Is Tony Khan finally getting the hang of booking pro wrestling? The question arises after taking in this week’s AEW “Dynamite,” which featured a payoff in a five-years-and-running tag-team feud between The Young Bucks and Private Party, Adam Cole’s return from more than a year out with a broken ankle and, finally, the debut of Bobby Lashley. Chris Graham and Ray Petree dive into the deep end of the AEW pool here. Other topics of interest include: Orange Cassidy challenging AEW world champ Jon Mo...
Nov 01, 2024•37 min•Ep. 1179
Tyler Reddick and Joey Logano have already punched their tickets into the NASCAR Championship 4 finale. Two spots are still up for grabs as the NASCAR Cup Series returns to Martinsville for the Round of 8 playoff finale on Sunday. Rod Mullins of Dickenson Media joins us to preview what we can expect from Martinsville. Mullins also reports on changes on the team of 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace, and the latest on the lawsuit challenging the NASCAR charter system.
Oct 31, 2024•19 min•Ep. 1178
Former Waynesboro mayor Bobby Henderson is back, this time running for the At-Large seat on Waynesboro City Council. Henderson joined AFP editor Chris Graham to talk about his decision to get back into the political ring after a two-year hiatus. The focus for Henderson, a military veteran, retired Virginia State Police trooper and lifelong Republican, is on restoring the voice of voters in the city, which has been under the thumb of a MAGA majority led by the vice mayor, Jim Wood, the past two y...
Oct 30, 2024•20 min•Ep. 1177
Terry Short Jr. is running for a third term on Waynesboro City Council, this time running for the Ward B seat on the body. Short talks with AFP editor Chris Graham about the 2024 race. Short is one of three independents running for seats against a slate of Republicans hand-picked the sitting vice mayor, Jim Wood, the chairman of the Waynesboro Republican Committee. Wood is the guy who was in national headlines last year for his homophobic slur of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Short wa...
Oct 28, 2024•32 min•Ep. 1176
Lorie Strother, a candidate for the Ward A seat on Waynesboro City Council, sits down for an interview with AFP editor Chris Graham to discuss the 2024 election. The biggest issue facing the city involves the lack of affordable housing, which plays into the growth in the homeless population. Strother, who was homeless herself as a teen, shares her perspective on what the city needs to do to address the housing and homelessness issues. She also discusses her nine-year tenure on the Waynesboro Eco...
Oct 25, 2024•35 min•Ep. 1175
I hate that I feel the need to start this story about Ron Sanchez being formally rolled out as the interim head coach at UVA Basketball by addressing an interwebs rumor, but this is the world we live in.
Oct 24, 2024•12 min•Ep. 1174
Tony Bennett , after giving a lot of thought to things during a weekend trip on the Rappahanock River, decided, on Wednesday, so, two days ago, that he was going to step down from the UVA Basketball job. It was far from a spur-of-the-moment decision; he’d been going back and forth about his future in college basketball for the past three years. “The thing that has choked me up the most, and the hardest thing to say is, when I looked at myself, and I realized I’m no longer the best coach to lead ...
Oct 23, 2024•40 min•Ep. 1173
Dean Smith retired on Oct. 9, 1997, to engineer giving the North Carolina job to Bill Guthridge, and SI.com columnist Pat Forde was so offended that he helped create an award in Smith’s honor.
Oct 23, 2024•18 min•Ep. 1172
Like Kamala Harris , I worked at a McDonald’s, in my case in high school. Unlike Donald Trump , I never got a French fry certification pin for learning how to drop a basket of fries in the grease, which takes all of five seconds to master.
Oct 23, 2024•11 min•Ep. 1171
Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano executed Team Penske’s fuel strategy flawlessly on Sunday, securing victory in the South Point 400 Playoff race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. This win earned him the first of four spots in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship 4 .
Oct 23, 2024•17 min•Ep. 1170
Sam Houston has been involved with professional wrestling his entire life. The son of Grizzly Smith, Houston’s family is ingrained in the fabric of the business. His older brother is WWE Hall of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts, and his younger sister is former WWE women’s champion Rockin’ Robin. From setting up the ring and shuttling wrestlers across Louisiana as a teenager, to winning the Mid-Atlantic Championship and appearing in WrestleMania IV, Houston has seen it all.
Oct 19, 2024•59 min•Ep. 1169
Front Row Motorsports has not turned a profit in its 20 years in NASCAR , according to a court filing from its owner, Bob Jenkins, who along with Michael Jordan at 23XI Racing is suing the privately-owned racing circuit to challenge the legality of its charter system, aimed at teams being able to get a bigger share of NASCAR’s $3 billion annual revenues.
Oct 19, 2024•37 min•Ep. 1168
Tony Bennett retired on Friday after 15 seasons as the head coach for the UVA Basketball program. AFP editor Chris Graham was at Bennett's retirement press conference on Friday, and reports on the mood in the room, which, yes, obviously somber, looks back on what led to the shocking move by Bennett, and ahead to the prospects for the upcoming UVA hoops season, and beyond.
Oct 19, 2024•40 min•Ep. 1167
This week’s “Street Knowledge” podcast on AEW, with AFP editor Chris Graham and columnist Ray Petree, opens with a segment acknowledging the tragic flooding down in Western Carolina, including Asheville, N.C., the home of AEW stars Dax Harwood, Cash Wheeler and Adam Copeland. “Dax Harwood kind of lives on social media, it seems, and he did post yesterday, just that the storm walloped him pretty hard. He was home in Asheville. And man, that situation there, it looks horrible,” Graham said on the ...
Sep 29, 2024•45 min•Ep. 1166
The money quote from AFP columnist Ray Petree on this week’s podcast: you could miss this week’s AEW “Dynamite,” and not be any worse for the wear heading into the big “Grand Slam” show next week in New York. And no, this isn’t good for AEW. Ray and AFP editor Chris Graham cover a lot of territory on the AEW beat this week. In this podcast Jericho-Cassidy sheds viewers in dud of opening segment The opening segment of “Dynamite,” featuring a match pitting Chris Jericho vs. Orange Cassidy, went ov...
Sep 20, 2024•33 min•Ep. 1165
Politics is a contact sport, as Springfield, Ohio, knows all too well, with MAGA Nation continuing to put the city in the crosshairs, all because city leaders refuse to play along with the Donald Trump/JD Vance lie about immigrants eating pets. Chris Graham covers that topic in today’s podcast, and we also get into the Senate IVF bill that was blocked by MAGA Republicans, and the Teamsters, rather curiously, deciding to sit out the 2024 election, despite Trump making it clear that he will contin...
Sep 19, 2024•27 min•Ep. 1164
If you want to know the reason for something happening in the world of sports, follow the money. That’s the theme for today’s “Street Knowledge” podcast, at least the first two segments. Host Chris Graham examines the rumored talks involving the ACC, Florida State and Clemson, and the latest about the AEW-Warner Bros. Discovery TV deal that is supposedly in the works. The final segment breaks contain to update the latest on UVA Football, which is coming off a 27-13 loss to Maryland in Week 3....
Sep 18, 2024•23 min•Ep. 1163
NASCAR and its team owners, with two notable exceptions, have come to an agreement on the extensions of team charters, with an announcement on the extensions coming in advance of the opening of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs last weekend. The two exceptions – 23XI Racing, co-owned by Michael Jordan and NASCAR driver Denny Hamlin, and Front Row Motorsports, owned by restaurant operator Bob Jenkins – are taking different approaches to where they want to see things go from here. Jenkins has no...
Sep 09, 2024•22 min•Ep. 1162
Chase Briscoe and Kyle Busch battled to the end of the Southern 500 to secure a spot in the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series playoffs. Briscoe got the win and the final playoff spot, leaving Busch, who has been running well of late, on the outside looking in. #TeamAFP’s Chris Graham and Rod Mullins break down the thrilling end to the regular season, the disappointing near-miss for Bubba Wallace, and look ahead to the playoffs. The second segment covers the developing news that an announcement appears to b...
Sep 03, 2024•31 min•Ep. 1161
This Harrison Burton story involving a final-lap lead change that vaulted him from nowhere to the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs is a lot better than the one that had been dominating the headlines. Burton, who had lost his ride with Wood Brothers Racing for 2025, didn’t need to wreck anybody to get the win in Daytona on Saturday night. It was just good, clean racing that got Burton, the son of retired NASCAR veteran Jeff Burton, who was on the call for NBC’s coverage of the race, into the winner’s c...
Aug 26, 2024•24 min•Ep. 1160
I think it’s fair to speculate how the big season that a lot of folks seem to think is in store for Virginia Tech might factor into the thinking around Tony Elliott and Virginia. There’s buzz about Tech being a sleeper pick to contend in the ACC this year , and that translates to expectations about, what, nine wins, maybe 10 wins? If Brent Pry, in his Year 3, has Tech on the doorstep of an ACC title game, it’s not hard to imagine the people who pay the bills at UVA saying, hey, wait a minute, ou...
Aug 21, 2024•15 min•Ep. 1159
Tyler Reddick took the checkered flag in Michigan on Monday, and since Reddick was already a 2024 winner, we still have four spots open in the 2024 NASCAR Playoff race. That’s in part because of NASCAR’s surprise move last week to hit Austin Dillon, the winner at Richmond back on Aug. 11, with an unprecedented penalty – taking his guaranteed playoff spot away as the penalty for intentionally wrecking race leaders Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin on the final lap. #TeamAFP’s Chris Graham and Rod Mull...
Aug 20, 2024•25 min•Ep. 1158
Austin Dillon drove through leaders Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin to take the checkered flag in Richmond on Sunday night, igniting a controversy that has NASCAR saying it will review his driving, and maybe even take the win away. That’s not going to happen, of course. #TeamAFP NASCAR writer Rod Mullins joins us to break down the end of an otherwise dull race, and also report from Bristol Motor Speedway, which announced last week that it will be hosting an MLB game in 2025.
Aug 13, 2024•49 min•Ep. 1157
NASCAR has taken the past couple of weeks off to accommodate TV rights holder NBC’s interest in broadcasting the 2024 Paris Olympics, but the Cup Series is set to return this weekend at Richmond International Raceway. AFP’s NASCAR guy, Rod Mullins, joins Chris Graham on the podcast today to get us up to speed on what has been going on in NASCAR with the drivers and teams getting the rare mid-season break.
Aug 06, 2024•22 min•Ep. 1156
The talk of the spring in NASCAR was Kyle Larson trying to do the double – racing in the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the Sunday before Memorial Day. The weather didn’t hold up to allow Larson to race in both, but Larson made up for that failed day with his win on Sunday at the Brickyard 400. Rod Mullins joins the podcast to break down the win, and we talk off-the-track news with Cole Custer and Hailie Deegan.
Jul 23, 2024•22 min•Ep. 1155
It will be a while before Ryan Blaney has a lead on the final lap and doesn’t worry about whether he has enough gas to get across the finish line. He did on Sunday, taking the checkered flag ahead of Denny Hamlin. Rod Mullins joins the podcast to recap the NASCAR Cup Series weekend. We also talk about the struggles for Cup Series stars Kyle Busch and Bubba Wallace.
Jul 15, 2024•24 min•Ep. 1154
Former AEW world champs Maxwell Jacob Friedman and “Hangman” Adam Page are back, and they’re on clear paths to big matches at the “All In” pay-per-view in London next month. AFP wrestling columnist Ray Petree updates us on the latest goings-on in AEW, and previews this week’s “Dynamite,” before this week’s podcast turns into an impromptu Eddie Kingston lovefest, after a discussion of the latest news involving Kingston and his gruesome in-ring leg injury.
Jul 09, 2024•31 min•Ep. 1153
Chicago, for the second straight year, had its NASCAR street race, a neat idea, if there ever was one, dampened by rain. Alex Bowman made it memorable, breaking his 80-race NASCAR Cup Series winless streak in a timed finish – an idea that NASCAR might want to try again, incidentally. Rod Mullins joins the podcast to break down the weekend on the mean streets of Chicago. The show also goes in depth on Hailie Deegan’s bad breakup with her Xfinity Series team, and the latest on NHRA legend John For...
Jul 08, 2024•27 min•Ep. 1152
Podcast: Digging into the details of the Tony Bennett UVA contract extension We’ve known since June 13 that Tony Bennett signed a contract extension that will, in essence, tether him to UVA Basketball through the end of the 2030-2031 season. What we didn’t know: the details. Chris Graham examines the salary, bonus and buyout portions of the deal in this podcast. Stories referenced in the podcast What you need to know: Breaking down the Tony Bennett UVA contract extension Offer sheet from UVA Ath...
Jul 03, 2024•16 min•Ep. 1151
AEW put on its third annual “Forbidden Door” pay-per-view on Sunday, highlighted by world champ Swerve Strickland retaining in the main-event match against roster newcomer Will Ospreay. AFP wrestling columnist Ray Petree joins the show to go over the show’s hits and misses, and goes down his list of matches on the main show from 1-10 . We also preview this week’s AEW “Dynamite,” and take an early look at what could be in store for next month’s big show in London....
Jul 02, 2024•39 min•Ep. 1150
