With the resurrection of CHIKARA, it only seemed fitting for the podcast named after the company itself to also come back from the ashes. For roughly 90 minutes, Kevin Ford and Justin Houston talk all things CHIKARA. Has their fandom of wrestling changed in the time period when CHIKARA took to radio silence? Do they feel the Ashes videos and Wrestling Is companies were a worthy investment? Are they excited for the company to be back? Who from the Wrestling Is universe do they hope to see in the relaunch? Who from CHIKARA do they anticipate may not return? Given it’s rich back story, can a true “jumping on point” be established for new viewers? All these questions, and much more, are discussed in an interesting discourse between two long time fans.
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Good stuff just wasn’t sure what the one guy’s rant was about when it came to the use of the word “Believe”. Weird.
The whiney sidekick on this made me want to never listen to this podcast again. He is annoying and he doesn’t get it, chikara shutting down was a means to invoke emotions not usually experienced when watching wrasslin. Loss and anger in his case, they got him hook, line and sinker. Quack is giving you something new and unprecidented here but quack doesn’t want you, you don’t like the flavour of his ice cream. I won’t be listening again.
I’d put off listening to this for a long while because of the negative feedback I’d heard towards it. Finally checked it out on @OleAnderson’s recommendation.
I think the main problem is that Justin Houston spends a third of the podcast railing against what I believe is a very simple misunderstanding. Mike Quackenbush stated numerous times in his podcast media blitzkrieg that this was a “perfect jumping-on point.” Justin – a disgruntled superhero comic book fan, which is certainly a position I can sympathize with – derides this near incessantly throughout this episode as “a lie” and “bullshit” when Mike has stated in at least one of those interviews (I believe it was his AoW interview, but I could be mistaken – either way, they were all uploaded well in advance of this recording) explicitly that he is NOT ignoring or throwing away the continuity. If Justin or Kevin had been aware of this clarification, this episode would be half an hour shorter and much more listenable.
As Justin should know being a (perhaps lapsed?) comics fan, a “jumping-on point” does not necessarily imply a hard reboot. It is merely a statement that – compared to the previous run of issues/episodes/shows/instalments – it is intended to be the start of a distinct chapter in the over-arching narrative, one which you may find more accessible than what came before.
I find the entire misunderstanding all the more silly when – mere minutes after a lengthy denouncement of the “bullshit” that would be promising a hard reboot – he says this is exactly what he wants in regards to the Wrestling Is / Ashes / Death of CHIKARA storyline. I wonder if Justin didn’t understand exactly what Quackenbush was saying, but just wanted another justification for his righteous indignation? I realize that sounds extreme, but it’s exactly what he admits to doing when Kevin talks him out of his iPPV theory.
I don’t mean to say that many of his points were not absolutely valid, and I can certainly understand someone being severely disappointed with the way Quack handled this entire angle, but he does himself a disservice with the way in which he argues them and the fights he picks. I’ll probably listen to future shows as I love a good indie wrestling podcast (and I do consider this a good one) but as with this episode I am prepared to yank my headphones away from my ears before the repetitive ranting and raving gets to be too much for me to bare.
* @OleWrestling – my apologies to Vince.