The Lapsed Fan

The Lapsed Fan’s 30-week WrestleMania journey reaches stop No. 19 this week, as the WWE invades Safeco Field in Seattle for a show full of forks in the road for a host of key performers, including Steve Austin, Kurt Angle, and Brock Lesnar. Hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro go deep on a show remembered for its behind-the-scenes drama as much as its in-ring drama, which was considerable. Get Lapse...

After nine years, Hulk Hogan returned to the Wrestlemania stage at the 18th installment in 2002, and lapsed fans around the world rejoiced. Thus, it is only appropriate that The Lapsed Fan podcast go deep on that historic night in Toronto. In the 18th stop of TLF’s 30-week Wrestlemania journey, hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro revisit Skydome in Toronto for a Mania stacked with figures from a cr...

The Lapsed Fan’s 30-week one-of-a-kind WrestleMania journey arrives this week at the greatest Mania of them all, X-Seven, a true demarcation line for legions who stopped following pro wrestling after the WWF’s Attitude Era. Hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro go especially deep this week, as your co-chairmen prove more than up to the task of tackling a show wrought with such tremendous historical s...

The Lapsed Fan’s 30-week one-of-a-kind WrestleMania journey arrives this week at the greatest Mania of them all, X-Seven, a true demarcation line for legions who stopped following pro wrestling after the WWF’s Attitude Era. Hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro go especially deep this week, as your co-chairmen prove more than up to the task of tackling a show wrought with such tremendous historical s...

Reenter the new millennium with The Lapsed Fan’s deep dive into WrestleMania 2000, as the TLF 30-week, 30-WrestleMania journey rumbles along. Hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro discuss the first – and hopefully last – Fatal Four Way main event in Mania history, as Triple H announces in no uncertain terms he’ll be the top guy in the organization when he becomes the first heel to go over in a Mania...

The WWF was firmly ensconced in the “Attitude Era” as WrestleMania XV dawned in 1999, and the event from Philadelphia in so many ways illustrates the promotional philosophy that catapulted the company into record profits. You know what that means – it’s Lapsed Fan Deep Dive time. Join hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro as TLF reaches the precise midpoint of its 30-week WrestleMania podcast journey...

It can be said that not since Hulk Hogan and Mr. T linked up at the first Wrestlemania did the WWF’s grand stage see a more gaming-changing celebrity presence than Mike Tyson, who in the run-up to Wrestlemania 14 set the atmosphere in which Stone Cole Steve Austin could blossom into the biggest money generator the industry had seen. This week on The Lapsed Fan podcast’s 14th installment of a 30-we...

The Lapsed Fan 30-week Wrestlemania journey heats up this week as your co-chairmen go deep on the greatest match in Mania history, Bret Hart v. Steve Austin at Wrestlemania 13. Hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro dissect what makes the match the best, the precise moments where Austin turns the corner into a beyond-the-pale babyface primed to revolutionize the business, and the rich back story to ho...

Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart may have went Broadway at WrestleMania 12 in 1996, but the Lapsed Fan has been doing that since WrestleMania 1, and ain’t nothing changed for the 12th installment of our 30-week, 30-WrestleMania journey. Hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro journey to the Anaheim Pond this week to dissect the memorable Iron Man Match in ludicrous detail, and render judgment on whether th...

The Lapsed Fan enters the second decade of its 30-week, 30-Wrestlemania review this week with a trademark deep dive into Wrestlemania 11, an inauspicious installment that asked the WWF fan to accept Diesel and Lawrence Taylor as the new Hogan/Mr. T combination. Hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro cover all bases on the 1995 Mains, which took place at a time of particular strain on the WWF’s balance...

It was 10 years in the making when the WWF staged WrestleMania X at Madison Square Garden in 1994, and it’s been 10 weeks in the making on The Lapsed Fan podcast’s 30-week WrestleMania sojourn. This week hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro blast off into the next decade of the WWF’s evolution, as Titan presents its first Hogan-less Mania and definitively turns the limelight over to go-getters like...

The world’s biggest toga party was hardly the world’s biggest success for the WWF, but WrestleMania IX in 1993 did bring with it twists and turns that will echo in the annals. The Lapsed Fan wrestling podcast donned their sandals and grabbed their goblets for a deep dive into a parking lot next to Caesars in Las Vegas for the latest landing on this jet flight known as 30 weeks, 30 WrestleManias. H...

It’s the approach of the Hulkster’s swan song, and the end of the golden period for true Lapsed Fans. WrestleMania 8 is next on TLF’s 30-week, 30-WrestleMania journey, and for your hosts, Hogan’s bout with Sid Justice signals the close of a cast of characters that defined the first WrestleMania era. Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro go deep into the Hoosier Dome for a breakdown of this 1992 extravaganz...

The Lapsed Fan 30-week train stops this week at Wrestlemania VII, and a Hulk Hogan v. Sgt. Slaughter main event that took place against the backdrop of international and internal turmoil, as Sarge dons the bullet proof vest in his quest to vanquish an American icon in tribute to Saddam Hussein. Hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro bring you yet another deep dive, and lapse you across the face with m...

This week on The Lapsed Fan, your co-chairmen accept the Ultimate Challenge by tackling Wrestlemania VI from Toronto’s Sky Dome, the historic night that Ultimate Warrior didn’t so much assume the throne as mortgage it from Hulk Hogan, heretofore our Wrestlemania hero. It’s the latest installment of TLF’s 30-week Wrestlemania journey, and it’s as intergalactic as the promos that preceded the main e...

The Lapsed Fan has reached week five of its 30-week Wrestlemania trek, and thus your hosts come to the conclusion of one the most perfectly-told stories in WWF history, as Hulk Hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage collided – nay, exploded – after an unforgettable, drawn-out tension. Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro take a deep – too deep? – dive into the gritty environs of Atlantic City for the second con...

From Bigger, Badder, and Bette – to just plain Longer. The Lapsed Fan wrestling podcast continues its 30-week, 30-Wrestlemania journey this week with a deep dive into Wrestlemania IV, night of the inaugural WWF championship tournament culminating in the breakthrough of Macho Man Randy Savage as a touchstone name in the WWF annals. Hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro hunker down and cover it all as...

The latest Lapsed Fan is bigger, it’s badder, and it’s better. Anything less would be inappropriate. Hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro dive into the cavernous environs of the once-mighty Pontiac Silverdome for a wall-to-wall breakdown of Wrestlemania III, a banner night for professional wrestling and a true milestone on the Lapsed Fan’s 30-week, 30-Wrestlemania journey. We cover all bases, from A...

The Lapsed Fan continues its 30-week, 30 Wrestlemania journey with what the world had come to in 1986, Wrestlemania 2. It’s the deuce, in perhaps more ways than one, as the WWF aims too high in trying to push the same buttons that made the first Wrestlemania such a success – a litany of celebrities and Mr. T mixing it up – while trying to basically have three Wrestlemanias at once. One city wasn’t...

Let us at The Lapsed Fan wrestling podcast be the first to say … The Road to Wrestlemania 31 starts now! That’s right. The first week of September. That’s because for the next – count em – 30 weeks, Lapsed Fan hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro will embark on a quixotic journey through each and every Wrestlemania, in order, in their signature fashion. They begin, of course, with the Wrestlemania 1...

With the latest WWE Summerslam installment upon us, The Lapsed Fan looks back at one of the most stacked, yet confounding summer spectaculars in history. The 1993 Summerslam featured the culmination of the skyrocket push of Lex Luger as an All-American crusader looking to take the belt off Yokozuna, who had just sent Hulk Hogan packing from the WWF. The Lapsed Fan co-chairmen Jack Encarnacao and J...

An invasion was upon WCW at the 1996 Great American Bash, and The Lapsed Fan podcast is recalling what it was like just before the levees breached and one of the great angles in wrestling history – the nWo – flooded WCW and changed the wrestling business. Your co-chairmen Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro take a look at the 96 Bash in the latest episode, recalling and analyzing: - Just how WCW was able...

For the first time, The Lapsed Fan rumbles. This week it’s the 1991 WWF Royal Rumble, a show with sentimental and historic value for your co-chairmen. The extravaganza from Miami set the controversial table for the Hulk Hogan v. Sgt. Slaughter showdown amid Dessert Storm hostilities, as Slaughter ends the Ultimate Warrior’s title reign in a shocker and Hogan survives 29 other superstars to wave Ol...

The Lapsed Fan goes extreme for the first time this week, as the co-chairmen of TLF go hard on the very first ECW pay-per-view, 1997’s Barely Legal. Hosts Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro assess all that was ECW, including exclusive insight from a 2010 interview Jack conducted with Paul Heyman discussing the state of the pay-per-view industry at the time ECW was looking to break in, and the absurd len...

The Lapsed Fan dares again this week to dive into early 90s WCW, as the co-chairmen assess the thrills, spills, and chills of the 1992 WCW Halloween Havoc. Jack Encarnacao and JP Sarro journey into a Bill Watts time machine in an all-points review of one of the more taxing PPV events in WCW history. The panel touches on: - How Jesse Ventura made it his business as a WCW commentator to tongue-tie J...