Stuff pertaining to the podcast

So this thing is starting to take off a little! So I’m gonna tell ya the story of how this all came to be…

This story doesn’t start recently, I’ve been a PWInsider Elite member (paying subscriber to the website) for like 9 years now. And for those who don’t know what that entails, basically Dave Scherer and his crew of wrestling reporters (at the time, it was Mike Johnson and Buck Woodward along with Richard Trionfo and Jess McGrath had just left the site) write about all the ongoings in the professional wrestling world. They have sources backstage that like to share with them what’s going on for a number of various reasons. Dave has two sites running…the first is the free site, with all the news stories along with ads galore all over the page and a few pop up ads. The Elite site is the paid version, which is ad free and also includes weekly audio hotlines from the various personalities. They do a weekly Monday Night Raw Postgame show where they run down what happened on the show in case you’ve missed it, along with news hotlines that kind of evolved from the old 1-900 lines where fans would call to find out the scoops of what’s happening backstage. They also do Pay Per View postgame shows, where they inform you in case you haven’t seen the show, whether it’s worth buying the replay to watch, along with a couple of Q&A shows where elite members (like myself) can write in our questions and they’ll answer them “on the air”.

Well a few years ago, a couple of guys who are like me…with no real connections in the wrestling business, who are fans and have been fans for what seems like forever, decided to start up their own show and submitted it to Dave to be posted to the Elite site and called it The Elites Speak. They basically do the same sort of thing that the rest of the guys on the site did, only they ran though the entire week of professional wrestling in a fun hour-long or so show. Once I heard them doing this, it gave me the itch to try to get on this train myself. So I messaged one of those guys about maybe being a third voice on there, which they weren’t really interested in. So I figured fine, I’ll just have to put that one in the back of my mind and figure another way of getting into this.

Fast forward a couple of years and now Buck Woodward has left the site, it’s just Dave, Mike and Richard on the site along with a cast of new people who are their friends that they’ve brought in for a variety of other shows they now do on the site — all along not charging any more for the subscription, so we’re really getting more & more for our money! (Something that really can’t be said for many things these days!) There are plenty of serious wrestling talk shows on there along with some kind of zany, off the rails talk that may start with wrestling, but makes its way into all kinds of different topics. Also, Les Thatcher, a retired professional wrestler talks about what the business was like back in the day when he wrestled in the territories and how much different it was back then to how it is today. The new guys who are populating the site are Mike Epsenhart & Stuart Carapola, along with a few elite members who wanted to get into it…Adolfo Acosta & Jonathan Murphy of the Elites Speak, Pastor J (Jonathan Conrad) who started doing a show with Dave Scherer called View From The Pew, Andru Edwards who started a show with Dave Scherer called WrestleTech in which they talk about wrestling and electronics. Dave also does a show centered completely around football occasionally with Mike Bucci, a former prowrestler who went by the name of Nova in the original ECW. Also, Tj Parsons also started up a show called Yes and No Radio where he and one of his friends, Ty Roberts runs down the week in professional wrestling. Later on, Ty would be replaced with another friend of Tj’s named Phillip Byrd and they would split their show between wrestling and football, also talking fantasy football along the way too.

At some point, Tj Parsons, Andru Edwards and Pastor J would decide to combine for a show and call it the Hounds of Wrestling, where they would again talk about the week in professional wrestling. And I’m sure you’re reading this thinking “Why would you listen to all these different shows basically talking about the week of wrestling…how many times do you have to hear about the same stuff?” The real point is listening to everyone’s opinions and the banter back and forth between the personalities that really makes each show so uniquely their own. So while they’re all talking about the same topics, the varying opinions and views is quite fun!

So after awhile, it became evident to me that sometimes Tj, Andru & Pastor J were having problems finding a time that they were all available to record together. So remember how I said I put it to the back of my mind as something I’d like to try out? Yup…I messaged Tj about it and he was very receptive to the idea of me being a 4th Hound of Audio that could be called upon if one of them weren’t available to record for one reason or another. So he brought it to Andru & Pastor J and badda bing-badda boom, I’m in!

My first show was nothing to write home about. I know for me, the first time doing it was a little uncomfortable. I wasn’t really sure of myself and was very green. But I was really proud of the fact that I had finally achieved getting my foot in the door on PWInsider.com! Hounds wasn’t a weekly show or anything, so after that first recording, I didn’t see anything for like a month or so…until Tj contacted me to say that Phillip didn’t want to do Yes and No Radio anymore and he was thinking of turning it into a three-man show with me and Scott Tison, another person Tj had recorded a few shows with during a time when Phillip was not available to record. So there we have it, I’m part of the 3 Man Band as we call ourselves and we record just about every week for PWInsider!

So once I got established doing that, a friend of mine who I had worked with in the mortgage business who is just as crazy a wrestling fan as I am, Danielle, got the itch then and wanted in on recording. Being the new guy on the block, I wasn’t going to step on anyone’s toes or anything by bringing in someone new when I was still quite new. It just wasn’t the right time. So after a month or so, I presented a new show to Dave (the site’s owner) called Marking Out with Marc and Dee (a nickname I had for Danielle since our days as mortgage processors).  Dave declined, stating he really had enough shows with elite members running them, which I completely understood. So I decided to look into SoundCloud and to make this idea we had into a podcast which I would link to here on MarcsTwoCents.com, and also post to facebook.

Viola! Danielle and I recorded our first episode, which was really so all over the place with our talk that I figured it might be a good idea to write up a format sheet each week as a guide. We’ll talk wrestling news, recap Monday Night Raw, NXT, talk about upcoming events and various other stuff…all pertaining to the world of professional wrestling. Recently this week, I’ve gotten our shows onto another Podcast site called Stitcher which also has an app for iOS and Android devices and I’m currently working on getting a more professional opening for the show (details to come).

So we’re gaining footing here and the nice thing about SoundCloud is that I can monitor how many downloads we get and how many people listen to the show through the various means of getting it. So it’s pretty exciting to be in my shoes right now! The ball is rolling and we’re off to the races!