Major Impact #76 – Read Less, Listen More (Part 2)

In the last Major Impact, I wrote about why I’ve started to listen to podcasts, wrestling radio shows, and certain fan interviews. This week, I want to bring you some “required listening” from my adventures listening to these various audio shows and watching some of these video interviews!

Interview with TJ Perkins/Manik
The TJ Perkins interview should be required listening for two specific populations. First, any internet professional wrestling “journalist” should listen to Perkins talk about how internet “fans” begin to believe their own bunk and then others believe that same bunk because a bunch of dopes who aren’t really reporters keep propagating it. Then the bunk starts to get out of control because you have a bunch of people who are so convinced that something is true and they’re so backed up by others who agree with the false reports that their reality gets blurred. Perkins gives the perfect case with the lies that came out on the internet last year regarding TNA not paying their wrestlers in a timely manner. In reality, all of the wrestlers have been paid according to the schedules that they agreed to in their contracts and Perkins confirms this fact. Did some of the chronic complainers (Jesse Neal comes to mind) make much less than Perkins makes now? Probably. Were they on a different contractual payment schedule? Probably. Does that mean that they didn’t get paid on time? No. It means that they were under a different payment structure and they didn’t get a regular paycheck because they had a different contract.

The part of the Perkins interview that goes over the fact that he has always been paid on time is absolutely required listening for all of the dopes out there who claim to love professional wrestling, but then spread baseless lies about how the second largest American company operates internally in their silly attempt to hurt that company.

Interview with Jake “The Snake” Roberts
The Jake “The Snake” Roberts interview should be required listening for any young man or woman who wants to get into the professional wrestling business. He talks openly and candidly about how alcohol and drugs can ravage a performer. Roberts has been through more public hell than most retired wrestlers and his open and honest discussion is both welcome and refreshing. And, frankly, the things that Roberts talks about having gone on in his life are scary.

Interview with Paul Heyman
The Paul Heyman interview on the “Stone Cold” Steve Austin podcast is brilliant. Besides the rare occasion that Eric Bischoff is interviewed in one of these settings, there really isn’t any one out there (besides Vince McMahon and perhaps Stephanie McMahon) who understands the larger television business as well as Heyman. He is absolutely on another level when it comes to the television business. What’s so great about his interview with Austin is that Heyman talks about the real behind the scenes issues that caused ECW to fail as an independent company; and it all has to do with the television business and what was going on in it during that time. Further, in passing he talks about the difference between running a second-tier promotion today in the television business (i.e. iMPACT Wrestling on Spike TV) versus what it meant back in the early 2000s. Heyman really gives a fascinating insider’s view to any one who is interested in the television portion of the professional wrestling business.

Interview with Jim Cornette
The Jim Cornette interview on The Ross Report is required listening for any one who wants to know how to develop a character in professional wrestling. Cornette is an old school guy because “old school” character building works. What does it take to be a strong heel? Be a bad guy in the ring! What does it take to be a strong babyface outside of innate charisma? Be a well-rounded athlete! Also, Cornette talks about helping to discover Kane and how The Undertaker first competed against Kane at a Smokey Mountain Wrestling house show.

Interview with Santino Marella
The worst listening experience, though, was suffering through Chris Jericho interview Santino Marella while Marella maintained his in-character persona. Ugh! It was dreadful! I’m not linking that podcast because it was so miserable.

iMPACT Wrestling’s Regular Podcast
Along with the Jericho podcast I would skip this one, too. Everyone is in character and all they really do is spend time hyping whatever is coming up – be it a house show, television show, specific match, new merchandise, etc. There is no news broken here and it’s a real bore to listen to after the first few seconds. And that’s a shame because it is well-produced.

Another thing I found interesting is that pretty much everyone in the wrestling business (besides Heyman, of course) really hated the fact that The Undertaker lost to Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania. As a guy who doesn’t watch WWE, I don’t want to agree or disagree too much with the decision to have The Undertaker lose to Lensar, but I will say that as a fan of professional wrestling there are certain things that you look forward to each year. So while I don’t watch WWE, I always made sure to get the WrestleMania results as soon as they were available because I wanted to know how The Undertaker did and whether he kept the streak alive for another year. Well, WWE took away that annual experience for me and since I don’t expect that I’ll randomly start watching their product again, with no streak I don’t particular care about WrestleMania any more. As Cornette put it in his interview with Ross, sometimes wrestling fans and bookers think that they want to see something happen because it would be historic and monumental… and then it happens. And it doesn’t feel good. And you sort of groan afterwards and wish that it never happened.

I think that’s the feeling that almost everyone on these podcasts and radio shows exhibited when they were talking about the streak breaking.

That’s all I want to go over this time around. Just bear in mind that other great interviews exist in the not-so-distant past in the podcast world. Some of the interviewees that I’ve listened to in the last month include Eric Bischoff on Steve Austin‘s podcast, AJ Styles, Davey Richards of the Wolves, Steve Corino, MVP, Michael “P.S.” Hayes, Daniel Bryan, DDP, Gail Kim, Magnus (a GREAT interview), Jim Korderas, and Kevin Kelly.

– Joe Vincent
If you’d like to contact Joe Vincent, please consider using our Feedback Form.
Visit the Major Impact Archive.