All the WrestleManias

Classical Music and Professional Wrestling 2: Electric Boogaloo

When Tim is away, Rich will play! While Tim enjoys the Dutch tropics, Rich toils away endlessly for content to entertain the masses. Rich comes back to you with another episode of Classical Music and Professional Wrestling. This time, Rich digs into circus music, film scores about the founding of Israel, and post-modern American music. Mix in a sprinkling of Freud, music theory, and P.T. Barnum, and you get an episode about the music and characters of Doink the Clown, Mr. Perfect Curt Hennig, and Mick Foley's Mankind. Enjoy and thanks for listening!
 
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Golden Pinky Society

Virginia Championship Wrestling's former World Tag Team champs, the Golden Pinky Society stop by to talk about the upcoming VCW Show on September 2 at Hampton High School. We dive deep into their disgust with friend of the show and VCW Director of Operations, Jerry Stephanitsis. We also talk a little bit about anime and the art of cosplaying, wrestling inspirations and some other stuff. Benjamin Banks and "Diamond" Victor Griff are a couple of good dudes have been singled out and targeted by the management for no reason and they're ready to fight back!

WrestleMania 28

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more," as Henry V says in the Shakespeare play. Tim and Rich charge back into the quixotic quest with the the nearly 4-hour bloat that is WrestleMania 28 from sunny Miami, Florida. Ironically given the tag line, "Once in a lifetime," we are greeted by a WrestleMania tradition - a squash match! We have an AEW main event between CM Punk and Chris Jericho and an end of a career match between HHH and The Undertaker, though, is it really? There's an overly emotional Big Show winning a mid-card title from a floundering mid-card Cody Rhodes. Finally, then a once in a life time match between The Rock and John Cena in the main event, but again, is it really?? With a resounding rating of "two and half our of four," Tim and Rich enjoyed this one, even though it turns out the real once-in-a-lifetime moment was the long-anticipated in-ring debut of Maria Menounos. Thanks for listening!
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Read Henry V: http://shakespeare.mit.edu/henryv/full.html

MSG December 17, 1979

We hop in the ol' WrestleMania Time Machine and warp back to Madison Square Garden on the night of December 17, 1979. We find a strange, mysterious WWF that we're not familiar with; a WWF not owned by Vince K. McMahon dominating the pro wrestling landscape, but a northeastern territory owned by Vincent J. McMahon that has packed the most famous arena in the world. We find a diverse card reflecting the ethnic mixing bowl that is The Big Apple. We benefit from the the recently renamed WWF rejoining the NWA, which gives us not just Dusty Rhodes vs. Harley Race for the NWA World's Heavyweight Championship, but also talents from Antonio Inoki's New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJWP), the WWA from California, and other incredible stars. We encounter a young upstart named "The Fabulous Hulk Hogan" making his debut at The Garden. We think he's going to go places! We also encounter The Great Hossein Arab, later known as The Iron Sheik. Bob Backlund is in action to secretly recapture the WWF World Heavyweight Championship. Plus, Pat Patterson defends the brand new Intercontinental Championship. Thanks for listening!Support the Show: http://www.ko-fi.com/allthewrestlemanias

Jerry Stephanitsis

This week, we have the VCW Director of Operations, Jerry Stephanitsis on the show in advance of his big match for the VCW World Tag Team Championship at the Liberty Lottery on July 29. He regales us with tales of being trained by Lou Thesz and how much of a shooter he is, but Rich isn't having any of it and things get a little heated to the point that only the mutual love of a certain evil clown named Doink can cool. We talk all things wrestling, from Andy Kaufman to the rich history of professional wrestling in the Tidewater region of Virginia. You don't want to miss this episode.  Thanks for listening!
VCW Liberty Lottery featuring "Indie God" Matt Cardona: https://vcwprowrestling.com/events/
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Dr. Marc Ouellette - If You Want To Be the Man, You Gotta Beat the Man

This week we welcomed Dr. Marc Ouellette (pronounced Well-ette), associate professor of English from Old Dominion University, to the show. Dr. Marc is a life-long wrestling fan and has published on all bits of pop culture, from video games to professional wrestling and how they intertwine with gender relations and studies. We talked about his 2016 paper, "If you want to be the man, you’ve got to beat the man’: Masculinity and the Rise of Professional Wrestling in the 1990s." We get in deep on the Attitude Era of WWF and the nWo concept in WCW and the parallels between those story arcs and the changes in the portrayal of villains post-cold war in movies and tv. We also discuss the WWF's reactionary tactics to the changes in 90's American culture and angst and the paradox of choice, "A million options and choosing none" 
Dr. Marc's paper: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/english_fac_pubs/90/
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SuperClash 1985

Tim and Rich hop on to YouTube to get back to 1985 and the SuperClash 1985 from Chicago's Comiskey Park. SuperClash, the NWA/AWA/WCCW's response to the first WrestleMania has a star-studded lineup, a big, hot crowd, and some subpar presentation issues. Larry Nelson calls the whole show himself. He barrels through classics like Candi Divine vs Sherri Martel, Sgt Slaughter vs Boris Zhukov, Stan Hansen vs Rick Martel, plus work by Scott Hall, Khrusher Khrushchev, Ivan Koloff, Nick Bockwinkel, Curt Hennig, Dick the Bruiser, Baron Raschke, Kerry Von Erich, Little Mr. T vs Little Tokyo, and many more! Plus, tangents galore. We're sure you'd love to know what Pigeon Forge, TN is like! Thanks for listening!
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Watch SuperClash 1985: https://youtu.be/CXCh0aRmG6Q
http://www.allthewrestlemanias.com
 
 
 

Survivor Series 1995

In another installment of the "I Was There" series, we time travel to November of 1995, when Rich attended the Survivor Series. There's discussion of the Kliq, The Bone Street Krew, waiting in line at Ticketmaster at Hechts and not to mention a beautifully violent main event of Diesel (Kevin Nash) vs. Bret "The Hitman" Hart and the first time a wrestler goes through the Spanish Announce Table, establishing the long-standing tradition. Thanks for listening!
 
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Mr.Xcellence Brandon Scott

On this very special episode, we sit down with Mr. Xcellence himself, Brandon Scott. We talk all things wrestling from storytelling and influences to how to deal with the flippy-style guys. He talks what it was like to work with WWE and how does one get called to work as enhancement talent. He shares stories about Arn Anderson, Road Dogg, Billy Gunn, Carlito, Bo Dallas, Curt Hawkins, and more!
There was some technical difficulties, so we apologize about some of the sections that are of lower quality, but he's such a great guy and we had such a great time, we just had to share anyway! Thanks for listening!
 
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WrestleMania 27

Time marches on! Tim and Rich sit down to watch WrestleMania 27, which came from Atlanta, Ga in 2011. John Cena, The Miz, Undertaker, HHH, CM Punk, Heath Slater, Jerry Lawler, Randy Orton, and other favorites come together to put on a spectacularly mediocre show. It's the driest of the dry. But, hey! PeeWee Herman is there, so it can't be all that bad, right? right? RIGHT???
 
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