I gave LF another shot. I listened to Survivor Series 1996. I really enjoyed that one. Afterwards, I watched Bret vs. Austin. It's such a great match. There aren't too many matches in the history of WWF/E that have been worked like that the entire match. Benoit has a couple with Finlay and Regal but beyond that, I'm not really sure. I've never "rated" the match. It's certainly at least ****1/2 because those are the matches that I consider epic. It could easily be 5* though.

Listening to WM XXX atm. They have some hilarious lines about HHH's outfit. Only to the Battle Royal but it's also pretty good.

Raven was a hoot on Austins.

I've also heard some good reviews on that one.

In case you have forgotten, Lesnar will be on the Stone Cold podcast tonight on the network. Typically, he doesn't put them on the feed for a week, though.

Austin has been on quite a roll, lately. Not as many throwaway podcasts, as he's featured Raven, DDP, Edge & Christian, and X-Pac on the clean podcast and Jake the Snake and Scott Hall on the Unleashed one in the last month or two.

When Austin goes on location to film one of his reality shows, you can usually just discard most of the podcasts because they generally arent that good. I will say that I am glad I listened to the one with the BBQ restaurant owner. He was very good and told an interesting story that I really enjoyed. If you just deleted it or never botheres to download it, I recommend going back to it.

Lesnar and Austin was a bore fest for me.

I'm surprised Lesnar hasn't gotten more grief from the IWC for his interview. I completely understand where he's coming from, but the IWC loves the guys who love the business as much as they do. And Lesnar certainly does not love the business like they do. He comes across much worse than Reigns did for much tamer things he said before RR. Yet Reigns got a lot of grief for what he said.

People understand Lesnar. At least I hope they do since it isn't difficult. He's said multiple times that he loves wrestling and entertaining but hates the traveling. He treats it like a job. Nothing wrong with that iyam. Reigns on the other hand acted like an arrogant dick and there is something wrong with that.

I don't see much difference between Lesnar's attitude and Reigns. His refusal to even attempt to get to know the other wrestlers seems extremely arrogant. As does his attitude toward fans.

Reigns went ahead and insulted the fans and their intelligence, saying they have no clue what they are talking about and aren't in position to comment on him. With corny insults at that such as 'haters'. I haven't watched the shoot but haven't seen any quotes of Brock saying stuff like that.

He basically said he hates people, he doesn't care about what fans think about him, he doesn't care about the guys in the locker room, and he's in this solely to make a living.

BTW, it's available on Austin's Unleashed feed (even though it is censored), so you don't have to watch it on the Network. I prefer to listen to podcasts at 1.5x in my car rather than watching them talk at 1x.

I didn't really care what Roman said. Shocking stuff, he has contempt for people who rain hate on him. It showed him to not be very savvy in dealing with his situation, but whatever.

What Lesnar said seems fine too.

They both might be dicks, of course. I had vaguely been under that impression with Brock. Don't really know about Reigns.

On Flair's podcast this week, he has David Manning from World Class (WCCW) on and the audio is much better than usual. So many great stories.

I've been looking forward to this, because I've seen Manning in documentaries over the years, and he actually has something interesting to say. Once I get caught up on some other things I'll give this a listen

The latest LF is pretty good. It's SummerSlam 1990. Around the 50 minute mark, they go off about Hogan's WCW contract somehow because it was part of a legal case that's public domain. The best thing is "If a 900 number hotline exists and features Terry Bolea, Hulk Hogan, or Hollywood Hulk Hogan gossip/news, Hogan gets 100% of the revenue from that days hotline". What the ****? That was mindblowing and there's lots of other gems in it as well.

I haven't listened to it all yet but this may very well be the best LF yet. I'm only through the first 50 minutes of Starrcade 84 and the entire show thus far has been about Vince buying Georgia Championship Wrestling, Black Saturday, selling it back, and a bunch of comments from Dusty, Ole, etc...even a story about Vince owning people and a first hand account of him getting high at a dinner with his new employees after the purchase. Incredibly interesting.

Thanks for the heads up, will have to listen to that one. I find that period and issue interesting because it is was the big instance where fans really rejected Vince's style for something else in the 80s; Mid-South was doing better numbers being on really early in the morning on TBS than WWF was being in that near prime time slot.

Foley was pretty good on austins this week imo

I think it was the Death of WCW book that said Mid-South was doing like 6.5 ratings for a time . Those are absurd numbers.

I listed to LF when I work out. That means I've heard like 2. UCWIDT.

I like what I hear though and definitely want to check out the newest one.

Thanks. Started listening to it, then realized I should start with Starrcade 83 instead.

One thing they mentioned in the beginning was how Flair changed. He wasn't the Ric Flair we all know and love in 83.

I had always attributed that to the fact that Flair was working babyface in 83 and his most famous 80s work is as a heel. But the podcast hosts were theorizing that Flair hadn't found his voice in 83, something he did find in 84.

To me, that's surprising. Flair was champ from 81 to 83. During the late 70s early 80s, the NWA seemed to prefer having a heel as their traveling champ. And I knew that Flair was a heel in the late 70s.

So wasn't Flair already an established character in 83? He was just working face, which he wasn't as good at doing.

I think all of the above comes from the fact he was a face, and yeah he wasn't a good face in the way that wrestlers in the early 80's were faces.

I would say he had his voice by 83, but it was super subdued for his role as a face. I mean, the stuff with Steamboat back in like 79 showed he was a pretty awesome heel back then. They basically recreated that whole feud from 79 for the ultimate trio of matches he and Steamboat had in 1989.

As a personality I don't think Flair peaked until the mid-80s. Flair was heel outside of the Carolina area in the early 80s; he was a flagrant heel in 82 against the Von Erichs. He was great as a ring general and on the mic and everything before the mid-80s, but became an all time legendary character in the mid-80s by talking up the things he really did; the limousine riding, jet flying, kiss stealing, girls we are having a party at the Marriott stuff. But as Meltzer said, even before that he was probably good enough that he should have been world champion over the alternatives.

I will default to the man with Flair as his avatar.

So this morning while cooking breakfast for the family, I decided to catch up
A little in my podcast listening. I fired up the Ross Report where he and Vince Russo reviewed TLC. Usually on these settings Russo is tolerable and sometimes good, but in a 5 minute span, he critiqued the WWE for devaluing the US title and claimed that Kevin Owens is not a good performer. He actually made the statement that Carl Oulette was 10x the performer that Owens is. I'll let that sink in a bit. This guy really has no idea how bad he really was.

Russo has just continually buried himself since WWE no sold him trying to get another job ~3 months ago. Really pathetic guy.