I guess we all have our things about ourself. I would recommend listening to part 1 of the Vince episode because we're saving part 2 for maybe a month from now. There's some good wrestling history recorded on that one, like Jerry saying he did get a phone call from Vince Sr warning him of Vince's national expansion.

They finally found their Cena replacement.

He's been so good. I actually think some of his stuff looks better now in "safe mode," mainly the corner dropkicks. This isn't going to fly on most of the Internet with NJPW and everything but I think he's clearly the best wrestler in the world again and is trying to elevate his GWE ranking.

Re-watching Daniel Bryan vs Big Cass, and how about Bryan really trying to bring good punches back to wrestling? He said he spent time in his retirement studying Lawler and he's doing his best to incorporate that. I love it.

I grew up as a fan loving ECW and I remember Paul Heyman always saying that all he could ask for from an audience was passion. If a crowd loves something, passionately display that love. And if an audience hates something, passionately display that hate. Just show that you care. That to me is Chicago last night. And come on, it was a 4.5 hour show and they were perfectly respectful and pretty damn hot for 4.25 hours, they just had one match where they wanted to send some feedback to the office about what they want out of the product.

Thanks! He was more passionate about the second episode and I think you will hear that and again no Bruce.

Love Dave and will always sub but we're at a point where he could give something 10 stars and it wouldn't be enough to motivate me to watch the match unless I wanted to see it anyways. That's hard for me because in the 90s I really cared about those ratings but oh well, stuff changes as you age.

Nah I like NJPW but I watched a random Misawa-Fuchi match from 1/92 today, and AJPW was just better. Well, actually, it's different. I think it's fair to say that the modern NJPW style has deviated far from the 80s/90s AJPW/NJPW general style. It's much more Americanized and has a sense of being scripted out move for move ahead of time. 90s AJPW, I don't know, it probably was scripted out move for move but it didn't feel that way as much. And stuff like Jumbo/Tenryu, that just felt like two badasses calling it in the ring and is a whole different style that's so hard to compare to modern stuff.

Here's an exclusive spoiler for now for PWO. Next week Jerry wants to do the 1993 Memphis vs WWF feud and is especially proud of his role in creating Mr. McMahon. He thinks he has a lot of great stories about how he pulled that whole thing off.

Here's the link. http://bookingmemphis.libsyn.com/andy-kaufman I think it's a solid first episode and people that are fascinated by Kaufman will love the stories of the real him. I think we'll get Jerry a little more excited as we move forward and talk about topics that drew more actual money for him, but this is a fun one.

Tomorrow!

I'm hesitant on the Prichard stuff but Jerry is 75 and rich and having the time of his life on Twitter and who am I to tell one of the greatest promoters of all-time how to promote himself. I can tell you Prichard was not mentioned or even hinted at in the show we did today, it was all behind the scenes stuff from Kaufman's run.

We just did a 10-minute practice run and I already heard a few stories that amazed me that I haven't heard. I'm not on here being a salesman, I respect Loss too much for that to use his board for that, I just think that people who love territory history are really, really going to like this show. We release our first episode Friday about Kaufman.

I love this place. My goal is to do show you all find satisfying in its ambition for great wrestling history to have recorded forever.

I think people have been told the general story, but I don't think we've gotten a really deep dive on what went on behind the scenes. I also think the story is always told about Lawler and Kaufman putting this together, but obviously Jarrett was very involved as well, and I'd be curious to know about his role. To that end, a few questions: - The story has always been that the first phone call was Kaufman and Lawler (brokered by Bill Apter). When did Jerry get involved? Who laid out the angle? What were the negotiations with Kaufman like past the first conversation where there was mutual interest? - Were Lawler and Jarrett giving him any direction on the promos? If so, what? - What was the vibe in the dressing room like? Did Kaufman interact with everybody? - What did Jarrett know about the Letterman incident beforehand? - How much does he credit Kaufman with building business? How long did the bump last? Does he feel it had a lasting positive impact on the promotion from all the publicity? I'd also be into any stray untold Andy Kaufman stories. Endlessly fascinating guy. Thanks! Great stuff.

Any fun questions on the Kaufman-Lawler feud that haven't been covered? I know this is a topic that's been hit hard but we have to do an episode on it, it's what the people want.

Not an insult exactly, but definitely immature and misguided. His entire Twitter seems like a drunken Southern shitshow. As far as Twitter goes, it seems that "working feuds" and "feeding the trolls" is what attracts attention, unfortunately. We've seen it from Meltzer and others too. Not my cup of tea at all, but there must be some "business" reason for doing this, right? (As Sorrow also pointed out right above my post.) With that said, Jerry Jarrett's experience and knowledge, and his status as the "last man standing" in the territories, should make for an incredible podcast. As long as the podcast is nothing like his Twitter, or his "humor" is limited to small doses, the sky is the limit IMO. I would agree with most of this. I envision podcast Jerry and Twitter Jerry having a very similar distinction like Meltzer.