New to Wrestling Podcast

One wrestler. Two legendary personas. A whole lot of mist, moonsaults, and questionable knee health.After Kelsey discovered The Great Muta during our Halloween Havoc special, we knew one match wasn't going to be enough. So this week, we're taking a deep dive into the career of Keiji Muto, the man behind one of wrestling's most iconic characters.From his early days in NJPW and his unforgettable rivalry with Sting in WCW to his evolution into one of Japanese wrestling's greatest minds, we're exploring what made Muto so special. And more importantly, what made The Great Muta an entirely different beast.Along the way, we're watching five matches spanning nearly 20 years:🥊 Sting vs. The Great Muta (WCW, 1989) — Young Sting, an even younger Muta, and a moonsault that genuinely terrifies Kelsey.🇯🇵 Keiji Muto vs. Shiro Koshinaka (NJPW, 1995) — Technical wrestling, incredible psychology, and the move we've affectionately dubbed the "kneecap titty twister."🎭 The Great Muta vs. Jushin Thunder Liger (1996) — A recommendation from our friend Crit that delivers incredible entrances, mist, an unexpected transformation, and a piece of office furniture that had absolutely no business being involved.🔥 Keiji Muto vs. Shinsuke Nakamura (2008) — A veteran Muto proves that even after decades in the ring, his wrestling IQ is on another level.We're talking alter egos, Japanese wrestling crowds, incredible entrance gear, the evolution of Muto's wrestling style, and why Kelsey is now fully prepared to join the Great Muta fan club.Plus, we somehow find time to discuss Jim Cornette's hater credentials, Chris Jericho's leather pants, and why wrestling is an art form worth celebrating.Is The Great Muta one of wrestling's greatest characters? And how does Keiji Muto compare?Come hang out with us as we explore the man, the myth, and the mist.Special thanks to Crit of Crit's Ringside Chat for recommending the Jushin Thunder Liger match!🎙️ New to Wrestling PodcastShe's new to Wrestling. He's desperately trying to make it make sense.🌐 newtowrestling.com📲 Instagram: @n2wpodcastTell us: What's your favorite Great Muta or Keiji Muto match? What should Kelsey watch next?The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

Viewer discretion is advised—we're back in the Temple, and Dario Cueto is running his business like a very shady game show.This week, Kelsey and I return to Lucha Underground Season 1, Episode 6, where Johnny Mundo wants his $100,000, Prince Puma continues ignoring Konnan's advice, and Big Ryck learns that a signing bonus is apparently just a suggestion.Meanwhile, Pimpinela Escarlata absolutely steals our hearts, Mil Muertes continues terrorizing the roster, and Drago and King Cuerno give us another fantastic chapter in their growing rivalry.And somehow, we're still not done talking about how good this show's production is.In This Episode:Pimpinela Escarlata vs. Son of Havoc: A fantastic introduction to one of lucha libre's most charismatic performers.Mil Muertes vs. Famous B: Another unfortunate soul meets Mil Muertes and Catrina.Drago vs. King Cuerno: The hunt continues, and this rivalry keeps getting better.Johnny Mundo's $100,000 Problem: A stolen key, an angry Prince Puma, and Dario Cueto announcing a three-way ladder match.Sexy Star & Fénix vs. Chavo Guerrero & Pentagon Jr.: A great tag team main event that finally gives the good guys something to celebrate.Six episodes in, and Kelsey and I are still completely invested in the weird, wonderful world of Lucha Underground.Welcome back to New to the Temple.The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

Viewer discretion is advised—it's Halloween, and we're rating wrestling matches by how spooky they are! 🎃This week, Kelsey and I are taking a break from our usual rewatch for a special New to Wrestling Halloween Havoc episode featuring matches submitted by our friends!We're traveling through WCW and NXT history, from a young Stunning Steve Austin to an electrified Thunderdome, the absolutely ridiculous Chamber of Horrors, and a Halloween showdown between Johnny Gargano and Damian Priest.And because it's Halloween, Kelsey has created her own rating system: THE SPOOKIES.In This Episode:- Halloween Havoc 1992:** Stunning Steve Austin & Dr. Death vs. Dustin Rhodes & Barry Windham.- Halloween Havoc 1989:** Sting & Ric Flair vs. The Great Muta & Terry Funk inside the Thunderdome.- Halloween Havoc 1991:** The Chamber of Horrors match brings an electric chair into professional wrestling.- Halloween Havoc 1997:** Special insight from Matt Awesome on Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero.- NXT Halloween Havoc 2020:** Johnny Gargano vs. Damian Priest delivers the Halloween spectacle Kelsey has been waiting for.Four featured matches, a whole lot of wrestling history, and an alarming number of questionable electrical decisions.Happy Halloween from New to Wrestling!The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

Viewer discretion is advised—we're back in 1998, and apparently, it's Kelsey's fourth birthday!This week, Kelsey and I dive into the July 27, 1998 episode of WWF Raw Is War, where the fallout from Fully Loaded brings us new rivalries, questionable decisions, and one of the most shocking moments of the entire Brawl for All tournament.Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker may be Tag Team Champions, but that doesn't mean they're friends. Meanwhile, Vince McMahon is spiraling, DX is having some internal disagreements, and Bart Gunn delivers a knockout that completely changes the trajectory of the Brawl for All.And somehow, that's only half the madness.In This Episode:Austin & Undertaker: The unlikely champions defend their titles against the New Age Outlaws, and a post-match beer creates some interesting tension.Brawl for All: Bart Gunn shocks Dr. Death Steve Williams in a fight that leaves us genuinely speechless.The Rock vs. DX: Triple H and X-Pac challenge The Rock for the Intercontinental Championship, but their partnership starts falling apart.Sable vs. Vince McMahon: A deeply uncomfortable confrontation reminds us why revisiting the Attitude Era requires more than nostalgia.Owen Hart's Open Challenge: Dan Severn, Ken Shamrock, and a little nugget-related humiliation keep the drama going.Val Venis & Kaientai: Swords, sausages, and one of the most infamous threats in WWF history.LOD's Troubling Storyline: We discuss the uncomfortable direction of Hawk's character and its real-life implications.The Birth of a Meme: Kelsey witnesses the legendary "Underwear Taker" sign in its natural habitat.Between the incredible character work, increasingly absurd storylines, and moments that genuinely catch us off guard, this episode is everything fascinating—and occasionally frustrating—about the Attitude Era.And if there's one thing we've learned, it's that **Austin and Undertaker might be wrestling's most complicated tagThe New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

Viewer discretion is advised—we're back in God's country, and the Temple is getting messy.This week, Kelsey and I return to Lucha Underground Season 1, Episode 5: Boyle Heights Street Fight, where the drama is escalating, the cinematography is still ridiculously good, and Dario Cueto continues proving why nobody should trust this man.Between Mil Muertes dominating Drago, Sexy Star's increasingly personal rivalry with Chavo Guerrero, and Johnny Mundo looking like he walked straight out of Mortal Kombat, this episode has a little bit of everything.And then there's our main event, where Prince Puma takes on Big Ryck in a Boyle Heights Street Fight that ends with one spectacularly unsuccessful rescue mission.In This Episode:Konnan & Dario Cueto: Tensions rise over Big Ryck and his crew.Mil Muertes vs. Drago: Catrina continues to steal our attention while King Cuerno lurks in the shadows.Son of Havoc vs. Mascarita Sagrada: A fun matchup featuring the always-entertaining Ivelisse.Sexy Star vs. Chavo Guerrero: Things get personal as Pentagon Jr. and Fénix enter the picture.Prince Puma vs. Big Ryck: Weapons, interference, and a street fight that gets completely out of hand.Johnny Mundo's Big Mistake: Sometimes trying to save the day only makes things worse.Five episodes in, and Kelsey and I are completely hooked. The storytelling, the characters, the atmosphere—Lucha Underground just keeps delivering.Welcome back to New to the Temple.The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

Wrestling is real, and books are too! 📚Welcome back to Reading the Ring, the New to Wrestling Podcast book club! Life has been life-ing, so Kelsey and I are taking a break from our regularly scheduled shenanigans this week. But don't worry, I'm not leaving you empty-handed.This time, I'm diving into We Promised You a Great Main Event: An Unauthorized WWE History by Bill Hanstock, a book that reminded me why I love professional wrestling while also reminding me just how ridiculous, complicated, and occasionally shady this business can be.We're going all the way back to wrestling's carnival roots, where some of the traditions we still recognize today were born, before making our way through Vince McMahon's rise, the Monday Night Wars, the Attitude Era, and the evolution of WWE into a billion-dollar entertainment empire.And because this is wrestling, things get weird.We're talking about outrageous gimmicks, questionable business decisions, larger-than-life personalities, and some genuinely uncomfortable chapters of WWE history that don't always get the same attention as the company's greatest moments.One of the things I appreciated most about this book is that it doesn't ask you to stop loving wrestling. It just asks you to look at the whole picture. The incredible stuff, the absurd stuff, and the things we'd probably rather not think about.For longtime fans, there's plenty to revisit and reconsider. And for anyone who's newer to wrestling, I think this is a fantastic way to understand how this strange little world became what it is today.So grab a book, get comfortable, and join me for a little wrestling history, some questionable characters, and probably more Vince McMahon discussion than any of us really need.📚 This episode's book: We Promised You a Great Main Event: An Unauthorized WWE History by Bill Hanstock.🎙️ Watch or listen to the full episode of Reading the Ring on the New to Wrestling Podcast!Wrestling is real, and books are too.The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

Viewer discretion is advised—we are officially back in 1998, and I dragged Kelsey with me to WWF Fully Loaded 1998.After spending some time in the Temple, we returned to the Attitude Era for a three-hour, nine-match pay-per-view that had us recording at midnight, questioning several life choices, and standing on business because we said we were going to watch it.And honestly? For a show I kept putting off, this one kind of delivered.Fully Loaded 1998 is a very strange mix of genuinely great wrestling, very 1998 nonsense, and moments that remind you nostalgia can be cute—but she is not always correct. I walked Kelsey through Val Venis making his pay-per-view debut against Jeff Jarrett, D’Lo Brown and X-Pac putting together a sneaky fun mid-card match, a completely bizarre tag situation with Terry Funk, Scorpio, Faarooq and Bradshaw, and a Vince McMahon-approved meat spectacle between Vader and Mark Henry.But the real pillars of this show are easy.Owen Hart and Ken Shamrock have a Dungeon Match in the Hart family basement that feels less like a wrestling match and more like found footage from a crime scene. The Rock and Triple H go nearly 30 minutes in a two-out-of-three-falls Intercontinental Championship match where you can feel two future stars fighting to steal the show. And in the main event, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker challenge Kane and Mankind for the Tag Team Championships, despite the fact that Austin and Taker absolutely do not trust each other.Beautiful nonsense. Exactly what we came here for.We also, unfortunately, have to talk about the Sable and Jacqueline bikini contest, Jerry Lawler being on his absolute worst behavior, and the parts of the Attitude Era that people love to conveniently edit out when they talk about how great everything used to be.### In this episode:- I bring Kelsey back to the Attitude Era after our New to the Temple detour- We break down the full WWF Fully Loaded 1998 card- Val Venis makes his pay-per-view debut against Jeff Jarrett- Yamaguchi-san joins commentary and calls Jerry Lawler “Hamburger King”- D’Lo Brown and X-Pac have a solid mid-card match with Chyna looking incredible- Terry Funk, Scorpio, Faarooq and Bradshaw end up in one of the strangest tag pairings imaginable- Vader and Mark Henry collide in a true big meat spectacle- LOD and DOA continue fighting over Paul Ellering for reasons we are still trying to understand- Owen Hart and Ken Shamrock have a Dungeon Match that feels fully illegal- The Rock and Triple H wrestle like two future main-eventers trying to prove they are next- We suffer through the Sable and Jacqueline bikini contest so you do not necessarily have to- Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Undertaker challenge Kane and Mankind for the Tag Team Championships- We continue asking the only question that matters: are they in cahoots?If you’re going back to watch **Fully Loaded 1998**, my three match recommendations are simple: **The Rock vs Triple H**, **Austin & Undertaker vs Kane & Mankind**, and **Owen Hart vs Ken Shamrock in the Dungeon**.Everything else? We’ll guide you through it.The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

Lucha Underground episode four, “The Thrill of the Hunt,” opens with a live band and the Temple absolutely lit. Honestly, if we could travel back to one wrestling show, this might be the one.Sexy Star and Ivelisse kick things off by slapping the entire taste out of each other’s mouths. Fénix and Pentagon Jr. then give us another impossibly fast match between two brothers who seemingly communicate through flips, violence and complete trust. Somewhere in the middle, King Cuerno hunts tonight—or, as we immediately decided, c*nts tonight—before making his debut against Drago.Meanwhile, Dario Cueto has paid Big Ryck a generous bounty to put Johnny Mundo in the hospital. Prince Puma is warned to stay out of it, but Cortez and Cisco make that decision for him before helping Big Ryck leave Mundo underneath a broken table.Highlights include:The Temple transforming into the hottest party in Los AngelesSexy Star promising to destroy the Guerrero family nameIvelisse introducing Sexy Star to her MMA backgroundDario demanding that Drago impress himPentagon Jr. demanding the respect he deservesFénix and Penta moving faster than our notes can handleA Penta Driver that nearly stopped the showKing Cuerno’s completely unhinged hunter video packageThe tallest taxidermy deer entrance gear imaginableDrago folding King Cuerno into an expedited Christmas packageKonnan warning Prince Puma to mind his businessBig Ryck wrestling in his comfies and still looking terrifyingJohnny Mundo selling like Big Ryck actually ran him overCortez and Cisco ensuring Mundo’s evening ends underneath a tableThe bounty has been collected, Johnny Mundo may need a hospital and Dario Cueto remains one deeply satisfied supervillain.The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

We’re still cheating on 1998 Raw with Lucha Underground—and frankly, we have never felt more alive.Season one, episode three, “Crossing the Border,” introduces us to Fénix, Pentagon Jr. and Drago before throwing all three into an absolutely ridiculous main event. Somewhere between Penta’s showmanship, Drago’s unique offense and Fénix launching himself from the roof of Dario Cueto’s office, this became our favorite Lucha Underground match yet.Elsewhere, Mascarita Sagrada runs circles around El Mariachi Loco, Chavo Guerrero continues his violent spiral and Vampiro conducts an interview with all the restraint of a Housewives reunion. Konnan warns Chavo to disappear, Katrina promises that he will eventually belong to Mil Muertes, and Johnny Mundo fights his way into Dario’s office to demand Big Ryck.Highlights include:Dario Cueto giving the people “more lucha”The triumphant return of short-boy propagandaMascarita Sagrada reminding us why everyone is the same height on the matChavo Guerrero explaining why he’s done living in his family’s shadowVampiro abandoning journalistic objectivity—and being incredible at itKonnan delivering the line of the night in a dimly lit hallwayKatrina appearing from the darkness and licking another man’s faceThe earthquake origin story of Mil MuertesJohnny Mundo turning a backstage fight into a full action sequenceDario paying Big Ryck to put Mundo in the hospitalPentagon Jr., Drago and Fénix making unforgettable Temple debutsFénix taking a completely reasonable 30-foot dive from Dario’s officeAnother mysterious ending that immediately has us begging for the next episodeThe wrestling is incredible, the drama is delicious and every person responsible for this show’s lighting, editing and sound design deserves to be filthy rich.The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!

We apologize for any audio or visual issues in this episode. The technical demons were working overtime, but we pushed through because the Temple waits for no one—and this episode was simply too good not to release.After spending entirely too much time wading through the racism and sexism of 1998, we’re returning to our favorite elective: Lucha Underground. Episode two wastes no time reminding us why we love this show.Johnny Mundo and Prince Puma put their differences aside to face Cortez Castro and Cisco, delivering ridiculous athleticism and an immaculate double 450. Ivelisse makes her debut in an intergender tag match that lets the women be wrestlers—not attractions or afterthoughts. Then Mil Muertes arrives with Catrina and enough supernatural energy to make us deeply concerned about whatever she’s carrying in that stone.Highlights include:Big Ryck smoking the fattest cigar imaginable from the Temple stairsPrince Puma doing things that should not be physically possibleJohnny Mundo and Puma casually inventing tag-team offenseIvelisse making an immediate impressionSexy Star getting her revenge on Son of HavocCatrina delivering a “taste before a thousand deaths”Mil Muertes making his terrifying in-ring debutVampiro continuing to be everything we want from a commentatorChavo Guerrero betraying Blue Demon Jr.Chavo handing out chair shots to referees, luchadors and even Sexy StarThe Temple crowd telling Chavo exactly how they feelWe came for the lucha, stayed for the drama and left with one question: Chavo, girl…what was that?The New To Wrestling Podcast follows two friends who enjoy wrestling but are in different stages of their fandom. Xavier Cruz serves as your guide through generations of professional wrestling while Kelsey Silva experiences these matches for the first time. Climb into the ring weekly to relive the famous matches beginning with the Attitude Era!