Interview with Mike Quackenbush on Chikara Pro Wrestling

Hi, this is Mike Quackenbush, director of fun

at Chikara, and you're listening to Mayhem Mike.

Ladies and gentlemen, entering the podcast ring

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Guys. First, representing this week in geek and

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Federation. This is Mayhem Mics. And now... Let's

get ready to podcast! Hello and welcome to Mayhem

Mike's on the Geekcast Radio Network and This

Week in Geek. I am Mike TFG1 Blanchard and this

is our first interview on the Mayhem Mike's podcast.

For those of you who don't know, for those of

you who do know, this is the GCRN Twig. I've

stuck with WWE because that's what I know. We

review the WWE pay -per -views. We talk about

Raw and SmackDown and all that stuff. But this

is our first interview. And I have with me Mike

Quackenbush from Chikara Pro. Hello, sir. How

are you, Mike? I'm doing fine, Mike. Thank God

the third Mike isn't here because then it would

be really confusing. It's probably best as a

dialogue. Yeah. Ain't that the truth. So we are

here. Jason, oh, what's his, I'm sorry, Jason.

What is his last name? Jason set this up. I'm

not even sure how he found out about us. Because

he sent an email to the GCRN servers. Anyway,

he asked us if we could check out Chikara. And

I was like, yeah, sure. Hey, you know, whatever's

going to work. and I checked out some of your

old stuff, and it looks really, really awesome.

One of the things that he said in his original

email was that you guys take wrestling and give

it a comic book kind of flair. Can you kind of

talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I think he

really hit the nail on the head with that. Because

I grew up as a lover of comic books, a collector

of comics, and just an aficionado of superhero

culture at large, if there was a cartoon about

it, if there was a live -action series about

it, I had to watch it. The magazines that were

about it, I had to buy them. Even the stuff that

predates Wizard, like if you remember Comics

Interview or Comic Scene, I was just ensconced

in all of that. And so that affects everything

that I kind of help. create. It's inherent in

all forms of my creative expression, and one

of those is Chikara. So the pro wrestling that

I like to make is most like a comic book. The

themes where these things intersect one another

are most obvious, and I'm sure I don't have to

preach that to you based just on the fact that

your avatar has you in a Nightwing t -shirt.

I'm sure that you understand that, right? Good

versus evil, people wearing crazy colorful costumes,

superhuman feats of strength and agility, these

kind of... Right, right. Okay, so you guys started

Chikara around 2002, right? That's right, yeah.

We're just about 15 years old now. In that time,

did you ever realize that it would be what it

is today? Not in the first year or two. The first

year or two were really just about paying the

bills and keeping our head above water, but it

eventually had to morph into that. I think it

was inevitable. If I had the opportunity to make

professional wrestling, it would be as akin to

a comic book as it could possibly be. Because

those elements are what made me a wrestling fan

in the first place. I became a fan in the early

90s as Hulkamania was kind of on its way out

and they were starting this new thing of theirs

called the New Generation. There were a number

of characters in that time period that were very,

very comic book -y. That's where Papa Shango

comes from and Max Moon, the Repo Man, Skinner,

the Alligator Man, etc., etc. Those characters

really captured my imagination. And once I saw

some of the Japanese characters like... jushin

thunder liger whose costume oftentimes when people

see it for the first time they say it's like

a live action power ranger they're observing

when i saw all those points of intersection i

thought oh man this is this is what i want to

do this is what i want to make right as you were

growing up in that era what was your who was

your favorite wrestler at the time Well, the

first character that I think really got me to

watch was Jake the Snake Roberts because of the

way that he spoke. He had such a quiet magnetism

to him. But I was really inspired by the High

Flyers, especially the 123 Kid, the late great

Owen Hart, and the aforementioned Jushin Liger.

As you've gone on and you've created your own

brand, how much of other pro wrestling do you

pay? I mean, I know you guys have to pay attention

to a lot of stuff, but... How much of it do you

actually pay attention to, whether it's in -ring

or behind the scenes? The behind -the -scenes

stuff really doesn't interest me. I think we

all go through a phase where we have a taste

for that sort of thing, and then you just kind

of mature a bit and you grow out of it. It's

not especially relevant. The in -ring stuff,

I like to pay attention, especially when I know

my friends are involved. For example, probably

the most famous trainee to come out of our WrestleFactory

now wrestles as Cesaro for the WWE. So when I

know he's going to be in something on television

or pay -per -view, I'm supremely interested to

watch. Earlier this year, for example, I had

a week where I was brought down to the WWE's

Performance Center in Orlando, Florida, and I

got to coach the NXT guys and girls. I got to

do some consulting for them. So when something

exciting involving one of these people that I

got to help coach should pop up, of course I'm

intrigued to watch. I really want to see them

do well, and I want to see them excel. All that's

very exciting for me. But outside of that type

of stuff, man, sometimes it can just be... hard

to make time to watch. There's so much other

great media. And I think part of your job as

a creator, whether you write comic books, whether

you write professional wrestling or whatever

it is, you've got to be out there. You've got

to go and see what movies are current. You need

to watch the kind of pop culture that people

are excited about right now to always kind of

have a sense of what the landscape is. And that

means as much watching an HBO series as it does

watching SmackDown. I will agree and disagree

because I'm sorry. I'm not paying for HBO. If

HBO had to deal with Hulu, which I already pay

for, sure, great. But no, I'm not paying extra

for HBO. Everybody's like, oh, Game of Thrones,

Game of Thrones. The only thing I know about

Game of Thrones is Sesame Street's spoof Game

of Chairs. It's just how I am, I guess. All right.

When you were younger, before you obviously created

Chikara, I believe it was you and a few other

guys that created Chikara, correct? Right. My

old business partner and traveling mate, Reckless

Youth, Tom Carter, and I started the company.

And then about eight months in or so, he resigned

from the organization. Right. So before this

happened... When you were younger or when this

was just about to happen, can you pinpoint the

exact thing, the exact moment where you were

like, I want to create my own thing? Yeah, absolutely.

We had spent a number of years, Reckless Youth

and I, traveling the independence from coast

to coast in the United States, and we became

the malcontents of the independence. We would

complain about, we could do this better. Right.

We would go to these locker rooms or these other

organizations and we were just convinced we could

do it better. We could we could promote this

better. We could book it better. We could run

it better. We could organize it better. We had

all these brilliant ideas. And eventually we

got to a point, I think, where we had just annoyed

everybody else. And we reached our put up or

shut up moment. You know, if you've got so many

great ideas, it's really easy. And more so now

in the age of, you know, the ubiquity of the

Internet. to just complain and complain and complain

about everything that you don't like. I think

our decision was, you know what, we can continue

down this path, and although this term wasn't

popularized at the time, we would have ultimately

just turned into trolls. Instead, we decided

to channel what we had into making something

new. Why don't we create something that is our

statement for how we think things should be,

rather than complaining in a car to our two buddies

who are beyond sick of hearing us complain, or

going home to our significant others and complaining

to them about, oh, we could do it better, blah,

blah, blah. We had our put up or shut up moment,

and that came... in the summer of 2001. About

six months later, we opened our doors at Chikara.

Right. What was the, for those that don't know,

for those that weren't paying attention back

then, for my listeners that may not know too

much about Chikara, what was some of the first

storylines, some of the first, I don't want to

say celebrities, some of the first pro wrestlers

that you guys had going at that time? Well, because

we were sort of waiting for our first class of

graduates to be ready to perform, we had to fill

a lot of the slots that we had on our early cards

with friends of ours. So we would ask a carload

of our buddies from the Midwest to come in and

we'd get a carload from Chicago, or we'd ask

a couple of our friends from Pittsburgh to drive

in and they would fill in these vacancies on

the card while our first graduating class of

students were getting ready. But as I mentioned,

like, man, in those early years, it was a lot

of... throwing everything against the wall and

seeing what would stick. There was no formula.

It was really about how are we going to pay the

phone bill in six days? Or what are we going

to do to prevent the electricity from being cut

off? There wasn't a lot of master plans. And

a lot of the things we became famous for later,

you know, really intricate storytelling, even

some of our virtual or I should say some of our

viral marketing or our ARG type stuff. That doesn't

start to happen for years. We really had to get

comfortable and understand it's totally OK. us

to break all the rules before we could go and

do it so what was the point where you actually

went and broke all the rules i think we just

kind of decided that we can tell one continuous

story and for us that story begins in the early

part of 2005 with a giant tournament we staged

called the tag world grand prix since that moment

we've told one continuous story and that story

always honors its preexisting continuity. I feel

like... WWE, oftentimes their television product

insults you if you have a good memory. And as

a comic book fan, I'm taught to have a good memory,

right? If I've missed a plot point when I used

to read comics, there'd be a footnote and the

editor would leave, you know, an annotation there.

Did you miss this? Well, you need to read Marvel

Team Up number 124 to know what's going on. You

needed to know the whole story. And I think it's

really, really important to maintain that continuity

for the people that go on the long journey with

you. I'm not a fan of soft. reboots. I'm not

a fan of hard reboots. Don't give me that new

52. Don't give me that all new, all different.

I don't buy it. One continuous story, one narrative

that I can follow from start to finish, that's

what my comic book loving heart craves. And with

Chikara, that begins in February 2005. So you

don't want to go down the rebirth canal? Well...

You know, I did give it a try, and I read what

was the most paint -by -numbers Justice League

of America I've ever read. I could have written

it half -asleep, that new Justice League number

one. I did like the first of the Batman books.

And, you know, their Rebirth special, which hopefully

this isn't spoiling anything for your audience,

which seemed to flirt with the idea that they're

going to drag Watchmen's continuity into the

main DC universe. You know, it just barely managed

to get me interested. So I've grown really tired

of that, the constant reboots and how much of

the continuity is being disregarded. And, you

know, these characters that you grew up and loved

and were taught don't really age in the books,

you know, all of a sudden have aged out of their

jobs. And we need constantly younger, more diverse

casts and everything else. Like to me, I don't

know, it smacks of a certain laziness. And I

realize that the priorities of Warner Brothers

and Marvel Entertainment have changed over the

years. These are now movie studios who also just

happen to make comic books. But that sort of

attitude isn't what made me a comic book fan

for the last 30 -plus years. Yeah. Yeah, I mean,

between the Warner Brothers and the Warner Sister

and the mouse that runs the house now, it's all

marketing. For me, I've... As you mentioned with

the giant Nightwing logo on my Avatar's t -shirt,

I am a huge Dick Grayson Nightwing fan. I have

been since Batman the Animated Series. Since

he was Robin and then became Nightwing and everything

else. So when Forever Evil came around and they

killed him... I essentially killed DC. I dropped

everything except for their He -Man title, because

that was the only company doing He -Man, because

they had the license. And then they tried to

make him the Nick Fury of the DC universe, and

I'm just like, no, no, Dick Grayson does not

need to be a spy. So I'm hoping, I have yet to

check the new Nightwing series, but I'm hoping

they kind of brought it back to what it should

be. Growing up, reading all these comics, doing

all this superhero stuff, how does that translate

to what Chikara is now? It's a direct reflection.

I'm a guy that grew up on Louise Simonson's X

Factor, and I read the Justice League International.

In a really strange point of intersection, one

of the people now on our crew that works very

closely on all of our projects is former DC editor

Ruben Diaz, who was the editor on Grant Morrison's

defining JLA run. So there's tons of points of

intersection, especially with the superhero community.

And you even see it played out. Some of our most

famous DVD covers are direct homages to my very

favorite comic book covers. There's constant

illusions back and forth as if it were one gigantic

shared universe where all these ideas and concepts

from comic books are not just valid, but honored.

Yeah, absolutely. So someone coming into Chikara

now, like if you guys send someone to your website

or to your YouTube channel or wherever, what

would you suggest they start with watching first?

I know you said that the story is one continuous

story, but I'm the type of person that I have

to start from the beginning on anything. So as

someone who might be a WWE fan that wants something

fresh and new and different and looking towards

Chikara, where would you suggest I start? Well,

I do think our YouTube channel is a great place

to start. We post up a free match every Monday

on our social media, on our YouTube channel.

At the top of the summer, we had produced a five

-part... previously at Chikara as a nice new

entry point for a bunch of people who were just

kind of joining on with us around the time of

our most recent UK tour. We're constantly looking

for ways to try and make it easier for people

to jump in because, not unlike Doctor Who, we

often hear from fans who say they're daunted

by our continuity. They would say, and justifiably,

I'm not going to go back to the Tag World Grand

Prix 2005 and watch it forward. But we do break

Chikara up into seasons. You could watch just...

season 15 and be completely fine. It will tell

you a complete story from the season premiere

to the season finale. You'll get one entire story

there. And there's other fun ways that you can

kind of dip your toe into the pool, right? You

could check out one of our graphic novels. We

sell them on ChikaraPro .com. You could get a

free week of streaming from our Netflix -like

service. It's called Chikaratopia .com. You could

spend that week. You could watch a couple from

this season, watch a couple from that season,

see if something grabs you, what characters really

jump off the screen. engage you. Any of those

are fine entry points into our universe. And

it's a very welcoming community. One thing I

do love about the Chikarmi, as we call them,

is they don't really kind of like wield status

within themselves, you know. I often used to

feel that when I would sometimes go to conventions.

I was very much the guy that would look through

quarter bins trying to fill in the gaps in like

my Jack Kirby Black Panther run. And I never

liked the status that I used to see at conventions.

Like, oh, I know a certain amount of information

or I have a certain level of It can be a little

closed, and it can be a little, um... pitchfork

and torchy right which is crazy right like uh

did you grow up as a wrestling fan or did it

find you later in life i know i well it i'm trying

to remember all as i remember is my dad taking

me to at least one or two Hulk Hogan Roddy Piper

matches so I don't remember which ones they were

I know it had to have been late 80s 87 to 89

somewhere around there it might have been earlier

it might have been 86 because I think yeah it

was probably 86 or 87 when I was 6 or 7 years

old because he had moved down here to Kentucky

I'm in Kentucky now I'm originally from Massachusetts

he had moved here to Kentucky after he remarried

in 87 so but I remember going to A few WWF events.

For those that don't know or might be listening

for the first time, WWE used to be WWF. So I

remember seeing Hulk Hogan versus Roddy Piper.

And I remember seeing, I think, Andre the Giant

once. And I remember seeing Junkyard Dog once.

And I would always watch. I don't remember what

half of it was, because really, as a kid, the

only person I really cared about or was interested

in was Mean Gene. I loved his interview style.

Yeah, so I found it when I was a kid. And then

other interests took over. I didn't pick it back

up again until about probably 1998 to 2001. So

somewhere around the Lita, Hardy Boys, that era

of WWE. And then I stopped from 2001 or 2003.

I picked it back up. No, 2001, 2007. Because

2007 was WrestleMania 23. And I picked it up

at WrestleMania 23 and I haven't stopped watching.

I've watched most of the stuff. I'm pretty much

the person that likes the polished product. I

know that probably sounds bad, but... I like

watching Raw and SmackDown and all that. I generally

prefer Raw over SmackDown, at least from 2007

to most recently, because let's face it, SmackDown

has always been second -rate joke show, especially

the Vickie Guerrero years. So yeah, I had it

when I was a kid, but I lost it for a while.

Yeah, I think... For a lot of people to discover

it young and stick with it, what they tend to

discover is that there's a certain stigma associated

with being a wrestling fan. Even during the years

where I ate, slept, and breathed pro wrestling

from a fan's point of view, while you would often

see me walking out and about in an X -Men or

Ghost Rider t -shirt, you would have never seen

me out and about wearing a WWF t -shirt. And

to find that... You know, now in the age of the

Internet, right, every niche subculture has its

community. What's great about experiencing pro

wrestling live is that sense of community, being

in a room full of people that love the same weird

thing that you do. And that's even, you know,

further funneled down when you talk about the

exact subculture of Chikara, because here is

where the Venn diagram between superhero culture

and professional wrestling encompasses the biggest

possible audience. of shared interests that we

see within our audience and I think that's why

the bonds of community that they form there are

as strong as they are we know we are a strange

flavor of professional wrestling right WWE is

the most popular flavor in the world they are

vanilla they're the best -selling ice cream flavor

in the world But if you go down the row at Baskin

-Robbins toward the end of the cooler, there

are some strange colors down there. There are

some weirder flavors. And we are way down at

the bottom. We're that weird rainbow ice cream

that you're not sure that you're going to like.

And believe me, we know we are not for everybody.

But it's also kind of like this. Some people,

they want to go and see giant arena bands, right?

They might only ever go and see U2 in concert

when they come around playing to crowds of 50

,000 to 100 ,000 people. But there are people

out there. that have a real appreciation for

that outstanding little act that plays down the

street at a local bar every once and again. Our

experience is going to be more like watching

Eric Clapton unplugged than it is going to be

seeing, you know, Journey rocking it out in the

middle of 85 in front of a sold -out Madison

Square Garden. And there are some people for

whom, you know, this type of experience is how

they want to experience pro wrestling, where

the wrestlers diving out of the ring literally

land in your lap. And for some, like you said,

right, the polish, nobody can touch the production

values of the WWE. Nobody has television stars

the way the WWE does. John Stewart from The Daily

Show, you're certainly not going to see him down

at the local VFW hall doing something. That's

where he belongs, honestly, but that's my personal

opinion. What we make, you know, it's a very

unique flavor of wrestling. We do realize it

may not be for everybody, and we're totally okay

with that. So tell us about some of the stars

you currently have, like some of the storylines

that are currently going on. Well, some of the

characters that we have... First and foremost,

the one that jumps to mind immediately is Princess

Kimberly, the princess who saves herself and

was most recently the grand champion of Chikara.

She made history for being the first woman to

hold the main championship in a male -dominated

organization. That's possible because at Chikara,

we've abolished all division by gender, species,

or weight class. It's equal rights and equal

fights, and it's been that way for 13 years at

Chikara. And back at our season 15 finale, Princess...

Kimberly captured the grand championship from

Hollow Wicked. Hollow Wicked and his followers

are all under the influence of a supernatural

being called Nazmal Dune, represent very dark,

black arts type characters, especially for those

with a taste for sorcery, or I think the dark

arts are a fine way of saying it. This is a group

of characters most likely to appeal to you. And

we've got some characters, too, which are very

lighthearted. Los Ice Creams jumped to mind,

two anthropomorphic ice cream men who are maybe

the least effective tag team in all of history.

They may or may not have once gone nine years

without winning a match. So there's a real panoply

here. There's a weird cornucopia. And you can

just kind of surf through our roster page and

I think you'll immediately start to get a sense

of what these characters are like. You can really

just take one look at them and you'll start to

realize, like, I think I understand what that

is. I think I understand what makes Soldier Ant

different from Oleg the Usurper, the Mad Viking

Warrior. And you don't have to read... pages

and pages of backstory to get it right you mentioned

hollow wicked i saw one of one of the matches

with him recently in preparation for this and

as soon as i saw him i'm like hey paint that

guy purple and it's skeletor i'm not being insulting

here i'm just saying that's like the way his

his his headdress is the way his The body armor

was before he took it off. I'm like, yeah, paint

that guy purple. He's Skeletor. You mentioned

Soldier Ant. How many ants are there? I know

there's Soldier Fire and Bullet, right? There's

Soldier Fire, Silver Bullet, and Worker. There's

five of them all together at the moment, and

there's some that used to be. For example, Missile

Assault Man once had a mask, but he lost it.

And so now his face is revealed to all. He can

never put the mask back on. And that way we respect

the traditions of Mexican Lucha Libre, which

is American pro wrestling's weird cousin from

the South. Yeah, and the kinds of things that

you observe about that, right? Little nods here

and there. For example, the Thunderfrog has a

gigantic hammer of peace that only the worthy

can lift. You'll see very obvious points of intersection

with things that we know and love from nerd culture.

You and I were talking a little bit before we

recorded, just thinking, too, we had put out

for... reasons that are virtually crazy, I guess

you could say. It was a very ambitious project

of ours. We put something out that was basically

a movie, and on the soundtrack for that, we had...

Stan Bush recorded a song. He did the theme song

for our first iPay -per -view called High Noon,

and he performed live at the King of Trios that

was themed after Gen 1 Transformers. So there's

a lot of weird points like that. I mean, even

the King of Trios that was just two weeks ago

framed around Pokemon Go, you can tell has a

very deliberate and obvious finger to the pulse

of a certain type of fandom. And if that sort

of thing sounds like you, then we're probably

your flavor of ice cream. You want to know the

funny thing is? When I talked to Stan a couple

of years ago, he mentioned the King of Shrios

thing at the time, and I just made the offhand

comment of, oh, that's cool, that's awesome.

I didn't know what the heck it was until I started

looking through murals. I mean, I knew it was

a wrestling event. I didn't know who it was.

I didn't know who put it on or anything like

that, so it's funny. You guys based an event

around Pokemon Go. Really? Yeah. I am so anti.

I am like, stop Pokemon Go. That game, for me

personally, I've never played it, but just the

whole... One -sided aspect of it is like, gotta

catch them all, gotta catch them all. None of

the stories I've ever seen online tell you about

what happens after you catch them. They don't

tell you about the battles. They just tell you

about some guy in San Diego who nearly died falling

off a cliff trying to catch a Charmander or something.

Oh, that game. That just irks me beyond belief.

I don't know why. It just does. What is... Okay,

so you created all of this, and you're into the

superhero culture, and you guys are making matches

and everything else. Do you actually wrestle

in anything with Chikara? Do you have a character

on the show or anything like that? Well, I am

retired. I was an active professional wrestler

for 20 years, and I was very fortunate. I got

to... meet and if not wrestle with all of my

heroes, with the exception of Owen Hart. I got

to travel the world. I went to Canada, Mexico,

Japan, about 30 U .S. states, and a couple dozen

tours of Europe. I had a very... I was very,

very fortunate to have the active wrestling career

that I did, but unfortunately I was slowed down

by a string of injuries over the years, and eventually

it just made the most sense for me maybe to clear

a path for somebody else to have a spot on the

cards. So with only one exception, I've not wrestled

in the last three or four years. However, I do

function as Chikara's director of fun. We've

sort of reinvented the very tired trope of a

general manager or otherwise authority figure

in wrestling, and it is that. I serve as the

director of Fun Now, and you can also hear me

at Commentation Station. If you, for example,

checked out King of Trias, if you wondered who

that guy was calling the matches with Joey Styles,

that's me. That's Mike Quackenbush live from

Commentation Station. And, yeah, in addition

to doing things like this, getting the good word

and preaching the gospel of Chakar to anybody

that'll listen. Awesome. Very cool. Very cool.

What is your opinion of the current state of

the WWE? I think it's fascinating. I think this

is the most interesting they have been since

the collapse of WCW and ECW. They are giving

an opportunity to the kinds of talent that they

at one time never would have looked at. They're

taking more risks. I think the Cruiserweight

Classic is a fine example of this. And they're

finally becoming comfortable with their position

as the industry leader, enough so that they can

start taking risks again. They need not play

it as safe as they once did. I think since 2001,

there has never been a more interesting time.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree. I mean, since the whole...

Don't get me wrong. I love seeing the stunts

and the skits with Vince McMahon, but that guy's

getting up there. That guy needs to be the behind

-the -scenes guy. He doesn't need to be having...

potential future president Donald Trump and Bobby

Lashley shave his head. It's just one of those

things where I, as a viewer of the stuff, after

about six months of The Authority, I got bored.

I'm like, okay, we need to do something else

now, please. And now that they had this whole

thing with Shane coming back and everything else

and the Raw and SmackDown brand split, I watch

both shows now. I actively, you know, because

I'm one of those cord cutters for TV. So I have

Netflix and Hulu. So for SmackDown and Raw, I

watch it essentially Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

And I watch both shows all the way through now

that they're each creating their own brand. Because

as I said earlier, SmackDown to me has always

been where... the B and C listers go. Like, every

now and then they would throw an A lister on

there, but it's always been this joke show, and

I think now they're really trying to build it

up, and I think that's good for them. And some

of the stuff I read about Chikara, I noticed

that you guys had worked with CM Punk. Would

you like to talk about that a little bit before

we kind of close this out? Not particularly,

no. Okay. Alright. Is there anything that you

want to promote that you guys have coming up?

Anything that you want my listeners to pay attention

to? You know, right now. Sure. We're constantly

on tour, it seems. We tour at least two -thirds

of the United States. And we come to Canada and

England at least once a year. So we might be

coming near you. But it's really easy to join

up with us on social media, between Twitter,

Facebook, YouTube, etc. We're Chikara Pro on

Facebook and Twitter. And we have a new official

channel, we're Chikara Live on YouTube, where

we put out tons and tons of free content. If

anything I've had to say makes you think you

might even be the tiniest bit into... arrested,

come stick your foot in the pool. I assure you

the water is fine. And there's a very welcoming

community of people there that'll help get you

up to speed if, as I mentioned, you feel the

least bit daunted by all our continuity. But

ultimately, I think this sometimes, this message

gets lost. And I had a chance to really re -experience

this back in February when I visited the WWE

and did some work for them at their performance

center. We, when we are wrestling fans, often

imagine that the people who make professional

wrestling are not also fans of it. And you might

have even heard stories or anecdotes that support

that. One thing I can assure you... At Shakara,

the wrestling that's being made for you is made

by people who love the art form as much as you

do. It's made with care and it's made with love.

And you'll see that attention to detail that

you often don't see when, you know, unfortunately,

a giant hulking conglomerate that's got to produce

12 plus hours of original content every single

week. They just possibly they can't possibly

have that level of quality control over what

they do or they're never going to hit their deadlines.

It's a little boutique -y. It's a little bit

at the end of the rack at Baskin -Robbins, but

it might be a flavor of ice cream you will learn

to like. Jump on. We're ChikaraPro .com online.

What is the next event you guys have coming up?

We'll be live this Saturday from our home base,

our training facility in northeast Philadelphia.

That's where we train professional wrestlers,

the WrestleFactory. And in fact, we have new

beginners classes as well, even bite -sized seven

-week classes. If you were ever interested just

to get in the ring, to hit the ropes, to see

what it was like, to see if you might have what

it takes to pursue it, or even if you just wanted

to do it as a hobby, check out our beginner -level

classes. 101 classes are forming constantly at

the WrestleFactory. will be live there this Saturday,

September 17th, with an event called The Black

Goodbye. Awesome. I would like to thank Mike

Quackenbush from Chikara Pro for taking the time

to chat with me here on Mayhem Mics for Geekcast

Radio Network, and this week in Geek, I'll ask

you to hold the line, and I'll be back in a minute,

folks, after this. folks, TFG and Mike here.

I'm back. I want to thank Mike Quackenbush from

Chikara Pro once again for taking the time to

chat with me here on Mayhem Mikes on the Geekcast

Radio Network and this week in Geek. Coming up,

we're going to have episode 14, I believe, of

Mayhem Mikes, which will be backlashing the Clash

of Champions. We're going to talk about SmackDown's

first pay -per -view backlash and Raw's first

pay -per -view in the new split brand kind of

era own storyline thing here's the thing folks

i'm going out of town actually as of this airing

i've got a week before i've got to go to california

um for a vacation a much needed vacation so as

always we usually wait until we have two pay

-per -views under our belt so clash of champions

in a couple weeks um we'll get to that when we

get to that What I'd like to do right now is

put out a call to you guys. Crunchman61, anybody

else that pays attention to Mayhem Mike's, we

need a catchphrase to close the show. Generally,

at the end of every show, I ask, you know, okay,

Mike Dodd, where can people find you on social

media? Ryan, where can people find you? And then

I tell you where you can find me on social media.

But I feel that the show needs a catchphrase.

to end it out. Something cool, something fun,

something unique. Also, with Backlash, Smackdown

Live's first pay -per -view, they used the theme

song from the former emphatic group, now Through

Fire, Stronger. I'm going to be using the...

The instrumental part of that song is the outro

to most of the Mayhem Mike's episodes for now,

because we don't actually have an outro. I usually,

when we do the pay -per -view reviews, I usually

just throw a quote or a line from whatever that

pay -per -view is. But I kind of want an outro

song, and I really dig Through Fire's Stronger.

So that's what I'm going to use here to close

this out. That's what I'm going to use to close

out episode 14. Thank you to everybody who has

been paying attention to Mayhem Mike's over the

last year or so. We've got 13 episodes and this,

our first interview, as I said a moment ago,

it was an absolute pleasure to talk to Mike Quackenbush.

We will have him on again in the future because

I would love to see Mike and Ryan pick his brain

as well. I guess for Mayhem Mike's, the time

is now. I don't know. We need a catchphrase,

damn it. Send any and all feedback to feedback

at geekcastradio .com.