WELCOME TO RAW IS...Oh, sorry habit, TALK IS JERRRIIICHO!

[The Thread Killer]

I enjoyed the Dynamite Kid episode from last week with Dave Meltzer.

[SomethingSavage]

Finally caught up on all the Jericho Cruise series of shows. Some of them were great; some were meh. The roundtable Eddie tribute may have been the absolute best though. Plenty of quotable gems there.

"Fuck Elvis. Who did HE ever beat??"

"You think your shit don't stink..?"

Konnan cracked me up with the story about him being more over than the Easter Bunny in April, too. And the part where Rey got choked up toward the end was a real gut punch.

Cody and the Bucks come off as genuinely cool guys in every interview I've ever heard from them. But Kenny Omega sure seems like a pretentious dick.

I mean, ya know. Only all the time.

[SomethingSavage]

The recent episode covering that time Vince did a thing and bought WCW is pretty fun. I always enjoy Jericho chopping it up with Meltzer about these historically significant topics & whatnot.

It was cool to hear Dave give Hogan his due and really emphasize how valuable he was during the expansion. I especially dug how he said it's practically impossible to explain to fans who grew up on today's wrestling - because there is no one like Hulk Hogan in wrestling anymore. Not even close. Good stuff and accurate as fuck.

It's easy to forget just how successful that Invasion PPV was at the time. It still stands as the most bought non-WrestleMania PPV ever. I didn't realize that.

When Dave brings it up, Jericho doubles down & adds that his payoff for that show was the second biggest he ever received - second only to one of his Mania paydays.

That's wild. And there were nine other guys that had to be paid from that main event. I mean, I knew business was great for them in 2000 and 2001, but holy hell. They must have made some ridiculous money off that show.

Dave was totally professional toward Bischoff and gave him credit for his business acumen as well. He notes that Eric had turned the company around before and helped them to earn a profit, so it's not out of the question that he could do it again.

Combined with what I've heard from Eric's own podcast this past year - detailing some of his decisions in eliminating costs and addressing expenses - I actually found this to be the most interesting part of the show.

Towards the end, Meltzer mentions that it was under Bischoff's direction that the top stars of WCW started to get sidelined and shelved by WCW Champ, Scott Steiner. I remember the angle well, but I had no idea that was a Bischoff call.

But it makes total sense. He was slowly clearing the board and preparing to hit the reset button for the purchase.

I'm eager to hear Eric and Conrad cover another one of those dying days shows on 83 Weeks sometime. Hopefully Eric remembers enough to discuss the angle and the big reboot itself at some point.

I know Eric has gone out of his way to avoid saying too much before, but Conrad seems to have a way of getting him to divulge a bit more. So here's hoping...

[SomethingSavage]

I already mentioned this over in the Grilling JR thread, but I wanted to double down here anyway. The recent Owen Hart episode, wherein Jericho and Dave Meltzer reminisce over Owen's career and overall influence, is just tremendous.

It's light. It's upbeat. It's the pitch perfect counterpart & companion piece to JR's Over the Edge '99 show.

I know it's one of those things that gets talked up a lot, but it really is wild to fantasy book a scenario where Owen had lived to mix it up with the likes of Jericho, Benoit, Eddie, and Angle in the 2000s WWF.

Just imagine a world where we get those series of matches. Or maybe a situation where Owen gets rewarded with a title run for tenure at some point. Maybe he gets a big moment at Mania XX in MSG, ten years after his big definitive moment with his brother. And on & on.

Anyway, they have some fun daydreaming & talking about some of the matches that could have been. Dave also draws some parallels between Owen and Jericho in terms of creativity and character reinvention, as well as how they could adapt to work with more contemporary opponents.

There's a fascinating little sidebar discussion about Davey Boy, in which Meltzer indicates that Davey's preference for size and muscle mass was actually counterproductive to his instincts and skill sets as a performer.

I agree, and it sounds like a common sense kind of thing. But really, it's hard to envision Davey Boy without that frame and that physique. It was certainly one of his defining traits, even if he was better off working like a small, athletic guy.

Jericho's description of "every babyface to ever work in Calgary" had me cracking up. Lightning bolts down the leg? Check. Three stars on the ass? Check. Good stuff.

I also found it interesting to hear from Dave that Pat Patterson used two examples to help lay out what the Bret/Owen feud could look like: Cain & Abel, and Bruno/Larry.

We've heard from Bruce Prichard that Vince didn't buy into the brother versus brother feuds for a long time. Apparently, Vince was opposed to running them and found them entirely unrealistic.

"Brothers don't fight! Nobody's going to believe that."

So I wonder if maybe Pat got ahead of the game and used the Bruno/Larry template to help convince McMahon how it could work. That's just me speculating, but yeah. It was interesting to hear Dave mention Patterson framing it that way.

Anyway, this is an excellent episode. Check it out. Come for the Owen appreciation. Stick around for the Makhan Singh and Ken Timbs(!) shout-outs.

[flyonthewall2983]

Jon Moxley is on today's episode and is not holding back.

[Flyin' Brian]

Catching up on these, listening to the McMahon buys WCW episode, I didn't realize that the first deal on the table with McMahon he would have taken over WCW with the timeslots still on TNT for Nitro and TBS for Thunder. Unfortunately he had an exclusive contract with TNN/Spike/Paramount Network/Whatever it's called now that any wrestling he produced had to be on their channel only. Sucks, because I think the Invasion would have turned out a whole lot better in that scenario. 

Has anyone ever done a book or other deep dive into everything that went on with WWE/WCW/ECW from 2000-2001? I know the end of WCW has been combed over many times, but the implosion of three major wrestling companies all with national tv deals and PPV into one has always been interesting to me. 

[El-P]

The Owen Hart episode with Meltz is indeed excellent. Listened to the Tessa Blanchard interview too, and she comes off like such a cool girl. Interesting take on how her dreams have changed from wanting nothing but WWE to not even being sure she's gonna end up there one day.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Hey, the AEW Champion is giving Trump's evil piece of shit kid a platform to spew hate and stupidity to promote a " book" he "wrote".   

 

[WingedEagle]

Looks like I'll be unsubscribing from that one.

[flyonthewall2983]

I haven't listened to it in quite awhile frankly. Last one I remember was the Hogan episode. 

Nice to see him going from has-beens to a real, genuine never-was.

[WrestlingPower]

I listen to these on occasion.  I enjoyed the Brandi episode and the one with Alvarez plugging his book.

[El-P]

Crazy to think Mox was barely a year ago.

Meanwhile, the Reviv the Revolt was on and they basically said they'd like to work a bit of everywhere, IMPACT (the North), ROH (Briscoes), NJPW (GOD, FinJuice) and AEW (Young Bucks). That sounds pretty damn cool to me. Not surprisingly at all, their main influences for tag team wrestling is the MX (Dennis & Bobby) & Arn & Tully . Interestingly, Dax/Dash favourite wrestler and most influencial to him is Bret Hart. They really sound like this new generation of guys whose dream in not "WWE" but actually "professional wrestling" as a performance art, which is why they wanted out because they had no interest in getting money to do jack shit. Can't wait to see these guys pop up here and there.

[SomethingSavage]

I only occasionally check out one of his shows anymore. I still find Jericho to be a GREAT host and among the most versatile out there, but I don't know. Some of the guests and the subjects feel like too much retread whenever I scroll through the episodes.

The recent JR episode from a couple of weeks ago was awesome. It was just a breezy conversation with plenty of Vince stories to eat up. Not a ton of new material covered, but it was never boring.

The Brodie Lee episode was alright. Again, the highlights are the Vince stories, which have basically been 100% confirmed by Arn over on his show as well. It's crazy to think Harper got heat for that run in late 2016/early 2017 when he was a part of some of the best stuff on a very stacked SmackDown show at the time.

Harper claims be told the writers the angle would get HIM over as the babyface, even though it was supposedly designed to do that for Randy (it was actually accomplishing both, but the crowd WAS solidly behind Harper).

They continued to push through, but Harper got babyface reactions - even while doing heel stuff laid out by Arn. The crowd didn't care. They were cheering Harper, because 1) they dug his work, and 2) he was smart for catching on early and trying to warn Bray Wyatt about the impending betrayal by Orton. That's not heel tactics. The crowd didn't care if he was interfering in tag matches. They wanted to cheer the guy.

Anyway, I checked out the Revival/Revolt episode also. But mygoddamngod. I really wish I hadn't. What a bore. I was hoping for some entertaining or interesting Vince stories surrounding their release and the wild gimmick pics that popped up online.

We actually did get to hear the gimmick pitch, but that's about it. The rest is an hour and twenty minutes of them sounding like Kenny Omega by telling us how humble they are and how they want to change the world through wrestling & give back to wrestling or whateverthefuck. Hard pass anytime they're on anything that's not them just shutting the fuck up and wrestling.

[Loss]

The Martha Hart episode is quite possibly the best wrestling podcast I've ever heard. All I could think at the end of hearing it is that Martha is a wonderful human being and a genuine class act who is nothing at all like the caricature that has been painted of her. She is proud of Owen's career as a wrestler and harbors zero ill will toward the industry itself. She just can't bring herself to cross the bridge with WWE. When Jericho pointed out that it's possible now to do things like a merchandise line and that he'd know exactly where to point her -- referring to Pro Wrestling Tees without saying it -- she seemed pleasantly surprised, and it makes sense that she wouldn't know that since she no longer keeps up with the business. She said that she was "grateful" to have platform to speak fondly about Owen and the great memories people have of him. It's an uplifting show in many ways, and I'd call her an inspirational person even. She deserves all the happiness and success that life can possibly bring her.

[MoS]

6 hours ago, Loss said:

The Martha Hart episode is quite possibly the best wrestling podcast I've ever heard. All I could think at the end of hearing it is that Martha is a wonderful human being and a genuine class act who is nothing at all like the caricature that has been painted of her. She is proud of Owen's career as a wrestler and harbors zero ill will toward the industry itself. She just can't bring herself to cross the bridge with WWE. When Jericho pointed out that it's possible now to do things like a merchandise line and that he'd know exactly where to point her -- referring to Pro Wrestling Tees without saying it -- she seemed pleasantly surprised, and it makes sense that she wouldn't know that since she no longer keeps up with the business. She said that she was "grateful" to have platform to speak fondly about Owen and the great memories people have of him. It's an uplifting show in many ways, and I'd call her an inspirational person even. She deserves all the happiness and success that life can possibly bring her.

Would just like to echo this. 

[rovert]

Indeed.

Jericho did a great job interviewing Sandra Toffoloni, the sister of Nancy Benoit this time four years ago also. 

[El-P]

Like it's been said about Martha's interview by Jericho. He is an awesome host and Martha comes off as such a gentle, genuine human being. Great stuff.

(And since it is an uplifting show, the less said about the WWE actually suing her the better. But yeah, gotta say it again, these people are complete dirtbags for doing that after her husband died working for them)

[Ricky Jackson]

Ok, shameless plug for my oldest friend Travis and acquaintance Max Mitchell, majority owner, for their Vancouver area indy promotion, Boom! Pro Wrestling, which was the subject of the latest Jericho pod. Max and top heel Brady Malibu were on the show and I highly recommend it for their insights on booking a small independent promotion in a non-traditional way (old school storytelling mixed with comedy). Our own Johnny Sorrow even came up North last year and guest ring announced a show. Longtime PWO/PTBN fans may remember Travis and Max from the Lucha Afterground podcast 

Check it out!