Then, Now, Whatever Episode 3: WWE Wrestlemania 32

We're back again, with the culmination of our coverage of Wrestlemania season 2016: Wrestlemania itself.




General production notes: As I mentioned in my introduction, we had a bit of a technical boo boo and my laptop used its own mic to record the show, not my Blue Yeti. I'm still not quite sure what happened there. So yeah, apologies if the audio goes a bit wishy washy on occasion. I did everything I could in the edit to eliminate any noise between us talking. Thankfully it was still clear enough to make out what we were saying to each other. Even though Mania itself was disappointing, we still had loads of fun with the material it offered us.

Anyway, below are some little footnotes, visual aids and time stamps for coverage of specific matches which I hope you find useful.

Intro

With my love of the intro music of Manias VI to VIII and my addiction to my Vince impression, I thought I'd pastiche the old style of Wrestlemania intros. I had to stand away from the mic to record that, I was loud enough to distort the audio on previous attempts!


WWF WRESTLEMANIA 7 by sportsvipwiner

PROGRESS Wrestling are an independent promotion here in Britain. They're London based but have been running shows in Manchester every couple of months as of this year. I've been to two of those shows now and both have been full of great wrestling. If you'd like a sample of what they're capable of, their Chapter 13 show is available for free on Youtube here.

Going back to what Kyle mentioned about the fans turning face on Triple H out of respect for coming back from his first quad tear, just check out his return to Raw in Madison Square Garden. One of the most phenomenal ovations I've ever seen. Jim Cornette can talk all he wants about Hunter being "the guy that was there with the guys that drew the money" but the fans were clearly desperate to see him return at this point.

US Title Match

Just to give you an indication of how empty the stadium was when the match started

And here's the ref for the match

Look at the pythons on that zebra!

10 Diva Tag

Notice Emma's gloves.

For the benefit of anyone who doesn't follow football, John Terry is the captain of Chelsea. When they were last in the Champions League Final, he was suspended. However, he still turned up for the presentation of the trophy, in his kit and everything, to claim it as club captain. This turned into a meme where people would photoshop Tezza into other trophy and awards ceremonies to claim the awards himself.

Usos vs Dudleyz

Kelsey Grammer is of course most famous for playing Dr Frasier Krane in Cheers and Frasier.
"Legends who bankrupted Gawker (brother)" - just in case you've been living under a rock...

IC Title Match

This is going to go a bit "Oscars" looking at the parade of outfits here. So, we have...

Sin Cara in a banana thing

Ryder in a great overcoat

Sami in his "golfer lad" get up

Miz in his solar panel

First Trimester Question Time

Normally I'd have put the promos we talked about here, but I spliced a couple of them (most of Austin's awesome Whataburger promo and the concluding back and forth between Jericho and Rock on Jericho's debut) into the actual episode to give you a break from the "Skype from 2010" quality of our recording. Kyle also alluded to DX invading WCW (but it got edited out for time) and Shawn superkicking everyone. Going back to the Whataburger promo, January 2002 was one of my favourite times for promos. Austin, Rock and Angle were all brilliant in this time period. Rocky especially, taking the piss out of Coach and cameramen.

AJ vs Y2J

I think this is a good shot for illustrating our confusion at Y2J's tights...

"Stick it in Hermie!" - at some point in 2000 Rock thought Kevin Kelly was a hermaphrodite and started calling him Hermie. At one point he made him pick his own nose.

As he promised, Zack found Razor and grabbed a photo.

When I was a kid I held @SCOTTHALLNWO's Intercontinental title. Tonight at #WrestleMania, he held MY IC title! pic.twitter.com/f0Jjm23CAg

— Zack Ryder (@ZackRyder) 4 April 2016

New Day vs The League

New Day's outfits were incredible (White Ranger and Dragonball Z inspired). I used the "Wild Pokemon Battle" music for the bed as I talked through their entrance.

Also, that sell of the Stunner by Rusev...

#wrestlemania Stone Cold Stunner on Rusev! pic.twitter.com/RXV3uqC9pi

— Ripclawe (@Ripclawe) 4 April 2016

Brock vs Dean

I'll just leave this here...

Women's Title Match

Here's Lita, overwhelmed by the weight of her microphone.

Great side by side comparison of Sasha and Eddie's gear here. I'm sure you'll know by now because commentary brought it up, but Eddie was Sasha's favourite wrestler and she was actually in the Cow Palace to see him win the title at No Way Out 2004.

Without Eddie Guerrero would have no Sasha Banks ♡❤ @SashaBanksWWE #LegitBoss pic.twitter.com/nJ5zG3Isvl

— Future WWE Diva ♡ (@DamiIrwinStyles) 16 April 2016

"Would you like a schmoke and a pancake Shasha Banks?" - Austin Powers Goldmember reference, naturally. Harping back to my DVD reviews, I'd use him in the verdict because his I always wind up using his "That's a keeper!" line.

Sign Watch

The opening bed was the theme tune to BBC show Crimewatch. "You can't sit with us!" as I mentioned is a line from Mean Girls (one of my favourite movies). Again, for non-sporting people, Bobby Zamora is a striker who plays football for Brighton & Hove Albion. Owen Coyle is a former manager of Bolton Wanderers. He was in the midst of getting Burnley promoted to the Premier League for the first time at the time of Wrestlemania 25.

Hell in the Cell

Linda at ringside!

"Shaaaane. Jump off the fucking ceeeeellllllll."

Incidentally, the next episode of Raw after recording, Shane was given control AGAIN, so I've really no idea what they're doing.

Andre Memorial

It was August 2009 they had Shaq guest host, it's so strange to think they've been waiting all this time to pay off his interaction with Show.

 I can't be the only one who thinks if you take the rosy cheeks of Bo Dallas...

...and add the saucer eyes of Edge...

...then you get Baron Corbin (or Barry Corbz for short - hi WEnxt Podcast)

"Rock vs Rowan"

Just look at Cena's neck!!

Rock = beast, Cena = old man neck

And yes, The Wyatts genuinely were at the New York Stock Exchange to ring the opening bell.
The fastest match in Mania history before this was actually Chavo Guerrero vs Kane at 24. Bundy's match at Mania 1 had actually been bested several times since it happened (including by Bryan and Sheamus actually).

Main Event

"Unless they were saying boo-urns"

The Simpsons Season 6 "A Star Is Burns"

"He was flanked by loads of Ingobernables types" - the skulls and suits combo reminded me of New Japan's Los Ingobernables de Japon faction, headed up by recently crowned IWGP Champion Tetsuya Naito.

As far as Steph's outfit goes, I'll just leave this here...

Who wore it better? pic.twitter.com/93qO34MomF

— Matt Farmer (@mattfarmer93) 4 April 2016

Next Time

As we mentioned at the end, our next episode will rewind things to 10 years ago, as we check out Wrestlemania 22. Clearly there are a lot of comparisons to be made with the main event of that show and this one, but maybe we'll find they have even more in common with each other.

So we'll be with you again very soon. But in the mean time you can keep in touch with us on Twitter and Facebook. We are now also on Stitcher, where you can find all our latest episodes as they are released, just as you can by subscribing to us on Soundcloud.

See you soon.

Then, Now, Whatever Episode 2: WWE Fastlane 2016

We are back again continuing our look at the Road to Wrestlemania with WWE Fastlane 2016. As well as our episode below, you'll find some more general notes and visual references on what we talked through just to give you some visual aids and stimulation.

We hope you enjoy the show and we'd love to hear from you if you have any comments for us. You can reach us on Twitter and Facebook and follow us on Soundcloud. I've been tweaking our RSS Feed in hopes of getting us on iTunes as well - we'll let you know if we get accepted!

General production notes: It's our first episode in the sound studio! Hence the general increase in audio quality. We recorded one week prior to WWE Roadblock. I also had the good fortune of finding a copy of WWE Anthology for £3 the last time I was in CEX, so I wound up using a few snippets from that this episode (Warrior, The Brood and Shane's themes). With there being so many road/travelling/car similes and puns this Wrestlemania season I used Dean Ambrose's theme on the intro (it's literally a car engine revving).

* 0:32 WWE changing the name of Roadblock wasn't going to stop me getting in my South Park "March of War" joke... eat Snacky Smores.

Preshow

* I was of course borrowing the late Mike Graham's assessment of Jeff Jarrett. Kyle made a great call highlighting Rock's concert for Sacramento. "They got some fat ass women and The Rock is gonna just say no".

* Ziggler's hair. Just.. why?

Also, Triple H during the mutton chop era...

If Kyle despairs at how you look, then that beard really doesn't work for you Hunter

Opening match

* "Don't mention ze war" is of course from Fawlty Towers.

* I wasn't kidding. Jimmy Snuka is almost certainly responsible for the death of a young nurse way back in the early 80s. The case is only recently becoming of interest again and has only been adjourned due to doubts over Snuka's mental health.

* Finn & Bayley have got up to loads of antics at NXT House Shows. She dressed as a Lego person for Halloween (Finn loves Lego) and copied his entrance to cheer him up when his leg was injured. He then returned the favour by imitating Bayley's entrance. Then of course there was the infamous Dirty Dancing homage.

* Kyle: "I don't want a face full of ass... as a finisher."
  Duncan: "I don't want it as a finisher but...

...nevermind."

IC title match

* I simply had to make an "I'm from Winnipeg, you idiot" reference in our talk of home towns - probably one of the all time great heckling responses ever by Jericho.

* As alluded to last episode, "Superkick Parties" are really the Young Bucks' gimmick. Also, here is Tapout's logo

and the share symbol

6 man tag

* Jim Ross makes everything sound more dramatic. The Ryback vs Big Show and Elimination Chamber matches we mentioned when discussing overhearing wrestlers calling spots were both in Botchamania's Most Botched Matches of the year for 2013 and 2015 respectively. 

Divas title match

* Gamers of a certain age will be familiar with the terrible voice acting from House of the Dead 2. Charlotte and Brie's delivery on the Raw before Fastlane was close to being that bad. "Suffer like G did?"

* I was air quotes Dr Evil style when introducing "Charlotte" after spotting how her name appeared on her Titantron last episode (and when talking about how we have Brie vs Lana to "look forward to").

"Char-lotte"

* "Me biscuit's falling in me brew!" - both Kyle and I are from Bolton, so Peter Kay jokes are kind of in our DNA now. For anyone not from Brtiain, we like to dunk biscuits in our tea here, and Peter used to joke about how when they'd fall in when they got too soft it felt like it'd happen in slow motion, like "Charlotte"s Frankensteiner.

Half time question time

I used Warrior's theme and The Brood's theme as beds for the segment since they were two of our choices. Our others were "Glass Shattered" by Disturbed (Austin's 2000/01 theme), "Superman" by Stereophonics, "Faith Hope Love" by Starsailor and "The Pretender" by Foo Fighters.

Do let us know what entrance music your wrestler would have - which theme used by a wrestler currently/in the past and which song in general. We'd love to hear from you, either in the comments here or one our Soundcloud track, or reach us on Facebook or Twitter.

AJ vs Y2J

* As Kyle showed me during recording, that Y2AJ shirt was totally a thing! And it basically only existed so Jericho could burn one in his Smackdown promo right after he turned on AJ.

"Leave the memories aloooone!"

* Miz's Piper's Pit clone is, of course, called Miz TV. AJ actually knocked some teeth of Miz's loose with a backhand.

The Cutting Edge Peep Show

* Here's the eipsode of Botchamania featuring Cole and King losing it over Chimel announcing "the-a gravy bowl invitation for the World Wrestling Federation Wimmin's Chipionship".

* The New Day newspaper which launched recently.

* Kyle saying he thought Christian's Rusev impression sounded Japanese gave me the perfect excuse to relive those two "photographers" getting interviewed at Wrestlemania IX.

Truth vs Axel

* "You can't have a Ferrari engine in a tank". That was the analogy Husky Harris (now Bray Wyatt) used to describe himself when he debuted in Season 2 of the original NXT.

Main Event

* I was thinking of Lesnar's post UFC 100 victory speech...


"Frank Mir had a horseshoe up his ass. I told him that a year ago. I pulled it out of him and beat him over the head with it. [Now] I'm going to drink a Coors Light. That's right a Coors. Bud Light don't pay me nothing. I may even get on top of my wife tonight."

Next time: We'll hopefully have an episode covering WWE Roadblock with you real soon. Be sure to keep an eye on our Twitter and Facebook for more news when we firm things up.

See you soon.

Then, Now, Whatever Episode 1: WWE Royal Rumble 2016

Yes, as promised/threatened, we're up and running with our first episode of Then, Now, Whatever: The Wrestling Podcast. We'd love to hear from you all if you have any comments, would like to add anything to what myself and Kyle were discussing or just let us know what you think in general.

As usual, this blog post is here to give you some visual references and stimulation (ooh er missus).

We hope you enjoy listening below. We'll be back to discuss Fastlane in our next episode in the very near future, so be sure to keep up with us on Twitter and Facebook.



General production notes - with the studio closed, we had to improvise and record on our producer/tech monitor Edd's Sony Xperia phone. It sounded surprisingly decent! Edd then did a bit of work re-levelling stuff (which I probably didn't make any easier for him by being louder and closer to the mic than Kyle) and then I butchered it into the edit you hear here :). All future episodes will either get recorded on my Blue Microphones Yeti or in the college sound studio.

0:20 I'm not joking, Kyle is studying for his PGCE to teach drama while also holding down part time work at weekends and roles as an extra in several TV shows. He's previously been in Waterloo Road, Cilla and Coronation Street, and also very recently in BBC One drama Moving On.

0:53 Here's Amway's logo as it appears on the arena.

1:50 They took our jeeerbs! (Appropriately enough one of the episodes this joke appeared in was the one about wrestling.)

4:40 Naturally Kevin Owens was brilliant responding to this.

Pre-show match Millions of scholars!

Millions of Scholars. #RoyalRumble pic.twitter.com/VYgqbgnWkj

— Gixx - WWE (@IAmGixx) 25 January 2016

Also, get a loads of Konnor's wedgie! And Mark Henry's hip swivel.

Intercontinental Title match - "And here come the pretzels", from The Simpsons season 8, "The Twisted World Of Marge Simpson". It's immediately what I think of whenever there's a big pile of plunder getting thrown in the ring.

Also yet more references to Owens' antics on Twitter. The Melissa Joan Hart feud started with this Tweet here

Kevin Owens is a lazy wrestler. Yeah, I said it. #WWETitle #MelissaExplainsRAW @WWE #RAW

— Melissa Joan Hart (@MelissaJoanHart) 17 November 2015

Here's the spot with Cena and Barrett at TLC 2010 Kyle was referring to.

Tag Team Title match - Big E's dancing again drawing me back to Season 8 of The Simpson ("The Springfield Files")

Just to clarify on my stance on The Young Bucks, I usually still enjoy their matches despite their total ineptitude using these repeated superkicks, which is a testament to their creativity and workrate.

For those of you who aren't British children of a certain age, Lurpak Spreadable used to run commercials featuring a miniature cheese man playing the trombone. Woods' gimmick always reminds me of it.

30:44 Who wears a suit jacket without another top on underneath, seriously?

US Title Match - Pick me!

Of course, here is the front row fan or the Undertaker's streak breaking.

Divas Title Match - Let's hear it for "Charlotte" everyone.

And Alicia's abomination of a scissors kick.

I'm sure you know already, but the line "I wish you died in the womb" is from one of the all time worst Raw segments with Nikki discussing her motivation for turning on Brie at Summerslam 2014. Watch here if you dare.

The Royal Rumble Match Holy shit Vince in that referee top...

Sufferin' succotash son! My introduction of AJ Styles was homaging New Japan's excellent ring announcer, who very calmly says the wrestler's moniker then BELTS out their actual name. "Cuppa coffee in the big time YEEEAHH" is a Macho Man line (who else?).

As he went onto explain, Kyle is a MASSIVE  mark for Triple H.

Kyle's wet dream

John Morrison was another master of the quirky Royal Rumble hang-on, much like Kofi.

My confusion over which Wrestlemania we were on is all down to WWE dropping the number from the event and replacing it with symbols (Play instead of 31 for Silicon Valley, Lonestar instead of 32 for Texas) because apparently the number on the end makes the event seem "old". Yep.

Also I completely forgot Brock DID get his title rematch at Battleground, only for it to end in a no contest, so I guess he can still lay claim to a title match. The other thing was there was a segment at the Rumble where Heyman approached Stephanie about renegotiating Brock's contract, so he could have used that against the Authority to wrangle Brock into the Fastlane match.


...But that's a story we can deal with next time. Hope to see you then.

Stick or Twist Bonus: WWE Saturday Night's Main Event, 18/3/06

Hello everyone. This will have a bit of a different format to my usual reviews - coming soon in the very near future myself and my friend Kyle - @kazze23 on Twitter - will be starting our very own wrestling podcast! TNW: Then, Now, Whatever will begin recording in mid-February with a look back at the 2016 Royal Rumble. We've then got lots of ideas for how we'll continue things thematically covering both wrestling past and present (hence Then, Now) and other things (Whatever). 

This post is to give you a little bit of a preview of how things will work with the show. All our episodes will be uploaded to our Soundcloud account http://soundcloud.com/tnwpodcast, and will then be followed up by posts here on this blog that will be a kind of "director's cut" of the show with links, explanations and visual references to some of the things that get brought up in the show. This edition is just me messing around with my wonderful Yeti ("Ye-taaaah")  from Blue Microphones but future editions will be myself and Kyle coming to you from a fully fledged sound studio.

So, keep track of us by following us on Twitter (@TNWPodcast) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/TNWpodcast) and remember

WWE Saturday Night's Main Event - March 18th 2006

Cobo Arena, Detroit, Michigan

This show was included as an extra on he Wrestlemania 22 DVD release, and I actually stayed up to watch it live at the time so I thought it would be a laugh to see how it's aged.

* 1;21 here's that run of promos in full, along with that stone age "hide behind a skirt/take it like a man" theme song.

* 4;06 Sorry, it was Dr. Heiney and Nurse Slobberknocker! Here's the segment in full if you can stomach it.


RIP Jim Ross by SLAPNUTS1201

* 6:04 I'm a massive fan of New Japan and imitate how their commentators call certain things, hence "GAAAAH-MAAAAAAHN" for a German suplex.

* 7:18 Yes that is a Mean Girls reference, don't judge me.

* 7:24 you can find the offending "match" here. Is Cobo Arena the same place as Cobo Hall?

* 7:47 This was my first time reviewing a show with commercial breaks so I thought it's be fun to add some wrestling themed adverts. The three I chose were Kurt Angle's Pizza Outlet commercial, one of Macho Man's Slim Jim ads (naturally) and the Raw 1000 advert.

* 10:27 RKO OUTTA NOWHERE, sorry my delivery was a bit pants there.

* 13:03 What Lita was/wasn't wearing.

* 20:57 Brokeback Mountain being the multi-award winning Ang Lee film starring Heath Ledger about the relationship betweentwo men from the Mid-West.

* 22:29 "Redacted" of course being Chris Benoit, who's been practically written out of WWE history due to his double murder suicide in 2007.

* 22:41 Austin in JBL's hat will never stop being funny.

* 24:39 "The Ma-Trish"

* 25:08 *Maniacal laugh* being a Muppets reference of course.

* 26:28 WWE Wreckless Intent was the album I was thinking of featuring Mark Henry's ace Three 6 Mafia theme and Batista's Saliva theme.

* 29:14 I was singing the theme song to WWE.com's "Mr. Mcmahon's Kiss My Ass Club" cartoon.

* 29:32 #nojigsinwrestling

* 30:37 "A KING SIZED SUPERPLEX"

* 33:25 Coast to Coast gone wrong

* 33:41 Vince McMahon always called inverted atomic drops "reverse piledrives" when he did commentary. Incidentally, whatever you do, don't Google "reverse piledriver".


* General notes: there's a wee bit of influence from some of my other favourite podcasts throughout, particularly my Jerry Lawler impression, which is practically identical to the Attitude Era Podcast's, and "THE RULES" when JBL explains the beer drinking contest came from OSW Review's V1.

Hope you enjoyed the show, and as I said above, keep an eye out for our début proper.