The Taz Show October 26th, 2016 – w/ Joey Styles
Joey joins the show at the 58 minute mark via Skype.
Joey starts with a joke saying “who did you ever work with besides Mikey Whipwreck that wasn’t taller than you.” Taz says “Ray Odyssey” both men laugh because nobody but them remebers him.
Taz starts by saying he dubbed Joey the “Voice of Everything” and Joey took that and changed it to “The Voice of the Indies” and that is because he works for Beyond Wrestling, Chikara, and Evolve.
Joey worked for Gabe Sapolsky because of their ECW connection. Gabe then introduced Joey to Mike Quackenbush who is the owner of Chikara. Drew Cordeiro who owns Beyond Wrestling met Joey at an Evolve show.
Taz and Joey talk that the indies are kind of like the territories because the companies that get along share a lot of the talent and help the talent get over. Joey hopes that he is able to bring credibility to the product and is able to help digital and social media also.
Taz jokes that he gave Heyman a two months notice when leaving ECW and that he put all the wrestlers over on the way out. Joey says “and he was still bitching about it behind your back.”
Joey wants to tell a Taz story. “Our plan for the new ECW was arrive as late as possible.” Joey says as they were walking back from the coffee it was pouring rain and Taz didn’t want to wait it out because he had $800 shoes on. Joey asked Taz why he would wear “$800 Bruno Magli shoes for a show where you sit behind a desk?”
Taz said that it’s because he was impressing Vince because Vince would notice the shoes. Taz tells a story of Michael Cole wearing loafers “that looked like he got them from a sewer.” Vince got mad at how bad the shoes looked and Taz took that as he should always wear nice shoes.
Joey talks about color coordinating his ties to synergize with the company he is working for. In Evolve he wears Purple ties, Beyond is black, Chikara is royal blue and House of Hardcore is red.
Taz comments on how he doesn’t really stop to talk to fans and just walks by them, while Joey is always talking to fans and creating a connectivity. Joey breaks the story for a bit to talk about how Taz was expelled from College and asked to leave. Taz starts talking about the indie shows Joey is at and asks if it’s like going to the ECW arena.
Joey said in ECW he wasn’t well known or liked and the fans called him ‘Poindexter’. Joey likes how nice the fans are and mentioned that at Beyond Wrestling events, the owner Drew’s mom homemakes all the concessions. That means there is lasagna, meatball Parmesan subs, homemade mac and cheese. All about $4 or $5 dollars. All the shows are at clubs and the ring is just in the middle of the club, sometimes no seats. Then he says it’s complete opposite at Chikara because it’s more kid friendly and they play games with kids during intermission.
Joey starts talking about flosports.tv launching floslam.tv . It is $20 a month or $100 flat for a year making it $12.50 a month. He said the $100 opens you to all channels. You would get an MMA channel, a grappling channel, a wrestling channel and a boxing channel. Joey is selling Floslam very hard. Tries to get Taz to get the Taz Show on Floslam.
Joey says that Evolve is much like the Cruiserweight Classic. My own thought is that maybe that’s why it’s a purple theme, a nod to Evolve. Joey calls Evolve the developmental system for the CWC. Joey says Chikara has great wrestling but “one guy is wearing a lobster suit and the champion is from Sleepy Hollow that looks like a haunted jack-o-lantern.” Joey says that he set up an interview with Marvel and Mike Quackenbush because this season of Chikara has been an ode to Marvel.
Joey then talks about how he is promoting all these companies and flosports.tv and says flosports should pay him. He says when you promote “it’s not about you.” Joey talks about outside of ECW he has never worked for an indie and that the wrestling out there today is so amazing. “I think this is huge for our industry.”
Taz brings up that the last time he and Joey Styles called a match, it was for Impact Wrestling. They said Eric Bischoff liked it and Joey says “the way they do business is a clusterfudge, and there is a reasons they are going to go out of business- and I’m glad I didn’t go there– I was just taking a shot at TNA for the way that Dixie Carter and Dean Broadhead treated me, and I am not going to be heart broken to see either one of them unemployed.”
Taz mentions that Michael Cole doesn’t even talk to him anymore.
They close the interview talking about the commentators and try not giving them a hard time. They both agree that it is easy to tell when Vince feeds the commentators a line. Joey says that “the key is, and I think you and I had it is um, as a play-by-play announcer, you know, hopefully, for the sake of credibility, your color commentator is a former world champion. I had you, and the play-by-play mans job is to make the color commentator a star, so everything he says, or what he puts over, it makes the talent mean more. At the same time if the color commentator doesn’t castarate the play-by-play man by making fun of him, then the play-by-play man keeps his credibility. Then ultimately that helps get the talent over because you have two credible announcers at the table. One comes off as a sports play-by-play announcer and the other is a former world champion who knows what it is like to be in there. They respect each other and mutually have that credibility, so when they say something the fans can believe it. That is the perfect formula for pro wrestling announcing.”
Taz starts talking about Otunga and how JBL tries to get David over. Joey says he spoke with J.R. and they agree that three man teams aren’t for them. Taz agrees and says “they are horrible.” Joey says that wrestling moves so quickly and every segment is a different storyling. “You don’t need three people, they just wind up stepping on each other and actually getting in the way of telling the stories– I think casual fans don’t know the difference, it’s just background noise.”
Taz mentions that he isn’t a fan of Corey Graves degrading his play-by-play guys. Joey says “you train people how to treat you, if you don’t like how your color commentator is treating you on air- then off air you tell them.” He says if the play-by-play guy has nothing and then the team has nothing. Joey and Taz agree that they have talked it out before about things they said to each other.
– WE RECAP & REVIEW WWE HELL IN A CELL, DEBATE IF SASHA VS. CHARLOTTE LIVED UP TO THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE AND WHAT BILLY CORGAN’s LAWSUIT VS. TNA SHOWED US ON THIS WEEK’S EDITION OF “THE STILL REAL TO US SHOW” RIGHT HERE