The Powerbombcast Episode 11 - REGARDLESS OF VAMPIRISM

Speaking of how messed up a cultural anchor wrestling can be.

Watching World War 3 1995, they drop the line "This is a big match in The Orient". Hello 1950, it's nice you stayed over, but get the fuck off my couch after 45 years you jingoistic womanising asshole.

I love how it was over once Jeff got to the undeniable simple truth "WWE can't do it because their writing is _SHIT_", it was time to end the podcast.

Full disclosure I was looking forward to this podcast more than the actual Summerslam card. Jeff and Giancarlo are my favorites since they are clearly able to see how bad wrestling has been. Dan is always marking out all the time and I just can't be as positive he is. The writing in the past month has shown that they're just never going to get better with their story lines.

I'm at least grateful that Alex is suffering with me in watching TNA. But seriously both of us need to stop watching that shit because it's TERRIBLE! The big pay off to their retarded story line was Bubba's ass going through a table while Dixie sort of landed in his lap. It was a risky spot sure but honestly it came off as a giant botch to me. I'm a bit surprised he didn't try to defend recent Bobby Lashley stuff at all. I mean he'll never be good on the mic ever but he's somehow doing a more consistent job taking and giving crazy bumps as a monster champion than I think Brock Lesnar ever will. Plus he's building some great heat in his title run where as the smarks are going to cheer Brock Lesnar no matter what. And again TNA is running in this weird twilight zone where they just trade stories and feud angles back and forth that makes me want to die inside.

I really enjoyed the segment on the odd realities of the potential Xavier Woods stable. I forgot who but someone in the forum suggested that they should be the Nation of Education which I thought who have been a brilliant angle for that team. It would make sense given that they've been studying potential opponents and actually analyzing their fighting styles to find the best way to win. They could have skewed two stereotypes at once by depicting some talented black pro athletes as super sophisticated ring technicians and not just some rowdy jocks.

I'm hoping we can get the full powerbombcast roster at some point. Both listening and commented relieves quite a bit ofstress from my work day. Thanks for this podcast as always. Looking forward to the PAX rumble this year as well as your thoughts on Summerslam.

Love the PBC and all you guys do. But this file tagging is messing with my digital library OCD. Artist and album are Alex Navarro instead of Giant Bomb or Powerbombcast. Then I spend 5 minutes trying to find it on my phone.

Brock Lesnar is great.

No, I haven't listened yet, but I'm sure it'll come up during the show.

Disappointed we didn't have Jared on this week to celebrate Heath Slater winning on two consecutive Raws.

@derek_davis: That's my fault. Thought I tagged it correctly but I guess it didn't save. I'll try to reupload a properly tagged file later today.

#FanginAndBangin

I remember Mr. Kenedy! I liked him. KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENEEEEEEEEEDYYYYYYYYY.

@alex: No worries, but thanks for the response. You're the best! Love the Powerbombcast, Box Office Bomb, GB East, everything is fantastic. Keep up the good work!

People that do nothing but hate on Cole should really go back and watch stuff from the Ruthless aggression era when he was good. I think the overbearing-ness of how vince wants the announcers to talk and stuff has really gotten to him.

As a WWE fan who doesn't have cable or Hulu Plus, getting Raw and Smack Down on WWE Network sooner than a month would be fantastic. Currently the Superstars show on the Network usually re-caps the important story stuff from Raw which is useful, but even then WWE usually posts highlights from matches on Youtube. It's worth it alone for the PPV's and NXT, but I would like to watch Raw on a regular basis.

Boy, Ryckert with the brutal Jerry Lawler joke.

Alex, please fix your audio for next time.

@pinkpuff: My audio setup was the same as it always is. Some Skype stuff in the studio got borked last time and Jeff had to make some on-the-fly changes to make it work.

@phished0ne: I don't hate on Cole for what is an obvious push by Vince and co towards certain things--network, social media, etc. I hate on him when he doesn't know/screws up the names of basic moves and is subsequently corrected by JBL.

Do people really hate it when Cole and Taz did commentary? I remember when they had their stint around 2000 on Smackdown and thought they were completely serviceable. My big problem with the commentary today is that Cole, JBL, and Lawler seem completely uninterested for the majority of matches in Raw and Smackdown. Unless you are an upper mid-carder or higher, the commentary comes off laid-back to the point of tedium.

I'm not holding my breath on wrestling improving their portrayal of racial and cultural stereotypes because, as Jeff said, they still are in the carny mindset and cater to the lowest common denominator. I could have bought the fans doing "WE THE PEOPLE" with Cesaro because they think he's a ass kicker, but when Swagger and Zeb get the crowd with them it's kinda hard to justify.

I can't get over how WWE has so much talent yet the creative and booking aspects are so horrible.

I've never watched wrestling. I've never wanted to watch wrestling. But since listening to this podcast nothing is more attractive to me than sitting down with some beers and big bowl of popcorn and watching a heaping helping of WWE silliness.

The Schiavone heel turn, eight minutes that you shan't regret. Dig the outfit, and the hard-hitting "shoot" material.

Man, I'm so tired of Jared Rea constantly bringing it via satellite. He's a part timer who is a disgrace to the boys in the booth who are there every week, putting their bodies on the line.

Hmm, what other wrestling cliche have I not used...Ooh! This is podcasting! This ain't ballet!

Dat Intro!

What's with all the man ass on Giant Bomb lately? Are we slowly turning in to a butt tumblr?

Jeff is such a sore spot on this every time! Ruins it for me. No Jeff, more Jared, just for one episode, I want to see what it's like.

Bobby Lashley has been really surprising in TNA, I always thought he was a joke but somehow he's turned it around lately...kind of, it's still TNA.

There's some really good matches hiding in Smackdown for no reason. Ambrose and Cesaro have had some really fucking cool PPV quality matches on a show not many people watch.

I would say some of the X Division stuff in TNA is surprisingly watchable along with anything EC3 does, but the rest of it is a bizarre train wreck.

Well, This stupid fucking podcast has finally done it. I just spent £15 to watch wrestling for the first time since late 90's

What the hell am I doing...

I know @danryckert lurks r/squaredcircle, and maybe @alex too, so it bummed me out that during the Gangrel discussion, they didn't mention that video on Youtube entitled "The Brood Breaks Their Silence". It is a short excerpt from the comedy recap wrestling podcast, the Attitude Era podcast, which encapsulates exactly why Gangrel was never successful in WWE. I forgot who else said it, but people who worked with Gangrel say he should have been super over. He had a cool entrance, cool gimmick, was a decent enough wrestler, but could not talk for shit. And not only that, but he seemed to drag down the mic skills of everyone around him.

Also HOLY SHIT, the rumor that Khali is huge in India seems like it's being disproven more and more each week. Every native Indian I know says the people that are huge in India are the same people huge over here: Cena, etc. People care about Khali in that he's a WWE superstar, but they do not give a shit about Khali.

Also, apparently Khali is a huge diva and a dickhead and all that stuff about demanding personal drivers is more that he can't fit in regular cars and stuff, and that he probably can't drive due to an inability to work his legs in a humanoid fashion.

The subtitle for this podcast really should of been Fangin' and Bangin.

Kinda the same here. If they ever launch the WWE Network here in Sweden, I kinda consider trying it out a little.

EDIT: OH FUCK, it is available in Sweden. I'm kinda tempted, even though I don't even have any time to play games these days, even less to watch something like this.

Yeah. I watch a lot of sports and deal with a lot of announcing and play-by-play, and the hatred on Cole is really nonsensical. He does his material rather well without much in the way of mistakes or hiccups. It seems as if most of the hate stems from him "not talking about the match", but that's hardly his fault and is more of a mandate by management and the way wrestling is these days in general. He's completely fine for an announcer, and even very good in some regards of emphasis.

Lawler makes more mistakes than Cole does and even his hate is overblown. He clearly is a shell of his former self, but I think he's been pretty decent in the past few years — nothing too offensive.

Hell, Tony Schiavone was never "terrible" either. He oversold everything but that was part of the charm — JR was guilty of the same stuff. I won't defend Taz's commentary, though lol.

Nice intro and I enjoy this podcast a lot.

"Alcohol doesn't fix your problems." - Jeff

Huh. That hit me pretty hard today, as I've been dealing with some fallout created by my alcoholic step-father for the past week or two. I was really surprised how ...happy?... that sentence made me, even though it's a sentence wrapped up in a joke more than anything else. I dunno. Just weirdly jumped out at me real hard.

Well, brother. I got some good new for you. For only 9.99...

I seriously thought the "9.99" thing would be a good gimmick for the corporate types to do. It sold them as moneygrubbing overbearing jerks and also served as a piece of promotion. But then EVERYONE is doing it. I had to facepalm at Hogan coming out at SS to hawk this thing.

Question: Why does Emma look extremely tired when dancing now? Is this part of the character or just something with the character being push to the side?

What is the screenshot?

It looks like someone pooped in their outfit?

Its Matt Striker with his own face on his butt I believe.

I was the guy that wrote in about the 1992 magazine that talked about the Undertaker powers being eternal. I should have mentioned that Wrestling Spotlight was an official WWF magazine and not some weird sub-Apter mag thing.

@jeff surprised by the fact I have old wrestling magazines in a storage bin. JEFF. THE GUY WITH EVERYTHING EVER SAVED. That one hurt.

@alex mispronounced my last name, which struck me as weird. It's his, just dropping the long "O" at the end.

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In the "desert island" test where you can pick Road Warriors matches or Demolition matches, only a crazy person would pick the Road Warriors. I couldn't care less if Demoltion was "inspired by" the LoD, their matches were much, much more entertaining.

If they referenced it in the podcast I must have missed it, but wtf is going on with that butt shot? I've been staring at it for days now and can't figure out what I'm even looking at!

Deep, passionate, extended Gangrel discussion. This is what I tune in for.

"Raven is hobo Raven!"

You probably don't want to watch the '93 episodes of Raw with Rob Bartlett. Maybe 20 minutes into the show, Bartlett calls Yokozuna a "big butted oriental" and starts talking about Gary Coleman when he can't think of anything relevant to say about Koko B Ware. It's pretty hard to watch.

The absolute worst.

That Stephanie McMahon match Sunday night was great. Seriously I was looking forward to just skipping this match but, damn! Steph was working very snug and was the best she's ever worked in the squared circle.

I do wish there was a way to mute the commentators at any given time, especially on the network.

Who else thinks it's time for the return of

Todd Pettengill!

I remember actually liking the 2006- ECW, the Hardy's and Bobby Lashley. Then again I was 12 and had only just started getting into wrestling.

How did they do the whole Undertaker shooting lightning out of his hands thing? I always found it fascinating from a technical perspective.

What is this "heel" nonsense I keep hearing about? A turn in a character? Or what?

I'm not sure but I think it's a wrestling term for "bad guy" and "baby face" or "face" is a wrestling term for a good guy.

Also, guys... My only exposure to pro wrestling is the Attitude Era and I haven't watched it since but for some reason I listen to this podcast and I love it. What the fuck?

this is the highlight of the month for me.

@milkman: I agree, Even on JR's Podcast with Sting, JR tried to act like 91-96 WCW didn't exist. It actually made me want to quit listening.

You can live chat on Compuserve, by typing "go convention"!

Man, so much and so little has changed since 1995. #jointheconversation