Hey, this is Brian Alvarez and this is today's edition of the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network.
By from San Francisco. I'm a sports byline broadcasting network. You are listening to Wrestling Observer Live with your hosts Brian Alvarez and Mike Semper VV.
When you're ready, When you're ready, let's get it all now. How's it going, everybody? Brian Alvarez here on Wrestling Observer Live. We are here every day Monday through Friday, New Pacific three Eastern Sunday three Pacific six Eastern Saturday Mornings with Jim Valley, Today Pacific one Eastern Sundays with andrews Arian. And it is Wednesday here on the show. You know what that means. I'll tell you one thing. It means
I'm back. I was gone yesterday, talk about it. Have the break if you but it was one of those days. But I am back here today and we have a lot to talk about, including tonight's aw Dynamite. We got eight things announced for the show. Seven things we'll talk about that. It is the Continental Classic, Gold League and Blue League matches and more. It includes Will Osprey and Darby Allen and Shelton, Benjamin and the Beast Morts. Is Beast finally going to get a big win? Well, we'll
find out tonight, so we'll talk about that. We got a Ring of Honor Final Battle coming up on Friday. We had NXT last night, and last night they actually taped two episodes of NXT. They did the live show and then a tape show, and they've got another tape show coming up on Thursday. So on Thursday, all of NXT through the end of the year is going to be all wrapped up. And well, I'm not gonna do spoilers,
but I did. It's one of those nights where before I watched NX, I had a lot of people telling me, oh, man, wait till you see this Javan segment, and I was like, oh man, of course, what do they do now, Everyone's like presuming I'm gonna be infuriated. I actually didn't mind it at all, and I'll tell you why. So we'll talk about that show and then all of the rest of the news from the last couple of days, including Tony Kahann's media call promoting the Final Battle show, the
return of Logan Paul, ratings, and plenty more. Kevin Owens champion of the wing at Eagle and he is so proud as he should be back in a moment with more of so they're alive.
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You were listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez and Mike simper VV on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.
And the show Brain Alvarez here, Wrestling Observer Live Mike simper vv. Also Wrestling Observer dot Com and Yes I Am back.
Don't do it. Don't fight that battle.
Don't I'm not even starting on that. Don't tell me what I'm starting with?
How dare you?
I was supposed to do a meeting yesterday right when this show started. You know what happened? Here we go, Nothing happened. I waited and I waited, and I waited, and I emailed and I texted and I waited. I waited all the way through the show. I could have done the show yesterday. And then I waited and I waited. Six thirty Eastern I finally get an email. Oh I'm sorry. Oh well, we're gonna try again tomorrow. But I made it abundantly clear I'm out of here at eleven fifty
five Pacific because I got a show to do. So I hear you held down the fort fairly well, yes, so I was actually listening to a lot of it. I heard what you said. Hello, Yeah, it's going out with my headphones now.
I don't know. It's those Sony's you got there.
That was week the brand new I'm not evenna get into the Tony Storm thing from yesterday.
No wait, no, no, I was looking in the Twitch chat before we started here and apparently, no.
Don't you're going Why are you trying to go down this road? I'm not going down this road.
Well, I'm I'm just pointing out to you that Chelsea Green is Oh God is uh is big on social and you are playing by falling into what these people want you moving on.
In a new investigative piece out Wednesday, former ESPN Senior VP of Production and current WA Head of Median Production, Lee Fitting was fired by his former employer after being accused of years of misconduct behind the scenes, which included both sexually suggestive comments and objectifying comments towards women. WWE, owned by TKO, did not provide a comment to the athletics last New York Times. Fitting was hired by WWE in January after being fired by ESPN Disney late August
twenty twenty three. Had been working for over twenty five years, headed up the popular college Game Day show. Complaint was made to ESPN's HR department regarding Fitting, which led to a further investigation. He was fired shortly thereafter. The three spokesperson, the forty nine year old denied some of the allegations
to the media outlet, while not addressing others. He also declined to comment on the broader characterization of him as someone who mistreated women during his tenure at ESPN or why he was let go by the network outlets spoke to more than twenty women since, six of which were talked to as part of the investigation. Among the accusations, in twenty twelve, while around employees, he commented on a non employee's ability to chug beer, opine she would be
good at oral sex. He denied this happening. Twenty fourteen, he offered up his lap for a woman to sit after there were no remaining chairs in a production meeting. He denied this happening. He sent a text to a female employee twenty eighteen that read, quote, you look hot. Apparently that one was not denied. He made jokes about performing bed checks and jokingly jokingly in quotations as the female staffer for her hotel room number. He denied this happening.
He discussed and bragged about he and his wife's sex life. Apparently that was not quote. When he saw a woman in an outfit he liked, he let her know. Sometimes in ways women and other employees found crude and or humiliating, and around twenty seventeen, an employee asked to meet with fitting in New York City to discuss opportunities. She claimed he asked if he should go get a hotel room for the night, which she interpreted as a room for
the two of them. He said she misinterpreted the claim and that he was asking if he should get a conference room. To the allegations of him commenting on women's looks, hairstyles, outfits, his spokesperson leaf fitting has a spokesperson said quote, it was his job to provide feedback to male and female on air talent regarding their appearance and on air delivery. Things begin to turn against him in twenty twenty three after he scandal broke regarding falsified submissions for Emmy Awards,
which led to College Game Day getting thirty statues. They never actually won what?
Okay, that situation this is above, didn't they got thirty thirty? Yeah, but there's an asterixk on what that is. Because you get an Emmy Award, the hosts don't get one, believe it or not. So let's say this show was to win an Emmy Award, we wouldn't actually win the Emmy. Jared would win the Emmy, Dom would win the Emmy, Daniel would win the Emmy. All those people. So what he did was he would kind of like fudge names.
So if the person's name was I don't know, who's somebody on ESPN, you know, Andrea Kramer or whatever it would say, like Andy Kremer or something. That's what he did to change the name so that the talent would actually receive statues. That's why he did that. So is it something I guess moral to do. No? Is it in the grand scheme of things, the worst thing in the world. No. In fact, it's kind of silly, and
it's a really silly rule that they have. Now there's this other stuff which is completely different, as Brian types away.
Now, noh, yeah, I gotta figure something out.
Here at the vae.
Okay, hold on a second. Here, here's here's my question for Lea fitting. Okay, so if you look behind me, I got a YouTube plaque. Okay, yes, we got for for one hundred thousand YouTube subscribers, which, by the way, when you're watching on YouTube right now, go and hit that subscribe button.
Thank you subscribe.
But anyway, they sent the plaque and then there's like a little piece of paper that's like if you want to order additional plaques, yes, like you can. You want one for Mike, you want one for Dave, you want one for Vinnie, You want one for dom whoever? Like it can be done that way. So you tell me that this guy there were Emmys and he wanted to get these Emmy statues for the other people involved. Yeah,
and so he like, okay, here's my question. Go ahead, All the Express A good, All the Express eighty seven ninety five. I mean, why couldn't he have just gone and bought like a bunch of replicas. That was your solution to get everybody else an Emmy statue was to fudge everything.
Brian, because they're replicas. It's like somebody getting a replica super Bowl ring. No, you want to have the actual Tiffany or whoever makes these things. And it is kind of ridiculous that they have a separate role for hosts and for the show when it's not all about technical when it comes to the show, it's about the overall show,
which includes the host. So it's one of those silly things when it comes to the Emmy Awards that he was just trying to do a workaround so the people like a Laura Rutledge would get credit for her work on a show or whoever it.
Would be well anyway, multiple people said they ascribe to an HR official instances in which they believe Fitting engaged in inappropriate conduct and are discriminated against women. Two current ESPN executives briefed about the result of the investigation said the findings gave the company a little choice but to let Fitting go. Fitting through a spokesperson the client to address why his employment was terminated by ESPN. No comment from WWE yet. We'll see if we get any.
I don't know if that now leads because that was the big story about Fitting from before, and it made for a big headline like this guy falsified things. Then you looked at the story and you found it to be kind of like this is kind of a ridiculous technicality, kind of a dumb thing. Now all of this adds some big layers on and for ESPN it's bad because ESPN's got a history of these sorts of things. Anyway,
there's that book that's out. You know, those guys have all the fun and they've tried to move past a lot of this, but there always seems to be something that takes place there Steve Phillips situation. There's always something that seems to take place, So that's bad for them. The environment that they've gotten, and then you look at where he went to WWE, that was trying to shed
themselves of a lot of that stuff. And obviously this is going to be a sticking point here when it comes to the media and how people perceive WWE and moving forward. If they have Lee fitting over here, if they did those if he did those things. At the very least, what you can say about the things that you said were that he got way too familiar with his his on air talent. That's the least you can say about what they have. It could be worse than that.
Maybe it's not. We'll have to find out, and it's going to be interesting to see how TKO now deals with that.
Well, we'll be back in a moment and dom if you and Byline want to get me and Mike replical Marconi's I ain't gonna complain all the express back in a moment Observer Live.
You were listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez and Mike Simper VV on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Networks.
Man, I cannot find a replica Marcon.
I actually have to win one.
Ridiculous.
Do you still give out Marconi?
Yeah, there's a twenty twenty four Marconi winner. It happens. Damn yes, hey, listen to the next segment. I should mention we got a special guest, Michael Kingston On got a lot to talk about, including Bigfoot. I'll explain later. All right, Uh, last night's NXT this was a classic example, a classic example of one of those shows where everybody starts emailing me, oh man, Brian's gonna lose it? Can do you?
Can you?
Did you see what they did to Javan? I can't believe it? And I watched it. I was like, dude, that was awesome, Like I got no problem with that whatsoever, because he's in a feud now. So what happened was, well, you got poor, uh poor what's his face? Ethan Page? He's all sad, he's just losing right and left and he's he's uh, they're in Lowell, Massachusetts. You knew this was gonna happen? Did anyone not know this was gonna happen? Anybody?
So he's in he's in Lowell and he comes down to the ring and he has lost his smile, just like Sean Michaels did in Lowell, Massachusetts, like twenty five years ago. So he comes out and he's all sad and he's talking about his family, and like the fans aren't buying one second of this. They don't believe this guy for one second.
It's because he didn't get beat up by a marine.
They're booing him and he's he's acting like he's about to quit. And uh, thirty five years ago, that old that wasn't thirty five, I wasn't ten, it was it was nineteen ninety five.
You weren't ten thirty five years ago.
Full, it was thirty years ago.
Right.
Anyway, The point is this out comes Javon Evans, and man, is there a bigger Javon Evans fan than me? Clearly, no one reals, no one that works, there's a bigger fan. It's like this guy is he's so great in the ring. He's got so much charisma that people love this guy and they just like treat him like anyway, you know what else this guy can do. His brother can cut a promo. Oh my god, he comes out here and he does his promo about you know what, you came here and all you did was brag and talk about
your accomplishments. But you know what that's not really you. I know the real Ethan Page. I saw the real Ethan Page at heat Wave. Not what you did in the match, but what you did after the match. You won that title, and you looked at your family and you told them I love you, and not everybody can do that. That smile you had, that proud dad smile, that proud husband smile, the smile of a guy who just busted. Is you know what for eighteen years to get here where he deserves to be. You deserve to
be here. So from now on you should drop that all ego. These fans here, they want to see the real you. And if nobody else here is gonna say it, because they're not gonna all say it, I am proud of you, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I was crying. I was like, man, what a what a promo? What a promo?
What a promo?
Cole Lee And then Ethan takes the mic and he hits him in the face and they did the blood gimmick, and man, I don't know if this guy like he hits he hits Javan and Javon goes down and so Ethan goes outside to get like a chair or whatever for the distraction, so you can't see whatever. I don't know if they like slid him a thing this big of cranberry juice. This guy had gallons of fake blood in his mouth. And Ethan puts his chair around his
face and he stomps on it. And dude, I've been watching Mid South and it's a guy's name Cowboy, you stop already, shut up.
He's the Asian guy.
And he puts the thing on the guy's neck and they also killer, oh massa eito or something. Anyway, Uh, that's not what happened here. He pilmanized this guy's neck. An, you want no story, I'm gonna tell you a story. All right, I'm gonna tell you what happened here, because you know, Van and I are spirit animals. Something similar, something similar. This is to happen to Javon last night, happened to me. So this was this was probably twenty
years ago. This is this is the opposite of medical advice. This is the opposite of medical What I did never do this, Okay. So what I was doing was I would go no carb for several days and then I would have a carb up day. Okay, So you know I was doing no carbs, no carbs, no car but well it's car carb up day. So what I did was I got a whole bunch of kool Aid packets, straight pure sugar and red number five or whatever it is,
which is probably poisonous. So I just I made up this thing of kool aid, a gallon, a gallon of kool Aid. And the idea was, I was going to go and do my last hard workout for the week, and then I was going to begin my carbup and I was gonna start by drinking a gallon of kool Aid.
Oh.
So I went in and I worked out because it was my last one before my car bup. I was, you know, I'm gonna have this kool Aid. I'm gonna eat doughnuts. This is the wrong way to do this everybody, but I was young. So I went in there and I worked out real hard, and I came outside and I was all ready for that kool aid, and I started chugging kool Aid. Now the issue was not just
that I was chugging kool aid. But for those of you that have ever worked out, you know sometimes you have that workout, we're like, you push it a little further and you're like right on the verge of you know, I actually, I actually I pushed it so hard I might I might throw up. So I you know, I cooled down, walked it off, got over that part where
you know I may throw up. Well, then I started drinking that kool aid and I drank or in the parking lot, I drank and I drank, and I drank, and I drank and I drank and I drank, and I realized I made a real big mistake. And right there in the parking lot, I opened the driver's side door and I vomited out a gallon of bright red liquid. I can't believe nobody called, like the paramedics or got like the airlifting coming in. I mean I it was
probably the most horrific thing anyone had ever seen. If anybody saw it, tell me guy opened the opened up the door and just appeared to vomit a gallon of blood after working out at the gym. Well, this is exactly what Javon did when they stomped that guy's face. He didn't just start spinning blood. He vomited red blood everywhere. And I watched that. I thought, if there's there's any child watching this program, that child will never be the same.
They will never ever, they will never be the same after seeing him getting pilmanized and spewing blood every bro I have two kids. If Paisley saw that, it would be years of therapy, Oh my, years of therapy to get over that one.
Jesus, don't show her the corner.
That's a fireball, dude, that's not vomiting blood out of your mouth after getting your neck pilmanized. So anyway, he's dead. They got rid of him, took him out of there. But I thought that was an amazing segment. Was going to lie.
Although you are way overstating the amount of blood. You're acting as if he was vomiting blood.
It's spewed everywhere.
That was the thing. It was the splatter more than the amountain. Yes, and how he sold it and it was very well done. It was very well filmed. But he is not like looking it up as if he's the uh the kid from what was it the uh Possessed movie or whatnot? You know, and hey listen sitting out like.
It was so graphic that like when they like they quickly went to commercial, and I was like, they're gonna come back and they're gonna show the aftermath. They are not going to replay that, and I was wrong. Of course he replayed it again.
Dub Brother, Prama, Lee, Horror. You gotta build it up, Trick Williams with thoughts in prayers immediately in the promo following you, Yeah.
He should have. And speaking of Trick, the main event of the show. So Eddie Thorpe, he finagled his way in to that title match tonight in the Great Angle of NXT in twenty twenty four, and so I will say, they're doing the match, and it's so they only got like twelve minutes even less actually, and there's a commercial break in the middle, and man, I gotta say they came back. And I was like, this is the most nothing happened in title match, Like what a nothing happened
in pay off? I was like really disappointed. And then all of a sudden, the referee took a bump and Eddie hits a paradigm shift, steals Moxley's finish and makes the cover and he gets a ten second visual pinfall. I was like, well, I guess they got an out or whatever. And then another referee runs in and Eddie hits two El generico running kicks in the corner steal in everyone's spots. He goes for the third one, he eats the trick knee, Trick falls on top of him.
You know how you guys are always like, oh, Sean's living out all is this or that? And lost my smile and whatever. Nobody even noticed what this was. They had a very very famous match with Shawn Michaels and Triple H might have even been like that hour long match or whatever, but this was the finish where Sean hit the super kick, fell on top of him, but he falls on top of him too far, so his
shoulders are on the mat. They did that exact same thing with Trick, and the referees both count a pin and they clear them both the winner, and then they go to Ava and the show goes off the air. You know, the show goes off the air with classic Ava has to make a decision. I was like, oh my god, I never read spoilers, but I was like, I gotta figure out what decision Ava makes because they
did this. They did this second taping afterwards. I'm like, it's got to be like the dumbest thing ever like I'm giving you both a new belt, or it's like it asked me something stupid. She actually made the right call, which I won't spoil here, but yeah, I thought overall that was a very good show, but we got Michael Kingston coming up, so we got to talk about that. That's coming up after the break Comeserver Live.
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You were listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez and Mike SIMPERVVI on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.
The show Brian Alvarez here Wrestling Observer Live, Mike SIMPERVB also of Wrestling Observer dot Com, Michael Kingson joining us here today.
We got a lot to talk about.
How you doing, uh, doing good? Doing good? Run the final stages of this campaign, So just no sleep till the end.
I'm trying to to tweet this out, but Twitter sucks. It's like not working right now. But I think it finally did go out. If you guys want to go to my Twitter at Brian Alvarez, my ex We've got the link about how you can donate, how you can help support this a Kickstarter. You and Gangrel Gangrel have co written a comic about a promoter who trains Bigfoot to wrestle in Portland in nineteen eighty five, the same as same as family owned promotion from bankruptcy.
Is that correct?
Oh you went underwater? Try that again? Can you confirm that that's correct?
Yeah, that was one hundred percent correct.
Yes, Bigfoot is recruited this this this could almost be a true story if there were like a Bigfoot, you know what I'm.
Saying sort of the time. I mean, there's a lot of you know, I like all the territory stuff, you know. Obviously, while there does my covers, I spend a lot of time talking to him and you know whatever, So there's a lot of there's a lot of It really could be a real story, like it it's grounded against a lot of realities. Obviously the names are changed whatever it's not you know, it's not a word for word retelling.
But there's a lot of the factors that are sort of occurring, you know, in that time period that you know, it's sort of you know, and then Bigfoot is the answer to everyone's problems. But yeah, it's I try to I try to write absurd things, but like keep the keep the stuff authentic and grounded. As much as that sounds weird.
A threat of reality to Bigfoot being recruited basically.
Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean it's basically, uh, you know, it's Portland Wrestling at nineteen eighty five and you know, Gottera means coming in, and you've got drugs coming into to Portland. You've got you know, outlaw companies, everybody's kind of everybody's kind of surrounding the company, and you know,
what's this guy going to do to save himself? And it's, uh, you know, he's gonna he's gonna have Everything's it's a guy in a suit, right, but it's it's it's really Bigfoot, and uh we open it with Bigfoot and rehab, so it.
Rehab.
That's that's how we open it, so give you any kind of an idea of what kind of story this is gonna be.
How did did Bigfoot get in the business through like Terrible Ted the Wrestling Bear, or like did he approach Jesse Barr or Sandy Bar or something like? Is there an origin story in here on how Bigfoot broke into the business.
Yes, the first issue is the origin story of how it all comes to be, and that's uh. And then we will get into, you know, the next couple issues. We'll deal with the you know what happens from there.
Now, did you or did Gang Grell come up with the storyline here or was this a joint effort?
This is a joint effort. Yeah, I uh so, you know, I do tell us from the road and uh we uh. The first time I met Dave when he was next to me at a comic con and I asked him if she wanted to do a story and he's like, he's like yeah, he goes, we just put you know, one word in your one word in your brain's like Bigfoot. And then we spent the whole rest of the show just kind of going back and forth about stuff and
h you know, he is right next to me. So we just shoot ideas back and forth and we had a pretty viable I feel like we had a pretty viable story by the end of the first day. It's just undergone some tweaking and whatnot, but it's uh, you know. So we did like a six page little short story for this as like a you know, years ago, and we had so much fun doing it. We're like, you know, we could make this a whole series. And then in
twenty nineteen, there was an upstart comic book company. They were going to do digital comics with like like sounds and effects and stuff to it, like almost motion comics but not really, and they were going to pay us an absurd amount of money to be part of their launch. It was like all these like top tier comics guys, and then you know, me and Dave doing this wrestling thing because they, you know, unlike a lot of people
in comics, they understood the whole the wrestling crossover. And then they went out of business or the investors all pulled out. The pandemic started, which is insane because that was your moment. You're doing digital comics. People are stuck at home.
But oh, they would have made a bank Oh my god.
People with money are generally some of the dumbest people I know, like with that kind of money. But so yeah, so unfortunately, So then they kind of sat for a little bit, and then you know, we just kept talking about I see David shows all the time and stuff, and he texted whatever. I was like, Yeah, let's just let's just do it ourselves. You know, I feel like it's had a ton of it's had a ton of enthusiasm. You don't want to talk about it to people and stuff.
So we just figured we would give it a shot and see if we could just build it ourselves.
So Gan Grell obviously does a vampire gimmicks I mean, is he is? He big time into the paranormal. I don't think I've ever interviewed the guy he is.
Yes, he's a big I mean big big Foot enthusiasts, big you know, paranormal excellent paranormal guy. So it's funny that I happen to have two books out right now that are co created by guys with vampire gimmings.
So that's right.
I have a Vamperio comic out too.
Yes, now, you know, I obviously do After Dark Radio. We have a paranormal show which is moving to Sports Byline January eighth, everybody, and I learned a long time ago that there is a big cross over here wrestling fans and paranormal fans. I mean, like, I don't even pick the guests. Andrew Lutsky is my producer, and he picks the guests. And I think we've only done like
four or five guests since I relaunched it. But like, of those four or five guests, like at least two of them, we ended up talking about wrestling afterwards because they were like big wrestling guys. I had no idea till it was over. So there seems to be a cross over here.
I mean, that's that's the hope. And I think it would be fun to maybe take a year and do you know, obviously do comic cons almost every weekend. I think it would be interesting to try to pepper in some some big Foot festivals and stuff like that. I feel like it would just be a fun vibe to you know, to just don't know, mix up the mix up the show a little bit.
Well, hey, if you want to do Bigfoot conventions, I mean I'm your man. I mean literally, there's one at least every month in this area up here, and they're like, they're they're pretty, they're shockingly big. Actually, I guess not shockingly because I'm in the Pacific Northwest. But so this this Kickstarter, I mean, is it ending today.
Ends tomorrow at eight pm Eastern time. And we've got a lot of cool stuff. We've got four really cool covers. We have metal versions, like limited edition metal versions, and we've got a shirt and Tumblr drink Tumblr that have a really cool design that but I'm very happy about it static. It's one of the coolest things that we've made.
Yeah, I'm not really like a wrestling T shirt guy. I have like none except ones that we make for the site. But I will say that this this shirt here with the Patterson Gimblin bigfoot dragging a chair and underneath it says hay Fame. That's right up my alley. I would wear that shirt. I would buy multiple actually of that shirt. So that's a good one. That's when you could wear anywhere.
I think, I agree. I agree, I uh, And that's it's like that design is I don't know. I just working on with Doug Hills who does Tails from the Road with me and we're just kicking ournd ideas and then it's just this is one of those things where just sometimes things click and you're just like, oh man, how did I not see this before? But I was happy. I was happy you came up with it.
Michael. For those people who are new to you, who were some of your artistic favorites, and did you grow up with comic books and wrestling magazines or you know, how did you end up getting to this point where things crossed over and merged for you?
I love them both. Right about the same time. The very first Saturday It's Made event was my entree into wrestling. George's Animal Steele was the man who made me stop flipping channels for a minute. And then and I, you know, I just bought comics off the spinner rocks and stuff, and then I got super into it and I realized that nobody ever made good wrestling comics. They just made i don't know, like hacked out license things and stuff
like that. And uh so then I just started I started headlocked comics, and I started selling my books out of my backpack at wrestling shows and just sort of built a grassroots thing and making comics for fifteen years. I'm in the middle of seven projects right now with the ridiculous names, and we just our Vampira series just got just got picked up for television development. The third issues out in stores today, by the way. But it's
one of my it's one of my favorite things. These two series are two of my favorite things that I've written, just because the I don't know, I like a little bit of absurdity, and I've been I've been doing a little more straightly stuff, so this is fun to be able to kind of dabble in some other genres.
Now you got four different covers right here, and you've got the I presume illustrators listed underneath. No Jerry the King Wall or he didn't do a big Foot cover.
Uh No, Unfortunately, h Jerry can't draw anymore.
Oh man, I was gonna ask how he's doing. He can't draw it all.
I mean, not to his standards, you know what I mean, Like he was, it's I think it's hard for him to I think he can draw, but I think he can't draw to the standards that he would consider acceptable. And I think it's just another like it's just a reinforces kind of what he's lost. Yeah, I think he's lost a ton. I mean he's you know, I just
spent a couple of weeks with him in a week. Well, I spent a week with in Memphis and then wearing Galaxy con Columbus a couple of weeks ago, and I mean he's you know, he's still fine, like you know, just he just can't draw like you know, when he was. I mean he was top tier, like one percent, you know, grade egg whatever. And I think it's it's tough to lose that.
So so so if somebody didn't know about what had happened and they ran into him at a convention, I mean would they would they not even think anything? It's like, oh, he's he's doing all right?
Yeah, I mean he's older, you know, it's you know, but I mean, yeah, he's fine. I mean he's sometimes he uh, you know, his words like I think a lot of the you know, stroke survivors or whatever, his words are a little hard to come by sometimes. But I mean that's been improving little by little since since it happened. So yeah, that's just uh. I mean he's a seventy five year old guy too, so well yeah, but I think for for a seventy five year old guy. He's he's going pretty good.
Well, you talked about a lot of the hustle that you had to go through to kind of build what you've been doing, and you've been able to cross over and work with a lot of folks and put out some really great work. I do have some here, you know, from the times you've been on is there anybody that has approached you that you haven't had time to work with that you really would like to do or vice versa. Is there somebody that you have wanted to approach but it's just a matter of timing.
I mean, right now, I am up to my neck in projects, so I haven't really been able to think. I mean, in my my brain doesn't stop thinking. I mean, I already have another sort of idea that I want to develop. But I have a volume five of Headlocks. I have volume four, Tails in the Road, Vampiro's got more issues, and then you know, we got Bigfoot, and I'm working on a I haven't announced it yet, but I'm working on a project with as w W talent, and I'm working on a biocomic too, So I'm running
for my life. Unfortunately, the changes that have happened when social media have made it so much more difficult for me. You know, a lot of Kickstarter is through social media, just getting the word out and stuff like that. And I mean, like we used to get like seventy five to like one hundred and fifty backers through Twitter links, and I think I have eleven right now. Like, I mean, it's just been throttled to death. And you know, Facebook
is tough. I have a friend who's back all of my kickstarters who literally just hurt, you know, and I post about it on Facebook every day too, and he just saw yesterday for the first time, so you know, one day before the end. So I mean everything's been throttled and then fragmented and stuff. So it's really hard to get in front of people like it used to be.
And I don't know, and then WW just being such a monster and everybody's putting out so much content, Like it's tougher for me as a as an independent to just you know, kind of get bannedwidth sometimes.
Sure, we'll stand by a way back in a moment to get a plug. Wrestling Observer Live.
You were listening to Wrestling Observer Live with Brian Alvarez and Mike SIMPERVV on the Sports Byline Broadcasting Network.
Back going the show. Brian Albarez here Wrestling Observer Live. Mike smber VV, also of Wrestling Observer dot com. Michael Kingston joining us Headlocked Comics. We've got a Bigfoot comic that is currently being funded for the next eighteen hours, and Michael, let's get some plugs in about how people can find it and how they can help.
You can go to Kickstarter and just search Friday Night Bigfoot. It'll come up. We are in the last bit of the campaign. We need as much support as possible. We really got high hopes for the series, and a lot of these covers are only going to be available through the campaign. Obviously not the main cover, but the variants and stuff. So you know, I've already had a couple of people sniffing around Hollywood friends and stuff. You know, get in early.
Maybe it'll be worth something that actually that this would be an incredible film. This could be the Harry and the Henderson's of our generation. Remember that movie. That movie was horrible. Yes, this is one would have to be better, but yes, everyone check it out. It's some on my Twitter at Bryan Alvarez and uh and Headlock Comics as well. And you know, even if even if a a comic gets to the goal, I mean, you know, anything above that,
it's still extremely helpful. Right, We're not just trying to hit what the what the goal is and then be done with it.
Oh no, no, I mean I never asked for everything I need. I mean it's but also I mean, anything we make extra just goes right back into the next book. It gets us ahead. You know. It's nobody gets into comics to get rich. I just want to. I just want to make comics and you know, do what I do and have fun. So it's uh yeah, I go pay my artists, pays my printer, you know, pays for the merch and and then we start with the next one.
All right, we're at a time oone it. Thanks so much for doing the show today. Guys can check it out on my Twitter at Brian Alvarez, Headlock Comics as well search Kickstarter and Michael. Thanks so much for doing the show today. Thanks everybody for listening, the other mics always Schollers and listeners every the studio. We'll talk to you next time. Wrestling Observer Live you have been listening to the Wrestling Observer Daily podcast on the eight Side Network.