The Wrestling Archives

It's the most wonderful time of the year! It's WrestleMania week, and since Tim and Rich have a real soft spot for the showcase of the immortals, it's time for them to make their predictions, get everything wrong, and have fun while doing it. Sure, they get distracted easily and go off on tangents, but what do you expect when WWE insists on making the show of shows a two-night spectacular? Downloa...

It's April 7,  2014. You've turned off Happy by Pharrell Williams so you can sit down for the next four hours and watch WrestleMania from the SuperDome, not the SilverDome (Looking at you Hulk Hogan). You have on your Obama-esque "YES!" shirt. Everything seems normal and routine. They parade out last generation's superstars. They wheel out the new members of the Hall of Fame. But, this is New Orle...

If you're a wrestling fan from the late 90's, you already know why we're doing an episode on this event. June 28, 1998, Pittsburgh, PA. Wrestling changes. Whether it's for the best or the worst, that's up for debate. What we do know is that it saved the WWF and secured the win for Vince McMahon in the Monday Night Wars with Ted Turner. While we definitely discuss at length the elephant in the room...

The Greek God Papadon blessed Tim and Rich with his presence in a no holds barred interview that talked about everything. One thing I can tell you, this God among men loves Star Wars and hates thigh slapping. This interview gets raucous as we discuss his 3-way match against Dirty Money and Chris Slade next week at Virginia Championship Wrestling's return to Hampton High School. Papadon is a vetera...

Tim and Rich flashback to Texas in 1984. Tragedy had struck the Von Erich family in February when David Von Erich was stricken with an intestinal illness and passed away while on tour in Japan. Fritz, the patriarch and promoter of World Class Championship Wrestling assembled a super card in his honor with the main event being Ric Flair vs Kerry Von Erich for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship....

One of the most notorious and infamous wrestling shows ever. In 1995, six months before the start of the Monday Night Wars, WCW decided to bring peace and harmony through violence. The great Antonio Inoki contacted Eric Bischoff with the terrible idea of taking professional wrestling to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, street name North Korea. Not only did we watch the wrestling show, we...

Hey y'all we made a friend! The Hoss of all Hosses and former Virginia Championship Wrestling United States Champion, Devantes stops by to have a chat. He's been burned by his former manager, scum of the Earth Neil Sharkey, and is looking for vengeance. While we do talk a lot of wrestling, our boy is from Philly, so that leaves us with no choice but to talk food. The go-to cheesesteak, steak prepa...

Look, some strange stuff has happened over the years in pro wrestling; Mae Young birthing a hand, the Gobbledy Gooker, Kane beating up Pete Rose, but nothing has become quite as infamous or part of the wrestling lore as Capital Combat ’90: The Return of RoboCop. Tim and Rich break down this show which had a pretty solid card for an early WCW show. Ric Flair and Luger, the Four Horsemen running amu...

New Year, new show name! New guest! We welcome Celine Dion's favorite pro wrestler to the Archives, Vince Valor. While skimming the socials, Rich picked up a distress call from Vince Valor. Vince had recently suffered a devasting injury and was needing support and was offering to do interviews since he couldn't do any ring work. The Invincible One shares some great insights into the wrestling busi...

Here we are, at the end of 2023. A year dominated by wrestling drama. In what has become a tradition, we sat down and had a talk about the wrestling year that was 2023. The high spots, the low spots, those we lost, those we gained. The people we talked to, the stories we shared. The matches we loved and the ones we didn't. It's been an incredible year. We're retiring the name "All The WrestleMania...

As we say farewell to the name "All The WrestleManias," another icon of the wrestling business is saying farewell. Though we talked for almost 2 hours, we barely scratched the surface of the story of the man that is George Pantas. You may not have heard of George, but everyone that you have heard of has heard of him. George is the source of some of the greatest wrestling footage Vice TV and the WW...

It is our pleasure to give to you this interview of wrestling royalty. David Crockett is the son of Jim Crockett, Sr. who created an entertainment empire in the south, but is most famous for running the "Charlotte" territory in wrestling, better known as Mid-Atlantic Wrestling/Jim Crockett Promotions/NWA/World Championship Wrestling. He came to us to let the world know he'll be at the Virginia Cha...

With the new year upon us, we felt it was time for a fresh coat of paint, so to speak. Our scope has expanded so much from just covering WrestleManias that the name is feeling restrictive. Starting in the 2024, we will become known as "The Wrestling Archives!" We discuss why we're making this change and some of the great content we have coming soon, including interviews with the one and only David...

This week we sit down with the other half of the VCW tag team champs, the man hailing from a gated community within a gated community, Logan Easton Laroux. Logan is hanging it up, leaving his boots in the ring, and walking away from the business (well, unless a large contract comes his way). He may only be 33 years old, but he's been working the squared circle since he was 16. He has seen it all,...

We hop in the time machine and drive up I-95 to 2300 South Swanson Street in Philadelphia to bear witness to 1997's ECW Barely Legal, Extreme Championship Wrestling's first Pay-Per-View. We are treated to some of the bloodiest, and most violent action we've watched on this podcast. We had to watch through our fingers a few times! But we meet young stars like Rob Van Dam, Lance Storm, Raven, and Ta...

In a very special episode, we are joined by the head of talent relations AND current co-holder of the Virginia Championship Wrestling Tag Championship, Jonathan "The Reason" Elliott. We talk about a whole lot of stuff, but definitely about VCW's upcoming events in Norfolk and in Alexandria, Virginia. October 7th is the Nightmare on Granby Street and November 11, Veterans Day, in Alexandria, VA, wh...

If you paid for WrestleMania 28 due to the tag line, "Once in a Lifetime" you may be owed compensation. In a huge case of deja vu, we're confronted with John Cena vs. The Rock from the Meadowlands, just outside of New York City in swampy New Jersey (everything's legal in New Jersey). Not far from where Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton, Chris Christie wore a sweatshirt for an out-of-state univers...

When Tim is away, Rich will play! While Tim enjoys the Dutch tropics, Rich toils away endlessly for content to entertain the masses. Rich comes back to you with another episode of Classical Music and Professional Wrestling. This time, Rich digs into circus music, film scores about the founding of Israel, and post-modern American music. Mix in a sprinkling of Freud, music theory, and P.T. Barnum, a...

Virginia Championship Wrestling's former World Tag Team champs, the Golden Pinky Society stop by to talk about the upcoming VCW Show on September 2 at Hampton High School. We dive deep into their disgust with friend of the show and VCW Director of Operations, Jerry Stephanitsis. We also talk a little bit about anime and the art of cosplaying, wrestling inspirations and some other stuff. Benjamin B...

"Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more," as Henry V says in the Shakespeare play. Tim and Rich charge back into the quixotic quest with the the nearly 4-hour bloat that is WrestleMania 28 from sunny Miami, Florida. Ironically given the tag line, "Once in a lifetime," we are greeted by a WrestleMania tradition - a squash match! We have an AEW main event between CM Punk and Chris Jerich...

We hop in the ol' WrestleMania Time Machine and warp back to Madison Square Garden on the night of December 17, 1979. We find a strange, mysterious WWF that we're not familiar with; a WWF not owned by Vince K. McMahon dominating the pro wrestling landscape, but a northeastern territory owned by Vincent J. McMahon that has packed the most famous arena in the world. We find a diverse card reflecting...

This week, we have the VCW Director of Operations, Jerry Stephanitsis on the show in advance of his big match for the VCW World Tag Team Championship at the Liberty Lottery on July 29. He regales us with tales of being trained by Lou Thesz and how much of a shooter he is, but Rich isn't having any of it and things get a little heated to the point that only the mutual love of a certain evil clown n...

This week we welcomed Dr. Marc Ouellette (pronounced Well-ette), associate professor of English from Old Dominion University, to the show. Dr. Marc is a life-long wrestling fan and has published on all bits of pop culture, from video games to professional wrestling and how they intertwine with gender relations and studies. We talked about his 2016 paper, "If you want to be the man, you’ve got to b...

Tim and Rich hop on to YouTube to get back to 1985 and the SuperClash 1985 from Chicago's Comiskey Park. SuperClash, the NWA/AWA/WCCW's response to the first WrestleMania has a star-studded lineup, a big, hot crowd, and some subpar presentation issues. Larry Nelson calls the whole show himself. He barrels through classics like Candi Divine vs Sherri Martel, Sgt Slaughter vs Boris Zhukov, Stan Hans...

In another installment of the "I Was There" series, we time travel to November of 1995, when Rich attended the Survivor Series. There's discussion of the Kliq, The Bone Street Krew, waiting in line at Ticketmaster at Hechts and not to mention a beautifully violent main event of Diesel (Kevin Nash) vs. Bret "The Hitman" Hart and the first time a wrestler goes through the Spanish Announce Table, est...