Episode 144: Don't Bring Your F-ing Kids

Mike is joined on the podcast this week by Doc Atrocity, Scorpion (yes, THAT Scorpion) and Broseph Joe Brody from Oakland's own Hoodslam for a discussion about professional wrestling on a weekend that is entirely coincidental and has no big wrestling events on it at all. They'll discuss how a group of wrestlers goofing around with each other turned into one of the biggest drawing shows, with 1000+ packed into Oakland's Metro Opera House every month. We'll also break down wrestling's macho culture in the wake of the latest training scandal, whether the internet's passionate wrestling community is helpful or harmful to running a live show, and how interactivity and truly connecting with the fans is the future of wrestling.

Episode 144!

Max Landis and All of His Friends Will Make You a Wrestling Fan

Max Landis, writer of Chronicle and about a billion other things that are coming soon, is a huge nerd. You may have figured this out because he wrote Chronicle. He's been seen before giving his ideas on one of Superman's sillier storylines, in a Drunk-History-Style-clip that nearly broke the internet in half. Now he's back, and he's covering one of our favorite topics: Professional Wrestling. Yes, Max argues, wrestling isn't "real." But neither is Game of Thrones, and you all eat that up. If you've got twenty five minutes of your life to give today, go watch the life story of one Hunter Hearst Helmsley, and how twenty years of backstage politicking and stomping around has made for one compelling story. Check it out after the jump.

Why the Future of Professional Wrestling is the Death of Kayfabe

It's a Friday night in Oakland, California. The Metro Operahouse is packed to the brim with over eight hundred people, all shoving their way towards the stage. A metal band screams and wails on guitars. And in the center of all of this madness, underneath a cloud of smoke of indeterminate substance, sits a beat up ring. Inside that ring, Scorpion from Mortal Kombat lifts up a woman in a Ms. Marvel costume and slams her to the mat. The crowd starts chanting, "This is real!"

The company is known as Hoodslam, and they're the fastest growing and most consistently popular independent wrestling company in Northern California. They like to brag that they've brought more fans to their shows than the number two televised wrestling company in the nation. And they've done it by accepting one simple fact: Kayfabe is dead.

The WWE and the Glass Ceiling. by Jon Cain

 

            Vince McMahon lost a very impressive three hundred and fifty million dollars in only 24 hours.  After signing a contract with NBC/Universal, his company's stock to dropped from the twenty nine dollar mark to nineteen dollars. This is what happens when a CEO of a company chooses not to listen to the people. WWE has been on a steady decline as of late, so this news should be not surprising to anyone. However, I feel this latest bump in the road is more a symptom of a greater illness. 

            We can all agree that the current state of WWE product is significantly under the bar. Ironically the bar they are below is the very bar they set.  I could go into a long explanation of why that is, but that would be off putting to some and the informative nature of it would be lost to others. So to steal a line from the great John Hughes “In the simplest terms, and the most convenient definitions” here we go.  Anytime time you grandstand in wrestling, whatever positive draw you have, at its end you will be met with an even greater time of drought. Simply put: You met the glass ceiling.