Dare to Dream.
We’re back! And in our first double-sized Single Serving Selection of the new year, we’re diving our way back into the world of sleeper holds and suplexes with the program director for RadioTacoma 101.9, Morgan Lambert! This month, we’re grappling with pro wrestling’s premier pay-per-view event, broadcasted live from Seattle, Washington on March 30, 2003: WWE’s Wrestlemania XIX!
Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels! The Rock vs. “Stone Cold” Steve Austin! Hulk Hogan vs. Vince McMahon! Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle! Limp Bizkit vs. Music! The Miller Cat Fight Girls vs. Social Progress! This wrestling event has everything great and terrible about sports entertainment.
From thrilling feats of charisma and athleticism, to problematic and embarrassing displays of exploitation, WrestleMania has you covered!
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Interesting show; I have no interest in pro wrestling, much less a specific edition of Wrestlemania, but I still found this conversation quite fun and informative. (And I also liked the digression to discuss Limp Bizkit).
One thing I have to say, though, what you guys observed about Seattle at the start of the show applies by a factor of 10 to Portland (or least did before it became some kind of hipster Mecca). I remember back in the 1970s and 1980s the city had a real inferiority complex, and the associated chip on its shoulder, about being taken seriously as a major American city – and everyone went completely apeshit when something happened there to put it on the national map, like when the Trailblazers won the NBA championship in 1977.
Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention: I kind of miss the old theme music…
We love the old theme, too! But I hope you like the new one!
One thing I’m utterly shocked that we forgot to mention: the finish to the Brock Lesnar/Kurt Angle match.
Brock pulls something out of his bag of tricks that he hadn’t used for years: the shooting star press. This is an insane looking move where a wrestler jumps off of the top rope in the corner. They leap forward while doing a backflip (!) It’s the same move essentially that Miles Morales does off of a building at the beginning of the Spider-Verse trailer.
Brock can do it, and it’s clear that WWE really wanted to end the show on this moment of this beefy guy doing an uncharacteristically acrobatic move and winning the title….
…But it doesn’t quite happen. Brock can’t get a full rotation to land on his chest and all of his weight comes down on his HEAD. I honestly think if his neck wasn’t as thick as my waist that it would have paralyzed or killed him. I remember seeing an ambulance leaving Safeco Field after the show and there was no question that it was Brock’s. I had so many notes on this moment that it shocks me that we forgot to talk about.
Turns out that talking about wrestling for over two hours is fairly exhausting!