The Wrestling Podcast, Episode 8: Josh "PUNTE" Zerkle

Episode 8: Yankem Hotel Foxtrot

PUNTE IS GOJIRA
Photo Credit: @PUNTE

Episode 8 welcomes Josh "PUNTE" Zerkle onto the show. Josh was the man who got me started in podcasting by having me on his House of PUNTE show, and he has presence on the web at Kissing Suzy Kolber and With Leather. We talk about blogging, free speech, Ryan Dunn, football and of course, wrestling, mainly through the eyes of a casual fan. Wrestling topics include why Bret Hart, the differences between then and now and why Randy Orton is boring and terrible.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

Your Midweek Links: B-Stroud, Blogging Bro-se Cansec-bro and BUY THE QUARTERLY

Brandon Stroud, who totally didn't pay me to feature him this week
Photo Credit: Destiny D. Talley

It's hump day, so here are some links to get you through the rest of the week:

Self-Shilling:

- The Wrestling Podcast! Brandon Stroud talks about Robert Evans, Akira Tozawa and how awesome a dude Matt Ufford is, all while pretending to be Mitch from PizzaBodySlam. [Episode 7: In the Aeroplane over the CIMA]

- In which I wax poetically about a Christian vs. Sheamus Smackdown main event at Fair to Flair. [Your Match of the Week, 6/12-6/18]

- Fair to Flair Quarterly: You missed the presale, but don't worry, you can still get it on the cheap. Go with the digital copy, like I've been telling you since we started hawking this. It's cheaper, it's greener and doggone it, people will like you. [Fair to Flair Quarterly Spring 2011: On Sale Now]

Wrestling Links:

- Speaking of Mitch, here's his review of RAW this past Monday. It's a hoot! [Fair to Flair]

- Speaking of the guy who pretended to be Mitch on the podcast, here's a double shot of Brandon Stroud Best and Worst ofs, for Capitol Punishment and RAW. [With Leather]

- Lagana gets the FJM treatment from Wrestling Theory [Wrestling Theory]

- Razor scores a huge interview with Jeff Katz, the purveyor of Wrestling Revolution. [Kick-Out Blog]

- WWE bans fake weed. That sucks for anyone who wants to put oregano on their pizza backstage. [Cageside Seats]

- 10 Questions with Icarus. Next week, John Hyperion will interview his terrible back tattoo. [Dirty Dirty Sheets]

- Ric Flair wants a Coke, dammit! [PizzaBodySlam]

- What did Paul Heyman want to do with TNA? [Camel Clutch Blog]

- A review of the WWE's Hart and Soul DVD [The Harrison Analysis]

- Five good things about Capitol Punishment. [Grapple Kingdom]

- Good ol' JR on CM Punk and other things. [JR's BBQ Sauce Blog]

- Jillian Hall returns to the ring. [Diva Dirt]

- United Airlines vs. Sonjay Dutt [I Want Wrestling]

- Footage of Averno's unmasking [Luchablog]

- An interview with Christian. [South Atlanta Wrestling]

- Top 10 most racist/xenophobic moments in wrestling, featuring Booker T getting Sambo'd [MTV Clutch]

- Wrestlespective Radio with guest Joey Image [Wrestlespective]

Jamie Dobson Interviews:

- Don Rosario Caruso

- Referee Jay Stone

Non-Wrestling Links:

- A letter from Little Timmy to Roger Goodell. Not to be confused with Little Jimmy, or else R-Truth would be involved. Also, I reference this on the next TWP with guest Josh Zerkle, who wrote this. Read it, because PUNTE does good work. [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

- How the Boston Bruins ran up a $150K bar tab. I ain't even mad, they earned it. [Puck Daddy]

- Taglines for romantic comedies that'll never exist. My favorite? "This spring, Adrian Grenier falls down a flight of stairs." [The Hairpin]

- Deep-fried Kool Aid. Somewhere in Canada, a bearded man drinking Jack Daniels just did a spit take. [Buzz Feed]

- Speaking of which, the laziest, but still an awesome, edition of the show Jamie Oliver doesn't want you to watch. [Epic Meal Time]

- Spencer Hall gives tribute to Ryan Dunn. [SB Nation]

- Justin Henry also writes about Dunn, but it's more a cautionary tale than a tribute. [Camel Clutch Blog]

- If talk radio callers took to the streets... [Sports Pickle]

- Rolling Stone's top 100 songs of the '00s. Sure to inspire FFFFFFUUUUUUs from people who are foolish enough to take any list RS does seriously. [Rolling Stone]

- Skype, making phone sex better... or worse? Not sure what to think about this one. [Deadspin]

- Game of Thrones season 1 finale recap! [Unreality Mag]

- A bionic dog? A bionic dog. [Gamma Squad]

- Interesting idea for Flashpoint [Comic Books and Whatever]

- A trailer for the new Muppet movie. [Blast-o-Rama]

- A fine rant about Ilya Bryzgalov, re: Flyers fans [Flyers Goal Scored By]

- George O'Leary might be in some trouble over his response to a UCF player dying on the practice field. [Dr. Saturday]

- Advanced sabermetrics for rock 'n roll? I don't know whether to revel or be aghast. Well, I'm aghast if only because Klosterman gave the Rolling fucking Stones a 0.989. THEY SUCK. [Grantland]

- Dennis Rodman hates LeBron James almost as much as he likes wearing women's clothing. In a related note, no, B-Stroud didn't pay me at all to feature him four times this week. Why did you ask? [With Leather]

- The primary difference between mayo and Miracle Whip. [The Oatmeal]

- Who knew ancient artists were pervs? [Cracked]

- Better to be pissed off than to be pissed on [The Daily What]

- How to remember the ACC divisions mnemonically [Every Day Should Be Saturday]

- Len Bias, 25 Years Gone [Dan Shanoff]

- Amare Stoudemire talks trash to a retiree. [Hugging Harold Reynolds]

- Jimmy Rollins looks to break a world record in something other than having the most swagger. [The 700 Level]

- No Shatner in Star Trek 2. *sad* [Film Drunk]

- Bit LOST actor marries a country music star 35 years his junior. He's 51. Yeah, and if this girl is 16, then I'm Idris Elba. [Warming Glow]

- So true. [Skull Swap]

- A look at "traditional" marriage over the years. [GraphJam]

- Who knew the ICP didn't have a sense of humor? [Uproxx]

- Roy Halladay's epic St. Louis workout [I Want to Go to the Zoo with Roy Halladay]

- "That's funny, I didn't think nerds were capable of relationships." - some jock [Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal]

- Swine flu dirty bomb Russian insurgents Paris Hilton's vagina. [The Onion]

- The Japanese interview the Phillie Phanatic. Yep. [The Fightins]

- The long awaited new "Weird" Al Yankovic video for "Perform This Way". As a side note, "Weird" Al in drag looks an awful lot like Jane Krakowski [Topless Robot]

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!

Bad Timing: Why I'm Disappointed That Alex Riley Dodged a DUI

I like A-Ry; that's why I wanted the book thrown at him, for his own good
Photo Credit: WWE.com

At 3 AM, Eastern Daylight Time, Ryan Dunn of Jackass fame died in a car accident. He had left the bar after drinking and was driving on US 322 north of West Chester, PA, where he was reputedly texting while driving shortly before he lost control of his vehicle.

What does this have to do with wrestling? Well, nothing topically, except for a court case being thrown out this weekend involving a wrestler. Last year, Alex Riley, then just a second to The Miz and right now the hottest babyface act in the company, got pulled over for a DUI in Hillsborough County, FL. Well, this past weekend, he got that DUI conviction thrown out, mainly because the arresting officers didn't have probable cause to pull him over. That's funny, because I never knew they needed probable cause to pull someone over for DUI. I mean, if that's the case, then how do they get away with sobriety checkpoints? Can anyone check the legality on that for me?

Anyway, I'm all for civil liberties, and yeah, I don't think cops should be pulling people over willy-nilly. That's police-state shit right there. However, there's a part of me that wishes that Riley's lawyers didn't find that loophole in the law that allowed the case to get thrown out. I feel like the stance on drunk driving in this country, while better than it was even 20 years ago, is still way too lax for my liking. Too many people, innocent or otherwise, lose their lives, limbs, movement or what have you, because they don't know how to drink responsibly. Riley, even as a WWE n00b, probably makes enough money to the point where he could have called a cab. Dunn probably made enough money from his Jackass work where he could have a personal DD pick him up and drop him off at whatever bars he wanted to go to. People know the dangers of impaired driving, and yet they willingly ignore those dangers in the name of convenience. Meanwhile, the legal penalties for killing someone while drunk in a car remain unbelievably lax, so there's no real deterrence factor. Oh, wow, you get your license revoked for a year or so. Big whoop.

So the cycle continues, and now, another person gets stupid and pays with his life, taking a passenger with him. This isn't to minimize Dunn's life or his death. I'm not saying you shouldn't feel bad for his family and friends or be bummed because you were a fan of his and didn't want to see him die this young. I just want people to realize the inherent stupidity here; they're not mutually exclusive feelings. The fact that he didn't kill anyone outside his own vehicle is irrelevant. He could have, and at that point, we'd be talking about truly innocent victims being killed by negligence. To me, that's unacceptable.

Which is why I feel disappointed that Riley was able to find that loophole to get his DUI thrown out. I'm not he, so I can't say whether or not he learned a lesson here. At the same time, I have to think that him skating on this charge makes him less likely to take in the gravity of what could have happened if an obstacle came up that he was slow to react to on his way home. He drove impaired and skated on charges. How does that teach anything? My only hope is that maybe he got news of how Dunn died (and let's face it, the fact that he was drunk and reputedly was on the phone is a double-whammy, but even if he wasn't on the phone? It's still terrible) and realized that wow, maybe he got away with one when his case got thrown out. Regardless, the last thing I want to see is Riley hurt himself or an innocent bystander because he was stupid enough to get behind the wheel of a car after drinking one too many.

Remember you can contact TH and ask him questions about wrestling, life or anything else. Please refer to this post for contact information. He always takes questions!