Has anyone listened to WWE’s After the Bell podcast? Curious if it’s worth a listen or not??
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Dont waste your time. Bayley’s interview is in character. Flair is what you’d expect from any interview. Rollins is basic rehashing of some of his twitter stuff, nothing groundbreaking. HHH was basic NXT talk and music talk.
There were a couple Kenny Omega, AEW references in there to make it seem like anything can be talked about, but again, it was nothing groundbreaking.
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I got what Rollins was saying let them hate each other. I get what he’s going for. He called out Cody, Sasha and Karl Anderson for always showing off how much money they have but he got heat for it on his Twitter exchange with Ospreay, here’s the problem with that fake or not he’s The Top Guy. LeBron James is not going to tweet about how great he is. Aaron Rodgers Tom Brady whoever won’t do that. He’s the top guy he can’t do it
I didn’t plan on listening to episode 2 but I saw the preview for Rewind A Dynamite said they would talk about Corey so I assume it’s about episode 2. So here we go, I worked in sports radio and follow wrestling news and especially in the age of Twitter it’s important to distinguish the credibility of Sean Ross Sapp, and Wade Keller to Brad Sheppard same with Adam Schefter and Woj to some dude from Legion hoops. I’ve noticed that there is a problem of lumping in Sheppard with the credible reporters, if you read the credible reporters you heard how responsible they were in not jumping to conclusions on why they were stuck. As a matter of fact I was listening to the masked man podcast on the Ringer and the host read Post Wrestling’s recap of events. It’s so shitty for Corey and others to dismiss everybody reporting on wrestling as “Dirt Sheet writers”
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I thought graves was telling the truth about Vince McMahon leaving early and a few other things. However I felt his dismissiveness about talent complaining about being left behind was stupid, rude and completely missed the point. Just because Randy Orton didn’t publicly speak out, doesn’t mean he wasn’t pissed, just have a look at his likes on Twitter.
I am surprised Graves can do this podcast while his tongue is so deep in Vince’s butt crack.
It’s just a bad idea for podcast. WWE is like 5 years too late to the game and are offering something completely lame. Zero interest in listening to this.
I just loaded up on new podcasts in anticipation of a business trip this week. Figured I would give this one a shot, not starting from the beginning but just subscribed and downloaded the most recent (Nov. 27) edition.
I thought it was a decent and easy listen. It walks the kayfabe tightrope in a weird way that doesn’t really make sense if you put too much thought into it. But I enjoyed the interviews. Will keep it on my iTunes but probably on my “I’ll survive if I don’t get to it” list most weeks.
Seems like I might be the only one listening to this show, but I went through a couple of episodes this week (doing a lot of driving lately). Graves spends the beginning and end of the show bitching about WWE’s programming from the past week, which means at least one of two things is probably true:
- He has autonomy to say whatever he wants, in which case WWE should be pissed that he’s constantly shitting on the product.
- He is being told what to say and/or being given approval, in which case WWE acknowledges that some of the things they’re doing are shit, but continues to do them.
Having said that, I think the interviews are a great listen (for example, I never knew that Drew McIntyre has a personality). But Graves’ solo sections are completely skippable.
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This is an interesting point you bring up. Is it worthwhile for WWE to have talent openly criticize the product while the product doesn’t change in an effort to acknowledge/appease the hardcore fans that they are making a calculate bet won’t go anywhere. It also raises the point that the trend for WWE programming in terms of viral-ness is that bad stuff makes it viral and shitting on the product is part of the everyday conversation wrestling fans are having so why not capitalize and stake their flag on that corner as well.
For a company that competes with sleep, it does feel at times like they will try to plant their flag wherever wrestling is, even if that means running a podcast or a Fox show that criticizes the product just so they can participate in that lane.
Yeah I wonder if they have seen social media and decided: people love to hate on wrestling so let’s give them stuff to hate, then we’ll put out stuff hating on it too.
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Whatever the real reason or circumstance, it comes off to me as catering to the “smarks” by having Graves echo whatever the IWC complaints of the week have been. Which just makes the talent and decision makers look dumb.
Having said that, the New Day also do a fair share of shitting on the product on their pod, which I think is entertaining as hell. So maybe it’s all in the presentation.
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Everyone’s a shill until they say something I agree with.
His interview with Renee is awesome.
She’s much better in this environment and seems like a cool chick. Her and Graves are clearly bffs. The Moxley stuff is good too seeing how him and Graves are buddies as well and keep In touch.
Knowing Graves hates farting while Mox doesn’t care was awesome. Vince would love this stuff
New Day have always felt authentic.
Graves is the biggest corporate shill they have. Absolute dirt bag.
This,
Even when they do the corporate shilling, it’s done in the most pure way one could do said shilling. The New Day show is already my favorite wrestler-run show in part b/c of the chemistry of the hosts (and the fact that they never come across as bitter and/or know-it-alls), and because it’s a quick listen that always leaves you with a great cliffhanger for the next episode.
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I don’t think Graves is a shill to be honest. He’s not very careful with anything he says whether it’s about the product or other people. It’s also weird to have a go at someone if they don’t shit on what the company they work for does especially when they do shit on what the company they work for does.
Graves is as honest as they come. And he’s banging Carmella. You guys that hate him are jealous your wife/gf either doesn’t exist or isn’t as hot
Graves is a dirtbag.
He’s cheap
He’s arrogant
He’s not cool
And Carmella is ratchet
I think he’s different than the RAW announcer her plays. It’s obvious him and Renee are friends and he takes shots at things like Saudi etc.
Carmella is hot asf. No one can deny that lol