PWTorch Livecast Wednesday – Mickie James Interview w/Pat McNeill (Nov. 11, 2015)

Wednesday PWTorch Livecast
Host: Pat McNeill
Special Guest: Former WWE Diva & TNA Knockout Mickie James
Aired Live: November 11, 2015

DIRECT LINK TO LISTEN/DOWNLOAD

Recap by Dominic DeAngelo

HOT TOPICS IN THE SHOW

– Mickie James Current ongoings
– Her Thoughts On Today’s Women’s Wrestling
– Current Events Discussion

SUBJECTS COVERED

(1:53) Pat McNeill introduction
(4:15) Breaking Ground
(7:00) Seth Rollins injury a work?
(10:15) Asuka vs. Bayley?
(14:25) PWG Lineups are in
(15:20) Could PWG get a network?
(17:00) Mickie James introduction
(18:15) Mickie’s current wrestling schedule
(21:10) Mickie wrestling for TNA anymore?
(23:10) Did TNA try to convince Mickie to join James Storm’s faction?
(24:35) Has Mickie ever written a song about Magnus?
(26:40) Craziest Divas or Knockout story?
(29:20) Who is more of a gentleman, John Cena or Kenny Dykstra?
(30:10) Total Divas
(34:45) Global Force Wrestling
(35:00) How would Mickie improve the Divas division in WWE/TNA?
(39:15) How would Mickie feel if her son wanted to become a wrestler?
(41:50) Who’s Mickie’s top women wrestlers currently?
(44:50) Cross promotion wrestling
(48:00) Mickie’s Tweet a few days ago
(51:10) When’s the next Mickie James album?

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

– After watching the third episode of Breaking Ground, Pat thinks that it is still a good show, but not “ground breaking.” He imagines a lot of the focus of the upcoming episodes will be on Tough Enough’s ZZ due to his lack of work ethic. Pat speculates that this is one of the reasons WWE signed him. Mentions Tough Enough’s Josh’s promo skills are improving, but still chock full of cliches.

– Skype caller (Brad from Chattanooga) buzzes in and says he thinks the Seth Rollins injury is a work. He thinks Rollins will interfere in the tournament final at Survivor Series. Pat does the kick drum sound effect and says the only problem is there was an actual crowd in Ireland. Something definitely happened to his leg. Caller says surgery pictures looked fake.

– Boris likes and Asuka thinks she should beat Bayley at some point and feuds with Sasha, which then turns SASHA face and Asuka the heel. Pat says the problem with WWE turning someone face is that they lose their cool factor. If they keep her character then he’s all for it.

– Boris was disappointed by Raw – says it feels like the same show. Pat would have liked to see James Storm in the tournament, but apparently WWE thinks Tyler Breeze is enough. They way they structured show was poor for ratings.

– PWG Line-ups are in: Dec. 11 is Gargano & Ciampa vs. The Young Bucks for the Tag Titles, Matt Sydal vs. Roderick Strong for the PWG Championship. Dec. 12 is Gargano & Ciampia vs. Michael Elgin & Brian Cage and Guerrilla Warfare Match: Chris Hero, Mike Bailey, and Joey Ryan & Candace LeRae vs. Roderick Strong, Super Dragon, and The Young Bucks.

– Boris asks what would it take for PWG to join other independents forming their own network? You could give it a Roku channel, but distribution is flattening out. More people are apt to check it out on YouTube or via other free streaming means.

– Mickie James joins the show 17 minutes in.

– What’s Mickie’s wrestling schedule like? She’s wrestling almost every weekend and thinks she’s booked up until the end of November. Pat plugs her Maryland Championship Wrestling show this Thursday where she defends the MCW Women’s Title against Kimber Lee. Mickie’s excited to wrestle her. She’s also on the weekend show in Joppa, Md., where she takes on Amber Rodriguez.

– Will she be wrestling for TNA again? As of now, she doesn’t think so, but things can change. Things like WWE and TNA are out of her hands. She’s enjoying working for Global Force Wrestling.

– Did TNA try to convince Mickie to join James Storm’s faction? She doesn’t think so – it would have been cool to tease it, but then she swerves babyface. Pat thinks the “evil woman betrayal” is pretty overplayed right now.

– Mickie wrote a song to Magnus for a Valentine’s Day once. She enjoys writing songs and it is a good outlet for it. She’s gotten to work with many talented people in the music industry and Pat makes note that what she is doing is legitimate stuff. She doesn’t think she could write a whole album by herself, which prompts Pat to mention she wrote three of her songs on her last album.

– Asked if she can think of any crazy Diva stories, Mickie can’t think of any. Pat mentions the hardcore matches backstage in WWE, and Mickie enjoyed doing them. How much input does she get in a match like that? Mickie says she got a lot of input, as Fit Finlay was a big help for that, too. It was neat how the match with Melina was laid out.

– Someone in the chat room has a smart-ass question about Cena and Kenny Dysktra which Mickie doesn’t have time for. Pat re-frames it by asking her about Total Divas. She says although the show adds a unique element to the girls, they come across as so bitchy, which doesn’t help when they’re wrestling on Raw or Smackdown. Also the fact that the show (along with Facebook & Twitter) is over exposure. Mickie remembers watching wrestling when she was younger and you pictured the wrestlers as superheroes – not so much anymore. Fans have so much more access to you now. Pat says he has a hard time imaging any of the older women wrestlers like Sherri doing Total Divas.

– Mickie says GFW production style is extremely unique. It isn’t something like WWE, but it looks really good. Kevin Sullivan did a great job with the video packages. It’s just a matter of finding the right spot for them. With all of these upstart companies, she’s hoping for more healthy competition in wrestling.

– Mickie brings up NXT’s women’s wrestling popularity. Pat says a launching pad for it’s popularity was the great women’s wrestling in TNA a few years back and Mickie agrees.

– How would Mickie improve WWE’s Divas division? She would keep the focus on the championship rather than side storylines (like Lana and Summer Rae). They should be very serious about the title. Pat says the trend is moving more towards the title. Mickie says 30 seconds on a microphone can be more beneficial than a five-minute match.

– How would she differentiate the Knockouts division from the Divas division? She always thought the Knockouts division has overall been pretty solid, but she would have kept the Tag Titles around.

– Pat brings up the World Series Title Tournament and how he’s not crazy about the women wrestling men because of the “men on women violence” it depicts. Mickie says that makes sense.

– How would Mickie feel if her son wanted to become a wrestler? If that’s what he wanted to do, she’d certainly let him, but she’d want him to go and get an education first. She’d make sure he’d have the proper training and get his feet wet.

– Who’s Mickie’s top women wrestlers currently? Mickie loves Paige and Sasha in the WWE. She also loves Bayley. As far as TNA goes, Madison Rayne. She wrestled Cherry Bomb in New York and she really likes her, as well as Athena, who she wrestled in Texas. Athena is so talented and she will be on NXT next week. Things are so different now in the indys because there are so many great women wrestlers.

– Boris wishes there was a way for women wrestlers to wrestle in several promotions. Mickie says she could still do that. She’d love to wrestle in Japan.

– Pat brings up a tweet Mickie James made a few days ago about someone not wanting to wrestle her. She didn’t want to say who to put that person under fire.

– Musically, Mickie wants to a get a single or two out by next year hopefully. Any other projects for Mickie? She does a radio show for the veterans called “Project Lips” that benefits the military. She’s reconstructing her website, but that’s about it.

– Follow Mickie James on Twitter @MickieJames and Instagram @themickiejames, visit her website at MickieJames.com. Next week is Jim Valley!

OVERALL SCORE

Technical problems bogged down the episode, which is a shame since Pat has been on quite hot streak. Lots of jump cuts and dropped calls really disrupted the show’s flow. Mickie wasn’t able to join until about the 17-minute mark in so the first third of the show Pat fielded calls and the results were, well, not too good. Someone actually thought (or pretended to think) the Rollins injury was a work, which I’m sure caused a lot of listeners heads to shake (mine sure did). While I’m a Boris from Chicago fan, the content he comes in with sometimes is either so left field or so unstructured that it’s hard to keep engaged.

Pat’s conversation with Mickie was fine (who was nice with callers) and she certainly has a lot of irons in the fire, but nothing extremely newsworthy to note. She had a tough time elaborating on questions which would halt conversation from time to time and Pat did a good job with keeping the ball in the air, but honestly it was really just an off show for everyone. If you’re a Mickie James fan and just want to hear what she’s been up to, give this episode a go, otherwise it shouldn’t be a podcast priority for you this week.

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