>Over the last two years?
>
>I'm not invested enough to rank him properly or anything, but
>goddamn.
>
>He had an impressive body of work before he linked up with KO,
>but he's arguably placed himself in that top tier when you
>really begin to look at all of his nuances.
>
>He got over a fucking list. And a scarf. And a plant. A
>goddamned plant. At 45 years old. Like 90% Of his his shit
>shouldn't work at all, ever, for anyone, and he makes that
>shit pop.
>

Those things take a lot of power away from WWE and forces them to at least pretend to get that there is wrestling happening without them that is good. I don't think NXT is what it is without wrestling podcasts.

There's a bunch of terrible ones: the ones like Russo's when he's obsessed with making sure everyone knows that he was such a great catalyst to everything that was good about the most-watched period in rasslin. Ignore that most of the dudes are crippled if not dead from getting to the point of trying to smush 30 minutes of 'classic in-ring storytelling' into 3-8 minute bursts. Ignore that some of the absolute worst wrestling stuff in the last 25 years is related to him.

There's the superfan shows where every little detail of every show is parsed through for nuanced errors and issues. And liking anything other than 30-minute ROH-style matches is blasphemy against 'real good wrestling'. Ick.

But then there is the good ones: the ones where old dudes come together to enjoy the good times and call themselves and others out reasonably and fairly (or at least comically like Bruce can do when he's not too heavy on a grudge). They chat up with folks they'd otherwise not chat up with and give us another piece of information to enjoy.

That perspective of still being alive with other old cats and young dudes coming up gives some of the smarter guys a shot to say 'hey...fuck crybaby fanboys in general, but we COULD actually be better..how about this?'. OR 'hey, why the fuck wouldn't I come back for one more run before I get too old to do this shit'. OR 'hey, I'm pretty much a legend now. I just need to get these last few years right with good stories and matches. And fuck it..I'm filling time on a cable TV show. I may as well have fun with it. Let me get this scarf over right quick on the way to making everyone get how great Kevin Owens is. Let me do my part to make sure folks get that AJ Styles is goddamn amazing.'

I think those old dude podcasts have helped a lot of guys. I'm not sure if Kurt Angle ever gets clean without them. I'm not sure if Cena really gets off of his ass and tries to have good matches on his way to going hollywood without them. I don't know if something fun and absurd like Broken Hardy or Southpaw Regional Wrestling works without them. I don't think Stone Cold looks as good as he did last night without them. I don't think Jericho takes his ass to Japan again with Gedo without it. I don't think we get that little mini Goldberg run without it. Hush..it was fun and fine. We probably don't get to see WWE try to mend fences with Warrior and others without it. We can say what we want about how some of these guys were and still are scumbags. But I like seeing dudes not give up a chunk of their lives fucking with fake underwear fighting only to slink off into oblivion once a younger, smaller, faster dude with more movez shows up and replaces them. Now, the smarter and/or luckier of these old guys end up doing okay for themselves. That's good. I'd rather tolerate the occasional nostalgic circle jerk show than to keep getting texts from my friends on a Wednesday that another random rassler died at 47 after not being heard from for a decade.