Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast
Release Date: July 6, 2017
Guests: Alison Brie & Marc Maron
Recap By: Matthew Wilkinson
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Newsworthy Items
- Chavo Guerrero trained the GLOW actors how to wrestle.
- GLOW is not based on real people.
- Sam believes Great Balls of Fire will be a great show.
- Sam loves Naomi’s new championship.
- Sam feels that New Japan and Ring of Honor could be the number two wrestling brand.
- Alison Brie learned how much a bump hurts and gained a lot of respect for wrestling.
Subjects covered (with timestamps)
00:00-Sponsor Ads
01:22-Show Introduction
09:28-GLOW interview
10:02-Training to be a wrestler
21:10-GLOW documentary
22:00-Female driven shows/nudity
31:00-GLOW costumes
35:18-End of Interview
39:16-Sponsor Ads
41;17-State of Wrestling
42:00-New Jap Pro Wrestling’s G1 Special
63:36-Great Balls of Fire
81:37-Smackdown Live
95:52-End of Podcast
Show Highlights/Rundown
Sam welcomes everyone to the podcast this week and says there is plenty to talk about in the State of Wrestling later on in the episode, including the G1 Special with New Japan Pro Wrestling.
He says one of the big things that happened this week was the battle rap on Smackdown Live and he believes Wale added a lot to that segment, and he says he is as big of a fan of wrestling as anybody listening to this podcast.
Sam notes that fans always judge those celebrities who know nothing about wrestling when they come on the show and just want to promote things. He believes when it goes right, it deserves just as much attention.
He brings it up because a lot of wrestling fans have been discussing the new Netflix show; GLOW. Sam gets excited when wrestling enters the mainstream, even though he admits to getting skeptical about it.
He added that more often than not when wrestling is put in the mainstream it becomes cheesy and cartoon like and says there aren’t many ways to get it right, but he was blown away with how things went with GLOW.
Sam likens the show to Orange is the New Black, except it takes place within a wrestling ring and says a lot of wrestling fans seem to be impressed by it from what he has seen.
Start of Interview- Training to be a wrestler
Sam Roberts mentioned that wrestling fans get mad when shows don’t get it right and Alison noted that she knew this and that they had all been trained in wrestling by Chavo Guerrero.
Alison said they brought their own moves to the table but Chavo had to tell them that those moves were not invented by the time period that GLOW is set in.
She went on to say how the actors spent nearly all day on set just taking bumps. Marc said that it was wild to see them all doing it as he didn’t take any bumps during the show.
Marc said he sent a tape in to try and get the part and he got it from that, he said that he knew exactly what the character was.
Jim Norton asked Alison if she liked playing a character that is falling apart and she noted that she did enjoy it as she normally plays parts that are very together.
Marc said he choked up several times when filming some of the scenes and they both said they are happy that the reviews are good.
Jim asks if they are portraying real people but Alison states that they are not playing real people but noted that there are similarities to the real GLOW.
Alison says even when she nailed the moves it still hurts and even though she was doing it correctly it still caused pain when she hit the bumps.
GLOW documentary
Alison began discussing the real life GLOW documentary that is now available on Netflix and stated that whilst she did watch it beforehand, she also tried to distance herself from it.
She did note that the original GLOW performers have been very supportive and helpful to the cast of the show.
Female driven shows
Sam says how GLOW is a female driven show, much like Orange is the New Black, but that they both involve sex scenes to also gain male attention, which Alison agrees with.
Both Marc and Alison said everyone on set had to be willing to be naked at some point, but Marc said he didn’t want to get fully naked in the end and became conscious of his butt.
Alison said she likes how they used nudity in this show as she felt it was a realistic nudity as it is people in real moments when you see things such as when somebody takes off their shirt.
Sam asked if they were worried about it being cheesy as there has only been the movie, The Wrestler that has managed to pull it off well.
Marc believes they handled the time period very well and Alison thinks that there is a good blend of ’70s and ’80s costumes makes it blend together nicely.
Alison said she got the script and she became obsessed with it after she saw the it and stated how the directors originally didn’t want her for the role but she won them over.
She thinks it could have been because they wanted somebody who viewers wouldn’t be aware with and might not link to another character, but she convinced them otherwise.
GLOW clothing
After a brief tangent where they all discussed other projects, the conversation moved back to GLOW and they discussed the clothing they had to wear.
Marc said he hated the jeans that he had to wear and Alison agreed that they were not the best.
Sam asked Marc if he would consider doing more acting after this and the reception he has got and he believes he will do more, although he will only do things that are in his wheelhouse and won’t be learning any accents.
He added if they do another season he would like to challenge himself more in terms of his acting and this brought an end to the interview.
End of Interview
Sam said he is always a fan of mainstream and wrestling coming together when it is done correctly as it lifts everything and adds to the show.
Moving onto wrestling, he says for a holiday weekend there was a lot going on, especially Smackdown which took place on the Fourth of July.
Sam felt that Smackdown was going to be a throwaway show this week, but he didn’t think there was anything about the show that screams holiday show, he actually felt it was better than recent weeks.
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State of Wrestling –NJPW G1 Special
Sam says he is going to run through things in order of how they were televised so we kick things off with the New Japan shows in America.
To Sam, the show was a wonderful showing of what is going on over at New Japan and he thinks their partnership with ROH is a great thing for both wrestlers and fans. He believes that every company is fighting for second place behind WWE.
He thinks Impact is getting it wrong by the fact they are focusing on a global audience when they haven’t figured out things in America yet. Sam thinks ROH working with NJPW is as close to a global brand as you can find.
Sam mentions that ROH sells tickets, unlike Impact, and that there is a buzz about what is happening in ROH, which he doesn’t think exists with Impact. He thinks ROH is a bigger company now than TNA (or whatever name it is going by this week).
He thinks that if New Japan can be a success in America then he can see ROH being absorbed by them and the two rosters combining with ROH being New Japan’s American show.
Focusing on the G1 Special, Sam mentions how there was a buzz on social media, including a lot of first time viewers, who were familiar with ROH but hadn’t seen New Japan talent before.
On the flipside, Sam also found it interesting that a lot of New Japan fans did not know about the ROH guys and he mentioned how long the lines were for the merchandise.
In terms of in-ring quality he felt that the matches were great, with Michael Elgin in particularly standing out to Sam. He also thinks there is brand loyalty and a built-in audience for these companies.
Sam also likes the fact that there was lots of storytelling throughout the show. The thing that made him realise that WWE is the main show is because of their production quality, which he thinks they are the king of.
He felt that there was a lot of production errors and missed camera angles during the New Japan show and for a hardcore wrestling fan it won’t bother you so much, but for the first-time viewer it has a big impact. Despite that he thinks New Japan is really close.
Great Balls of Fire
On paper, Sam feels Great Balls of Fire might be one of the strongest Raw pay per views since the brand split.
He thinks lately a lot of shows have been weak on paper but have turned out good, so he can’t see why this isn’t going to be great, but he admits the storytelling has been weird.
Sam believes the story between Brock Lesnar and Samoa Joe has been a work of art and really puts it over. On the other side, he thinks announcing an iron man match the week before it happens is very rushed and out of nowhere, but he thinks it will be a good match.
Sam wishes there was a way that they could have stretched out the match between Enzo and Big Cass, especially because Finn Balor and Elias Samson have been building their story for much longer.
He went on to give credit to The Miz saying that he can build something out of nothing as he has gotten really good at building and adding to his stories, which is why his repeated match with Dean Ambrose is acceptable.
Sam did stress that he wants this match to be the end of the feud between Miz and Ambrose and he thinks there could be some high-profile names chasing after that title moving into SummerSlam.
Sam began to discuss the prestige around the Universal Championship, stating that he doesn’t think it has been built as a prestigious belt. With the title either being off television or in the hands of someone who cheated to win, which hasn’t helped it.
Sam would like to see the Universal Championship on a good guy but he thinks that might not be until WrestleMania.
Smackdown Live
Sam starts the Smackdown section by announcing he really likes Naomi’s new light up championship belt, he thinks it adds to her character perfectly.
He didn’t understand why Lana tapped out immediately but he began to understand when Tamina got involved as it all led to something.
The fact Aiden English stood up for himself is something that Sam thought was good and he was happy to see both John Cena and Rusev back in action.
He thinks that Cena’s eventual feud is with Jinder Mahal and he feels we will find out how committed the company is to him when they eventually do wrestle.
Sam hopes they aren’t planning too many behind the scenes skits for Mike and Maria Kanellis as he thinks the theme song is the main point at the moment. He also wants to see Mike become aggressive if people don’t with the power of love and that’s where they should take this.
He thinks they must know that they’ve struck gold with A.J. Styles right now and says that match is basically the main event for Battleground and the show is shaping up very well.
As far as Kevin Owens goes, Sam thinks he is having an amazing year with a great Universal Championship run, a feud with Chris Jericho and now working with A.J.
Sam said he was very skeptical of the rap battle but he thought it was excellent in the end. Sam said that The Usos can hang on an entertainment level with New Day and there is no doubt that they won the battle.
Even though New Day did well, Sam believed that The Usos really showed up, especially the Xavier Woods reference. The fact that New Day won by disqualification was a fix, with Wale working with New Day in terms of characters.
This brought an end to the State of Wrestling and Sam wrapped up the show saying there will be a live event coming next month.
End of Podcast
Rating 6.5 /10
This was a slightly weaker show than usual just because the interview segment wasn’t as strong as it usually is and it was a repeated chat which people may have already listened too. The conversation itself was good, although there was a lot of voices to listen to and the subjects did move away from GLOW several times. The State of Wrestling however, was one of the best in recent weeks as Sam dedicated a lot of time to go in depth on a large number of topics which was great to listen to.
About the Writer
Matthew Wilkinson is from Bradford, England. He’s been a fan since the late ’90s with the Attitude Era and was then heavily invested again through the rise of CM Punk and Daniel Bryan. He can be found on Twitter at @MC_Wilkinson1
For more, check out Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast with Alexa Bliss.
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