TLFX Testimonials: Ben

Hi, guys. I don't know if this will ever get released, but
I just wanted to send this in to talk a little bit about sort of
what the Laps Far has meant to me over the years of listening to it.
So the first episode I ever listened to was episode sixty six Some Slam
nineteen ninety nine, and at the time I really hated it. I think
of a lot like a lot of our listeners were. The first time I
tried listening, I really just bounced right off the thing. I remember getting
to the part where you were making fun of Steve Blackman, been talking about
how he was a fake tough guy, and I think for some reason I
got indignant at that, at the thought that, you know, no,
this guy really wasn't tough. He was just sort of a regular wrestler of
this sort of karate gimmick, and I switched it off and again. So
I just really didn't like it. But all these weeks later I tried to
give it another chance. I think what really hooked me was the YouTuber recordings
of your talks with David Meltzer on the WrestleMania Journey, and they kind of
give me that perspective of you know, these guys aren't just yet sort of
make fun of very thing in the crap all over everything, but they're actually
very insightful in variant wrestling, sort of the history of wrestling. And so
I started watching again, and I think what's been very valuable is actually what
turned me off in the first place, which is that mentality, have no
sacred cows, the fact that you are willing to be so brutally honest about
a lot of people and to put a lot of people into the microscope,
guys like the Undertaker, who I would have just fought of his legend,
who I grew up with, who had never really thought critically of, and
really taking guys like him apart and really saying, you know, everybody says
he's his locker room leader and he's the coolest guy in the room, but
let's actually look at him as a wrestler. As a promo, he wasn't
very good, and you sort of look at some of the things he did
later in life with sort of critical eyes and you think, how this guy
really is all that we sort of thought he was. And without you know,
a podcast like The Laps Fan, which can really take a critical look
at those sorts of guys. I think it's very easy for us as wrestling
I was just sort of believe the narratives that companies want to sort of foist
upon us. It's very hard to look at things critically sometimes, especially when
it's all wrap up in nostalgia. So I think that's a really valuable thing
that The Last Fan does as well. What I wanted to just comment upon
is the way in which the podcast is so good at just encapsulating certain people,
certain eras of wrestling so well. So one of the things that I
always like think about what I'm thinking of the cast, and it's such a
little thing, but the discussion about Triple H call himself a diamond in two
thousand and four, in this sort of rant that you went on in one
of your episodes about how it's sitting in the college cafeteria, You're listening to
Triple H talking about he's a diamond and just rolling his eyes and thinking,
you know, this guy, he was a brawler, he was a member
of DX, and now he's walking around and trying to call himself a diamond
with his feathered hair and his white boots on, and just it's such a
little thing that I don't think anyone else would really ever remember or talk about,
but it just so encapsulates that kind of period in why that character was
so eye rolling. Another example I think would be Vincent in the way that
you often make fun of the way that he speaks and the sort of very
tortured ways that he talks about business in What the w dewe Is. I
don't think I've ever heard anybody else sort of narrow into that part of Vince's
character, but I feel like it tells you so much because it illustrates how
that need he has inside of trying to be this like legitimate businessman and trying
to be respected by the wider world, to get in with people from NBC
and stuff like that, And I think that's just so useful. I think
even in stuff like the lamentable tragedy of World Class, the narrowing in on
stuff like Heaven needed a Champion, which I'm not sure if he even did
sort of consciously because yes, it's a very funny song. It's very funny
to make you know, light ov and a play and to sing along with
it because it's so bad. But you know, when you really think about
it, what a sort of the correlements of the tragedy in World Class.
It's the fact that you've got this guy Fritz van Eric, who moves on
so quickly from tragedy, who never seems to take a step back and really
learn anything from what he's doing, who refuses to take accountability, who's trying
to profit off of the deaths and the tragedies that are going on in his
family, and that's pushing his sons into doing something that they don't really want
to do, is putting too many expectations upon them. And then you listen
to the song Heaven Needed a Champion, and on the surface it's very funny,
yes, but when you dig into it and you really think about it,
you know, it's this CD that's coming out in that profiting off of
the death of David von Eric, and it's sung by this, you know,
this fraud, Glenn Goza, who isn't like a legitimate musician or anything
like that, you know, in these selling these selling this song about David
and talking about how, oh how he's a champion, how it's okay that
he died because he needed a champion, when you know, you know,
David probably didn't want that variant horses. This is sort of Fritz's vision for
him being loaded about upon his death, and and so you pick up on
those sorts of things, and on the surface, yeah, it's very very
funny, like you could pick up on Heaven needed a Champion, but also
just summarizes that whole journey, And you know, I think that's just such
an important part of the cast and and the fact that when you're talking about
the Iron Klare movie and how that tries to focus on Kevin whereas it's really
Fritz, his storian and the talk that you guys had about how sort of
almost immediately upon putting to the other your anal tragedy journey, how you realize
how the whole the story was about Frits. And I think that's so you
know, well done, that you guys are always able to pick up on
what's the actual core thread of this story and to really focus and hone in
on that certain individual or that certain moment that just sums up the whole story
that really just illustrates them, and they are able to get to sort of
the cause of these people and really pick them apart. You know. So
a comment I think is so true about your Eric Bischoff impression, about how
you know Eric Bischoff. He he doesn't have like a particularly strong accent or
a particularly unique way of speaking. It would be so hard to come up
with an impression of that guy. You know, he doesn't have any catchphrases
or any sort of go to phrases. But somehow you're able to really like
dig into his Like you can come up with this whole character about him,
and you know about how he's hunting in my owning, and he likes all
these you know, lavish foods and going on all these high restaurants and all
that sort of stuff, and just over and over again, you're able to
surprise me by really digging at these people and really finding out those kind of
layers hidden underneath the surface. I think got so easily missed. And so
I really want to thank the guys because you know, I've listened to ever
since episode sixty six, so I've listened for years now, and it's always
such good content. It's always so funny. Every time I think, oh,
this is sort of the best episode I've ever listened to, you know,
something else comes along, something else around the corner. So I just
want to hank you guys for the work and all the effort that you've put
in over the years.