Scottish Wrestling: Billy Strachan on WWE, Drew McIntyre, and the Local Scene

Scottish Wrestling: Billy Strachan on WWE, Drew McIntyre, and the Local Scene post thumbnail image

Why Should I Watch Wrestling?

 

The focus of this episode is the Scottish Wrestling Scene, as Host Cal and co-host Kenny welcome Billy Strachan, the host of the Scottish Wrestling Podcast. The episode begins with the classic question non-fans pose: “You know it’s all fake, don’t you?”. Billy’s response is that it’s “Panto”. He says the best way to enjoy the Scottish Wrestling Scene is to “Go see it live”. He explains that wrestling is “triumph over good over evil in person with Lycra”. Ultimately, for two or three hours, you get invested in the characters. You just want to shout and cheer, making it live entertainment at its absolute rawest.

  Podcast cover art promoting the Scottish Wrestling Scene episode, showing two wrestlers and the question "Why Should I Watch Wrestling?" over a Scottish flag background.A Primer on the WWE Eras Billy provides a primer on the history of WWE. He notes that Vincent J. McMahon owned the promotion before his son, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, bought up everyone. This created a worldwide phenomenon. The discussion then moves through the different eras of WWE:

Golden Era: Featured major stars like Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, and The Warrior. New Gen: After a steroid scandal, the focus shifted more to wrestling talent like Bret “The Hitman” Hart and Shawn Michaels. Attitude Era: Known for controversial storylines and stars such as Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. Current Era: Following Vince McMahon’s retirement, the promotion is currently in what people refer to as the Renaissance Era or the Triple H Era. This happened after the Ruthless Aggression Era (John Cena, Brock Lesnar).

 

The Talent Boom and Drew McIntyre’s Impact on the Scottish Wrestling Scene



Billy points out that Scotland is vastly over-represented in WWE given its size. The current roster features a host of talent, including Wolfgang, the Coffee Brothers (Mark and Joe), Noam Dar, Piper Niven, Alba Fire, and Isla Dawn. Furthermore, Billy credits Drew McIntyre with the mainstream “boom” in the Scottish Wrestling Scene. Drew’s return to the local ICW promotion in 2014 and the BBC ICW Fight Club documentary helped drag the independent scene up with him. As a result, the scene grew large enough to draw crowds of 6,000 people to the Hydro in Glasgow.

 

  The Future of the Scottish Wrestling Scene

 

The hosts discuss the current Scottish Wrestling Scene, noting that local media still shows a “snootishness towards wrestling” despite the success. Billy, who runs the Scottish Wrestling Network, admits he struggles to understand why it doesn’t get major coverage. Finally, he observes that the numerous independent promotions are unlikely to merge. This is true even though promotions like ICW, Discovery Wrestling (owned by Joe Hendry), and WrestleZone are drawing big crowds and attracting major guest stars (like Billy Gunn and Gangrel for WrestleZone). He concludes that this is because, in his experience, “nobody agrees with each other in Scotland” on how to run things in the Scottish independent scene.

 


 

Full Transcript Outline (Quick Jumps)

00:00 Welcome to OH!CAST

01:16 The Devil’s Advocate: Wrestling’s Reality

02:29 Why Wrestling? The Love for Live Entertainment

06:11 WWE: A Brief History and Evolution

12:00 Getting Started: Best Entry Points for New Fans

13:35 Scotland’s Impact on Wrestling

16:23 The Rise of Scottish Wrestling

19:58 Challenges in the Scottish Wrestling Scene

22:18 WrestleZone: A Local Favorite

26:01 Giving Back: Established Stars and the Local Scene

27:40 Joe Hendry: A Rising Star in Wrestling and Eurovision

29:49 The Vince McMahon Documentary Discussion

35:35 The Evolution of Women’s Wrestling

39:42 Starting the Scottish Wrestling Network Podcast

52:44 The Future of Wrestling Events in the Western Isles

Full Transcript

Cal (00:37.902)
Hello everyone, welcome to OH!CAST, the official podcast of OH!CON the Comic Con of the Outer Everdees. It’s great to be back. We had a little break there to recover from Ocon 2024. And joining me tonight, my co-host Kenny, how are you doing, man?

I’m doing quite well.

This is a first for you because I think this is the first time you’ve been on when we’ve had a guest as well. It’s usually just you and me endlessly talking about franchises that are born down the road. with that, it is my great pleasure to introduce the host of the Scottish Wrestling podcast, Billy Strachan. Welcome to the show.

Yeah.

Billy S (01:16.302)
It’s weird to be on this end of the proceedings, I like to the intros. But yeah, thank you for inviting me. I’m excited to be here.

Yeah, it’s great. So I think I warned Kenny about this beforehand. You’re probably going to groan Billy when I do it. It’s for the both of you. I’m going to do a devil’s advocate here. You have had this plenty of times when you meet a non wrestling fan. You know it’s all fake, don’t you? So what’s your usual response to that?

So- so- hang on. Whoa whoa-

Sorry to amuse you, but you know, it had to be.

I can’t believe it, but life’s been a lie. I get it as much anymore because everyone knows the deal. think it’s kind of the point of that. you get the odd occasion, you know it’s faker. And pretty much the answer I have is, yeah, it’s Panto. It’s ace. Go see it live. Go see it live. That’s the best thing to do. Telly’s fine. Go see it live. It’s like 12 quid. Go get a ticket. Watch the show. You’ll love it. Trust me.

Cal (02:11.532)
Yeah. So I think, where to start? do you have a question right now, Kenny? Or shall I, yeah, we’ll proceed. Right. Yeah. We’ll just let them, but, just to go to the very start, like you kind of said there. what is there to love about wrestling? Why should someone go watch the wrestling or give it a shot?

shit.

My head right now.

Billy S (02:29.966)
It’s just, it’s ridiculous. That’s what it is really. It’s pretty much, it’s triumph over, good over evil in person with Lycra and you get invested in stories. I mean, I’ve watched wrestling for 25 years, so I’m really kind of like, I don’t know how to describe what it is like watching it for the first time because I watched it, I was nine years old and it was probably a very different time because was that chanera. But what I can tell you from experience of taking my wife to shows really is you just

You get invested in the characters and then for that two, three hours you don’t care. You just want to shout and cheer and get involved. It’s a stage show but the stage is right in the middle of the venue. It’s just live entertainment. It’s absolute rawest and sometimes the most violent. It’s just wonderful. I don’t know how else to get people to get involved. Just go. Go. Push you. I won’t pay you but I’ll push you to go.

I for me, was like I was watching early nineties, you know, my first pay-per-view I ever saw was the Royal Rumble 93. So that was, I think after the rockers broke up. So I was waiting for them to finally go at it. So to see them.

just go at it, you know, like one of my favourite tag teams, Sean betrays Marty, you know, and then Marty finally gets his chance and then it all falls apart. It’s like, I think that was the first time I was like really disappointed, you know.

Yeah, Marty was not the most reliable in the early 90s. haven’t watched it but as we talking about Dark Side of the Ring beforehand, I assume that’s one of the episodes. Yeah, it’s a bit of a grim watch, I’m assuming.

Kenny Mac (04:16.718)
It’s like…

Kenny Mac (04:25.548)
Yeah, it’s like stories like that. we have betrayal, you and then you’re hoping that, you know, they finally get their hands on whoever it was and they just, you just want them to just start beating them and just stand above them with their hands raised. And you don’t always get that.

then you come back next week to find out what the next story is. Gladiator’s been the big film at the moment, Gladiator 2. It’s very gladiatorial where you’re just sitting there and you’re supporting the underdog or your favourite to win these fights, to win these battles. Even though it is predetermined and all that kind of stuff that goes with it, you still, I find anyway that I’m still getting drawn in after 25 years. I’m still finding myself invested in these stories, invested in my favourites and I want to see them succeed.

I find it little bit more now in this scene, Scottish scene that I’m wholly invested in, that I start to get invested with people as well, and seeing them grow and then maybe move on to WWE or that, that’s a cool thing that goes with it. Yeah, it’s just very, very simple, very easy, good over evil, sports super heroes, Marvel, DC, all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, because I’ll show my age now. The first wrestler I was ITV World of Sports Wrestling. That’s the wrestling I grew up with. So the giant haystacks, Big Daddy, how many different people played Kendo Nagasaki? I completely forgot. And I remember them actually coming up to Stornwick. Kenny, are you old enough to remember that? Giant haystacks and that being up here.

I think it might have been just a wee bit before.

Cal (06:11.96)
for my town. do remember going to Stardeway town hall and giant haystacks was in the building. which brings us out to like, so probably the main thing and the main wrestling promotion, the daddy of them all, the WWE and it’s kind of been in the spotlight forever. Can you just give us a little bit of a, background on the WWE, like how that came to be?

Well, as in how the promotion started or how I got into it. The McMahon documentary will help a lot with the actual inception of the age or what have you. yeah, was a worldwide wrestling federation owned by Vincent J. McMahon and then was eventually bought by his son, Vincent Kennedy McMahon. And then he bought everyone and just ran everywhere.

Probably both I would say.

Billy S (07:00.558)
Yeah, it became this worldwide phenomenon. WCW was also kicking about which had a little bit of 83 weeks beat them in ratings and then they got bought because they kept overspending and not delivering and I don’t know how you bought them and they had no competition until what five years ago AEW came around. TNA wasn’t really competition as much as I loved it.

early T &A was brilliant.

Yeah man, 2004 the wrestling channel, watching Turning Point, seeing Elix Skipper walk the cage. Oh man, that was my first TNA pay-per-view that I got to see. I have it on VHS somewhere and my parents laughed because I taped it. It was just phenomenal. Me getting involved with it, 99, my first memory as Undertaker burning Mr. McMahon’s prize childhood teddy bear in a referral match with Kane.

That was my first memory, nine years old, terrified and yeah I still can’t come back and here I am 25 years later still watching wrestling and still enjoying it as well.

Yep. And also for the people watching, and there’s also the different eras. Because I think my era that I grew up with, was WWF was kind of Hulk Hogan and Warrior. And so there’s been a few different eras. you just give us a, kind of, just so we’re intending this to be like a little primer on wrestling for anyone who’s interested. you’ve got the different eras of the WWE.

Billy S (08:30.734)
So the basic ones, the ones that people refer to, Golden Era would be where you were a Hulk Hogan savage warrior, all that kind of stuff. And then you moved into the New Gen era, which was more about wrestling, like your Bret the Hitman heart, your Shawn Michaels, pretty much smaller guys because there was a big steroid scandal that took all the big beefy lads away. What was after New Gen? So New Gen, it went into Action Era, which is where a lot of people will know about wrestling, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, all that kind of stuff. And that went into 2002.

There’s one in 2002 which was Ruthless Aggression. That’s when you got the likes of Brock Lesnar, Kurt Angle properly got going, John Cena debuted, Randy Orton, Batista, the OVW class came through. So Ruthless Aggression. And then I started getting a bit hazy because it kind of all merged into one. would say maybe PG Era came in after that. And then where are at now? The Renness?

I

Billy S (09:26.818)
Renaissance era. think it was the last two years since Cody Rhodes came back. So that was in your bloodline kind of stuff happened. So we’re in the Renaissance era apparently, or people refer to it as the Triple H era because Triple H is now running the show and now that Vince McMahon is no longer active, whether he wants to be or not, there’s always rumors and rumblings he’s going to create a new promotion with Jack and Hookers and then forget about wrestling.

Ha ha.

But yeah, it’s had a few changes and like I I came in the actual era, so I’ve seen it kind of go from wild, just cat fights, the MTV kind of atmosphere to what it is now, which is like feels like a legitimate kind of business era instead where they’re making money and like ratings are through the roof for their pay-per-views or PLEs, what they’re called now. So they’ve went through quite

few drastic changes for good and for bad, for bad reasons, but ultimately it’s still wildly profitable. Some people are baffled as to why, but it is. It’s still wildly profitable.

Well, when you was at the clash at the castle I looked at baby going to and I saw the ticket prices like I could explain a lot of the profitability the ticket prices were job dropping for that.

Kenny Mac (10:42.016)
Also I think with Triple H and Charge doing the crossover with TNA helps a lot. Like, five years ago that was not even a possibility with Vince and Charge. yeah.

Vince wanted a piece of everything. Everything had to be WWE. That had to be the top dog. you’re like TNA, you’re crossing over NXT and TNA is actually getting wins over NXT talent, which is not something that you’d ever see under Vince. It’d have to be WWE wins, always.

Yeah, so it’s probably the, I would say it’s the best time to actually get into it.

Yeah, cause, um, sorry, sorry, I’m cutting you off there, but I think that’s also a problem. folk have, want to get into it’s like, if you’re in the middle of a storyline, you can get lost. But then I say, well, that’s like just getting into a soap, isn’t it? A lot of it is kind of soap-like, but there’ll be another story starting somewhere else and you can, I know that kind of puts folk off like, oh, they’re in the middle of a story and I don’t know what’s happening here.

Yeah, I would say if you’re going to do a starter for anyone to get involved, start Royal Rumble. Royal Rumble is the best place to start. Not only because it’s generally the start of WrestleMania seasons, so you get to get the story from Royal Rumble to WrestleMania, which is nice and easy to digest, but Royal Rumble is so easy to get.

Billy S (12:00.206)
invested in finding characters, I’ve used invested a lot so far, to find out characters, to find out who they are, to find out a little bit about them in the ring kind of thing. There’s two Raw Rumbles now, there’s Raw Rumble and a Mence, so you get two, 30 people, 30 wrestler Rumbles to get to know 30 characters that you can maybe find a favourite. you like, for whatever reason, say like, I’ll call him Rose because he’s the champion so he probably won’t be in it. Kevin Owens, he comes out with the cut off.

t-shirt and the shorts and just looks mean, fantastic. You’ll be on SmackDown, go watch SmackDown, you might see what he’s doing. Randy Orton, you see Randy Orton. 2025 is perfect actually because John Cena’s last full year, full year as a wrestler and he’s retiring at the end of 2025. So that’s an easy way to digest and get into it because you know John Cena or The Rock as well. The Rock’s probably gonna be a bang for WrestleMania seasons. That’s, if anyone…

asks me what show you should go to if it’s local as well find a rumble. Rumble is your best bet to start because it’s easy to know the rules you throw it over both feet hit the floor and then you get maybe find a favourite at the same time and you know who you want to see in the next show you go to.

I would say probably the Raw after WrestleMania as well would be a good time. that’s where, because Mania is usually when the big storylines end and then Raw, you know, got returns, you got, know, call-ups and then you get the new storyline starting there.

Yeah. Yeah.

Cal (13:35.348)
Saying that, like, kind of made me briefly, it was something I kind of noticed when I was researching a wee bit. Scotland, like, kind of really over-represents in WWE. The size of cut, we’ve exported quite a lot of talent there, haven’t we?

bad. we’ve had Drew McIntyre, of course, being the most famous example. We’re still claiming Roddy Piper, even though he’s Canadian. Exactly. Close enough. He learned bagpipes. That’s more than I’ve done as a Scotsman. At the moment we’ve got Wolfgang and the Coffey brothers, Mark and Joe Coffey. That’s there in NXT, same with Noam Dar. We’ve got Mickey Cross, part of the Wyatt Six. We’ve got Alba Fire, Isla Dawn. I’m going to forget somebody and it’s going to be really…

I mean, he wears a shirt. He’s Scottish.

Kenny Mac (14:19.265)
another

of course, I think of Piper, damn it. And then we’ve got Joe Hendry as well who crossovers with TNA. So that’s 10 to start off with, which is bad. And you think of the guys that came through NXT UK but didn’t jump over. had Kenny Williams as well. was through NXT UK. We’re exporting some of the best wrestlers in the world. That’s mental. Especially the size of our country.

as well.

Cal (14:47.778)
Yeah. And yet it doesn’t seem to get any major coverage in the media over here, which is crazy as well. You think it’s like, say we’re part of this big multi-million, you know, we usually like to big that up with Scott’s, but again, I think it’s just, there is a bit of a smootishness towards wrestling still.

so yeah I mean during Clash of the Castle weekend there was loads of stuff for Drew but there wasn’t an awful lot you know it was STV and we’re doing some bits and pieces but didn’t really do much much else and I think that’s kind of what focused me in beginning what I do for the Scottish Wrestling Network because I’m like my god is anyone else seeing this like I’ve got I’ve got a lot of people I’m Isa pretty much I’ve got a lot of people know that

what’s happening here, what’s happening in this country because it’s bloody good. People should go see it and people should know more about it. it’s, yeah, it’s mad. remember in the WrestleMania after Drew won the WWE title against Brock Lesnar, there was like a round table because I think at that point there were six Scottish champions in WWE, which like how is of all the titles that WWE have.

there’s a good percentage they’re all held by Scots, which is just amazing as a proud countryman.

And just off the back of that, this is a viewer question we had in the run up. It’s from Graham McPherson and he’s asking, has there been a tangible upsurge in the interest of the Scottish wrestling scene on the back of all those names you just mentioned? Do you think that’s boosted the Scottish wrestling scene here?

Billy S (16:23.022)
Absolutely. I had a conversation with someone earlier about this and I honestly think without Drew coming back, like when he got fired in 2014 and he returned to ICW and then with ICW documentary, I think the second one came out just after that. So the ICW documentary of BBC was like the first proper like boom mainstream follow and then with Drew…

came back in 2014, the second Fight Club documentary happened and it was like, yeah Scott, why would you come back? You could literally have done anything at that point but you went back to his roots and kind of dragged the independent scene up with them, whether they wanted to or not. I mean some promotions still don’t want to come up but Drew itself just went right you, I’m taking yous, I’m going to make everyone money.

and we’re gonna all have a good time and he went worldwide, he the IWW title a world title because he defended it in Asia and Europe and the Americas and stuff like that and without him realistically I don’t think Scottish Wrestling got to where it was like 6,000 people at the hydro and stuff like that without what Drew did in my opinion. People could say I’m wrong but in my opinion without Drew Scottish Wrestling wouldn’t have made it as mainstream as it had.

So Drew has been a major force the last few years. I remember when he came in to WWE and he did not look any different than so many other wrestlers. And then after he left, it’s just amazing what he’s done, what he’s achieved. And then when he came back to WWE, it’s, yeah, would, yeah, probably-

Yeah, probably like the most important Scottish wrestler ever. You know, with what he’s done for the country. know, every Scottish promotion. Which I didn’t realize there were so many.

Billy S (18:23.15)
You could say there’s too many.

Yeah, well, saying that, do you think at some point we might get a bit of an emerging of these independent promotions or there might be a single like, this is the big Scottish one?

No, from my experience and nobody agrees with each other in Scotland, I think, with how to run things and that’s probably with the biggest sticking point because everybody wants a piece of the pie. That’s it. There’s a big pie going and everyone wants a slice but as everyone wants a slice, the pieces get smaller. you do get like there’s shows, multiple shows every weekend. I mean, I think at one point last year, there was three promotions within like a 20 mile radius of each other running and which is

Like, I looked at that when I do my old calendar and I go, that’s mad. Why are people doing this? But no, there’s nobody, it’s never going to happen. Unless some big money bags come in and unless Vince comes back over, comes back over, comes over to Scotland and goes, right, I’m going to buy Scotland and then he just merges everything. I still don’t think that would even happen. I think once he does that, there’ll be another promotional pop-up going, I’m running a show myself in this community hall here. No, it’ll never happen. Nobody.

No promotions, particularly promoters like each other. I mean, they probably do, some do, but generally across the board, promotions like to do, they think they’re doing the right thing. And if an hour promotion comes in and goes, this is, hey, I think this is the right thing. go, no, you’re wrong. This is the right thing. And that’s just, that’s how it happens.

Cal (19:58.284)
Yeah, because that would it’s another one of Grimm’s questions there is he was asking are there any Scottish promotions that look like reaching the heights ICW did with that sellout show

Maybe not the height of ICW, because that was just lightening a bottle. I think it was down to rightly or wrongly how people feel about Mark Dallas. He’s a hustler. He made sure he had ICW at the forefront of people’s minds. If you saw him or if you were in his kind of airspace, you knew about ICW and they took risks.

very bold risks which I don’t think you maybe get away with nowadays with the more coarser language and everyone’s offended at anything these days on the internet so there’s that as well. So I would love to, I would love to see that and I think if there is a promotion that has a chance it’s probably like a Discovery Wrestling mainly because they’re Edinburgh, they’re owned by Joe Hendry primarily. He bought the company in the last year into this year and he took a show to Germany.

November ran a show in Germany sold out it wasn’t the six thousand numbers but it still they sold out on a Wednesday night in Germany off the back of his name alone kind of thing because I think there was only maybe three matches announced very last minute and it sold out by that point anyway. I would like to say like places like Community Pro Wrestling, Ravy Davies on TikTok he’s quite he gets quite a good following on TikTok he’d probably be bold enough to do it whether the tickets would match six thousand I don’t know I think he’d be one that would go

Yeah, we’ll give it a go kind of thing. But there’s plenty of promotions. mean, WrestleZone up in Aberdeen, my famous, where I primarily go because I’m up in the Northeast, they used to run the Beach Ballroom and it used to get over thousand people, thousand, 1200 people for their kind of annual Wrestlemania-esque show. So there’s still promotions that are doing big, good sized crowds. I would love to say that, yes, this promotion will do 6,000, but I think we’re in a change in time where

Billy S (21:55.906)
where that might not happen. I’m happy to be proved wrong, so I’m happy to eat my humble pie for promotion control 6000 again.

Yeah, that happened. know, like Scottish promotion just, you know, just becoming big enough to do those type of crowds, you know? Yeah.

one thing

Cal (22:18.862)
I was also going to mention the other thing I noticed about WrestleZone and myself and Kenny talking, they seem to attract some fairly big guests at times. Because I remember, I think it was myself and Kenny, I don’t know where we were, but when I was looking at my phone, because I follow WrestleZone, I said, look, this guy’s coming. I was gangrel when he came up. And Kenny, you’re going to the floor for that.

Yeah.

Yeah, they hit a good mix. I mean, they haven’t had a big guest in a number of years, like pandemic and all that kind of stuff. So they took them a little while before they got like a proper big name again, outside of relying on their own core talents and Scotch talents. But yeah, Gangrel being announced, that was amazing. So was so excited because that’s my proper kind of era. I got into WrestleZone 2013 was my first WrestleZone show and it was Hux, Odin, Dugan and Billy that was announced for it.

Yes, I heard that gasp. I wasn’t even that excited for Hacksaw Jim Duggan but Billy Gunn, was like, yeah, I’m going to see Billy Gunn in Aberdeen. The show itself blew me away and having Billy Gunn and Jim Duggan on it was just like icing on the cake. It was just perfect. Beach ballroom, a thousand people, all shouting ho. Which thankfully Kyle will know that that is not a derogatory term. yeah, was all shouting ho and it was just so amazing.

Oh, it was just an amazing night. then since then, I’ve went to every Aberdeen Anarchy since then. So once a year I went and I’ll go to the Rumble show or go to their Battle of Nations show. I’ll try and hit, I’ll try at least hit their big ones because, you know, financially and just life itself means I can’t go to every single show. I try to at least hit a few rest of the shows during the year because they’ve provided such good entertainment for me.

Billy S (24:02.348)
Yeah, just like that Scotty Hottie was there a year against Grado. I mean we were mentioning guys that are making the mainstream Grado. Yeah, Drew definitely pushed it properly. Grado was on the ground kind of getting people buzzed about going to wrestling shows because of his proper comedic act of people, the every man kind of thing. yeah, wrestling. I’ll pick them up more because I don’t do enough of that on own podcast. no, I’ve had X-Pac, I’ve had Rikishi.

Polina, Hornswog, Santino and Chavo Guerrero. It’s just like once a year people can go, look at that guy, I remember him. And then you go to a show and then hopefully you get hooked back in to come back next month. That’s the beauty of these kinds of shows that you get the big name in and then it’s the rest. up to everyone else to make sure that they come back.

Yeah.

Yeah, because that is the one thing I have been to one or two Wrestle Shows because I did used to live in the area before I moved back to the islands and What I loved about WrestleZone was they did have that Northeast flavor to everything. It so they didn’t just try and be American try to be American which Scots and a lot of things to try to be when they’re in that but they just kept the kind of Northeast character and flavor to it which I really appreciated

Absolutely, yeah.

Cal (25:20.108)
You hear them talking to the crowd and you’re hearing North East accents and Doric words in there and I just aww that’s ca-

Dafty Shanks and all that of stuff. Well, Dafty is more a central belt thing. do get like that one chant at the moment going around is Brian Tucker and it’s Wally. And we just all shout Wally at him. And then he created a tag team with Reece Dawkins and they called themselves the Warriors against Little Life Entities. And then that just made it even more hilarious because now there are Wallys and it’s just like, it’s so simple. Wrestling is so simple to get people to enjoy. That’s why I’m like baffled by no-

why there isn’t such a big thing because it’s just really easy to digest.

Yeah. And I was just going back to Graeme’s question there, you know, about the Scottish stars and he’s asking do the established international stars give back to the local scene? I think you kind of brushed on it a bit there.

Drew’s very good at doing that, especially with things for Clash of the Castle. There’s a company in Glasgow called Iron Gurnars and it’s primarily run by BT Gunn and Casey, but it’s actually part owned by Wolfgang, who’s an NXT. And he’s always kind of trying to give back and pass back some knowledge and all that kind of stuff from what I hear anyway. And the fact that he…

Billy S (26:41.966)
along with the Kofi brothers were actually the Rocks training partners for his WrestleMania match this year. It just goes to show that if anyone else maybe could have went, I’ve trained with the Rock, why am going to bother with speaking to the trainees in Glasgow? And the fact that they’re still giving back, they’re still doing seminars, they’re still doing as much as they can to keep the Scottish scene as strong as possible because without that before them, they wouldn’t be in that position. So they’ve got to kind of…

making sure that Scottish scenes are high standard, at high level in order for more Scots to take over WWE and eventually we’ll just take over the whole lot. There’ll be Americans, be the novelty on these shows. We’ll there to do a dafty chance and shout baldy at everyone and all that.

Sorry, just going through the questions again. Do you think Joe Henry can win the big one and he’s put some brackets? Obviously winning obviously meaning the Eurovision Song Contest not the WWE

I’m very curious to see what his Eurovision remix of… I think I spoke to a couple of times, I’ve had him on the podcast, I’m very lucky that way. But what I’ve got from Joe is he will try it, he will at least do it, you know? He might not come out looking silly at the other end, but to be honest, what…

Yes.

Billy S (28:03.534)
What about wrestling isn’t silly, it’s folk fighting over a belt. You know, it’s just ridiculous. I want to hear it. Eurovision is camp as it is and I don’t know if they’re ready for what Joe would do for them. As far as him in 2025, he’s already kind of teased the potential Royal Rumble appearance and I I blow my mind because that’s, I stay up for two events without a doubt every year because I’m old now.

I’m 34, I don’t stay up past midnight if I can absolutely avoid it. I’ll stay up for the Royal Rumble and I’ll stay up for WrestleMania. I have to do that twice because it’s a two night affair which is very irritating for me. They’re now running on Saturdays so I’ll take that. Yeah, think, I don’t know about Eurovision but I think if Joe Hendry gets a good reaction at the Royal Rumble, if he’s in it, I think we’re in for very special time and I would love to see what his WrestleMania entrance would be if he gets the freedom to do it.

Yeah. If he is in the rumble, I’m going to drop whatever name I want to win. And I’ll be like, Joe Henry, you better win this. You better win this.

Yeah, it’ll like a year. A year the, um, Drew one when Edge returned after like 10 years. I was sitting there going, Oh no, no, my pick of Drew might be a bit wavy now that Edge is back.

Yeah, just to hear his music in the Rumble match would just be amazing. The Rumble has always been my favourite of the Big Four. Just to hear him, yeah, that would be amazing.

Billy S (29:46.072)
You just like, it has to happen now.

and then if he actually manages to win it.

just be like, what the hell’s going on? What timeline are we living in when a TNA wrestler wins the rumble?

Yeah.

Billy S (30:03.956)
I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about that. That’s… Max. I don’t even know who… man, Joe Henry Gunther. Give me some of that. Yeah.

I’d say that I think we have to address obviously like I don’t know we call this an elephant in the room or a whole stampede like the name Vince we keep bringing this up and I know some of you commercial we scout who’s this Vince fellow there was obviously a recent documentary series just came out so I wouldn’t mind you what was your opinion on the Netflix show?

No, it’s really bad. None of it came as a shock to me. It was the worst thing.

Yeah.

everything we already knew about.

Cal (30:46.456)
Just basically for those, Vince McMahon is the owner and is he still the owner? he still?

So TQO owns the WDB now and it’s like a sub-brand of TQO. So I think Nick Cannon is your kind of big head honcho for the W side of things.

If for some reason you’re listening to this and you are curious to learn about Vince there is another podcast I recommend. don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Do know the Behind the Bastards podcast?

heard of it. Yeah.

Yeah, they announced we’re doing a show on Vince McMahon and they said they got overwhelmed with the responses and they recorded, I think it’s like seven three hour episodes going into the awfulness of this man. It is like they they just and they still only scratched the surface of some really appalling things which we won’t get into too much but there’s a lot out there. But that’s the one if you are morbidly curious about this guy.

Kenny Mac (31:31.224)
Yeah.

Cal (31:45.278)
listen to that they go they do cover a lot and it’s it is quite horrible at times because that is the other side of wrestling that is a very as we mentioned there is a dark side to it’s gonna

Yeah, I mean I like to my world positive, that’s why I don’t watch Dark Side of the Ring. It comes into my, like I said, the McMahon documentary, I’ve watched his 2003 DVD, have it somewhere, in the cesspit of wrestling memorabilia. But yeah, pretty much all of that was in this and then the only kind of extra bit was at the end with the current lawsuits and…

I’ve got to the word allegations in just in case for whatever reason WWE lawyers are listening to us, which everyone should be listening to us, so they should be. But yeah, I think that’s the weirdest thing is like, watched it and just kind of felt nothing for it because I’ve heard about it and I’ve known about it for years all through, which makes it even worse, I think, the fact that all these things compiled and are horrific. And I’m still watching WWE and I still watched it during that time and I still consumed it.

bought merch I still did that so I mean it makes you feel a bit dirty watching it and not in a good way and you just like you’re just like yeah but I’m still gonna watch next pay-per-view I don’t I can’t stop myself at this point

I remember.

Cal (33:09.23)
carry on, Kenny.

I remember watching it and I was just thinking back to all the things that I’d heard Vince had come up with as storylines and I was like, they aren’t going into this, they aren’t going into that and like, this is supposed to be a documentary to pretty much, you know, get into Vince’s true self really. know, like all the nasty stuff that he’s done. Yeah, they aren’t talking about that and…

When they were talking about the Sable lawsuit and he was like, I don’t remember that. like, how do you not remember being sued for a essay and all that? And it’s like, yeah, it’s…

I dropped, I knew it wasn’t going to be as what I was hoping it was going to be at end of the first episode when they approached, talked to him about his stepfather abusing him and then he shut off the conversation from that point. I thought, well, we’re not going to get anything that I don’t already know now because they’ve approached a story which nobody really knows about. Nobody really knows the details of it. And then he automatically just shut off the question kind of thing. You’re thinking, well, that’s just going to be a

WWE promotion piece and then at the end, it’ll just do the bit. there’s that’s my allegations. Vincent won’t come back for any more of it. All right. Cool.

Cal (34:32.428)
Yeah, because I think the last episode was like, there was a lot of, well, he’s a bit, but he was good to me. So who’s to say, you know, even though there’s like, crikey, there’s mountains against the sky out there.

Yeah, mean, it’s all the same now. Even we had speaking out in the UK 2020, during the pandemic and it changed nothing, really. mean, there’s some places stopped using some people, but they still work. So it’s just the way the world, unfortunately, people get away with it. I the US have a president that’s a felon. Try and make sense of the world when we’ve got that kind of thing actually happening in real life. know, it’s just…

It’s a terrifying time to be a human, especially to be a woman or anyone who thinks they’re not, thinks otherwise about what their gender specifics are and stuff like that. It’s terrifying time. Anyway, we probably go into some of positive stuff. I think I’ve moved you into a sack of negativity.

Yeah, I was going to say that that’s the one thing probably to address is the WWE’s treatment of women has come quite a long way from even just the attitude area. There are some very questionable things, but I think it is now a case where women wrestlers are there for their talent.

Absolutely. You see the wrestlers at war games, there’s almost 10 distinct wrestlers, all 10 characters have different things that they bring to the table. Of course, Rhea Ripley is the woman of the moment right now, but that’s not because of, I mean, obviously her looks have helped, but generally when you see a wrestler, she wrestles like a wrestler, you know? It’s just wrestling nowadays, it’s not, that’s a woman wrestler doing women wrestling, no, no, it’s wrestling. That’s it, full stop at the end.

Cal (36:20.526)
And you think like stuff like, know you’re not a fan of this one Kenny, but like the movie, like fighting with family and all that, that’s helped boost wrestling’s image a wee bit. Because that was a bit more of a positive story about a wrestler.

be honest I didn’t watch it

You know, all right. I didn’t know. All right.

I don’t really like… I watched the Von Erich movie

Please please look for suppose

Kenny Mac (36:46.222)
I I know. I’ll be quick.

I cried. I don’t cry in any film. I cried.

Yeah.

I just want an uplifted phone

uplifting but I’d rather watch documentaries over films you know like if the film was like Iron Claw you know I’ve been thinking of this a heart family movie would be good which I think it might be doing

Billy S (37:10.574)
I’d be very curious to see how that goes if they do. Because they’ve got a lot of hard stuff to tackle. My problem with Fighting With The Family was it’s inaccurate and that’s really irritated me about it. Not so much the linear story itself. I’ll take that for what it is. It’s when they do things like go to the performance set and I’m like, that never happened. The logos are out of date. The belts are out of date. Zlida Vega played A.G. Lee. Wrong attire.

It was like all that kind of stuff just irritated me throughout. But what it did give me, it would give people something to go, okay, I’ll give wrestling a go, that sounds interesting. fine, we’ll put the door there. But at the same time, I was just furious watching it. But I did get to discover the amazing talents of Florence Pugh, who is just an incredible actress. So, I’ll take that positivity out of it. also, what’s the name? Nick Frost was a fantastic, cricky knight.

That was like, they couldn’t have gotten better casting if they tried with that one. It was just amazing. But speaking of wrestling films, The Wrestler, 2008, you see that one?

Yeah.

I’ve not seen it yet.

Billy S (38:18.444)
It’s not a fun film either, but it’s not as sad as Ironclaw.

But it’s got some moments where you feel like you are actually watching wrestling, you know, and that’s what a wrestling movie needs to be.

Yeah, which I will say going back to Iron Claw, like the wrestling scenes are incredible in that film. It’s just the fact it’s such a depressing film overall. You will not feel uplifted by that film very much.

know what the worst bit is? They took stuff out. They took a whole brother out who also, we’re using modern day terms now, unalived himself. They missed that out entirely, which I think was for the best because I was already in tears as it was. The worst bit I found was, hang on a moment, was their oldest brother, Jack, when they meet him at the end, like in Valhalla kind of thing. He was a spitting image, he is a spitting image, the actor of my son, and he’s called Jack. And I was like…

not.

Billy S (39:15.566)
That’s it, I’m done. I’m going to watch to the end but I’ve never watched this film again. This is way too depressing for me. I think I’m just going to grab a lie down after this.

Cal (39:29.717)
So like trying to get it back in its positive too. Well, obviously we mentioned you’re the host of the Scottish Wrestling Network podcast. So a wee bit about how that got started and how it’s going for you now.

What it is now is because I had nothing to write about or get results for during a pandemic and I thought, else is doing podcasts, I’ll do one too. That’s kind of how it really started. But I’ve been trying to do it for years. I’ve been trying to set up a podcast, but my first thought was I’m too anxious to contact people for this. Because what if they’re busy? Then that’s just essentially them going, no, I don’t want to speak to you. In my head, I’m like, well, no, I’m not doing this anymore.

Yeah, it’s just never the time never happened. And then I’ve got the equipment, had the equipment in my house because I’ve worked from home. So I had a bit more extra equipment lying around that I could do it. And then I contacted, I tried to make a professional wrestling podcast. So I’d be half an hour, we’d speak about the person’s career in the wrestling world, know, the in character stuff that got chucked out about episode three. then

I’m now on episode 330 something and I’m just very thankful that people still want to speak to me after this time. So I did interviews with Scottish wrestlers of all experience. So maybe people that are just coming out of schools, maybe are just coming to have one or two matches, maybe they haven’t even had a match yet. And then I was just getting, I somehow stumbled upon bigger guests like…

Joe Hendry, I Joe on within 50 episodes, which I know how happened. I just pestered him. got Grado on and got it. And then with that, it helped with the website, kind of came up. I changed the name of it. It used to be OSW TV, because that’s how I started everything as, because I was part of a group on Bebo, which is a whole different story, but we’ll keep the podcast stuff. Yeah, so I got that and then I just started getting cheekier.

Billy S (41:23.574)
and end up on the TNA press pass stuff and end up asking a question to Will Ospreay and Alex Shelley and all this kind of stuff. And that kind of blossomed. I got Moose on the podcast to talk about stuff, which was hilarious because he doesn’t really remember coming over to Scotland. I at least have one question if I’m getting a guest outside of Scotland to at least tie it back into the theme of the niche that I created here, which was funny because I was like, dude,

Do you remember having this match here? And he was like, no, don’t really remember. And I was like, oh, no, OK. I was hoping that was five minutes. I’ve got to try and figure out something else now. But no, I’ve just been really lucky. think people somehow like me. And I don’t know how. They just keep agreeing to come back on. I haven’t had your humongous names on, but I’m certainly working to do that. But got Gradle, which possibly is the humongous name. I got Scotty Hottie. I was just more of a,

When Twitter had its or X had its DMs open, it was so much fun. It was so much easier that I would just like go, oh, Scotty Hottie’s on. He had a match in 2014 with Grado. That counts. And then, yeah, it took about three months to get Scotty, but it was just like, how has this happened? I don’t know how I’ve got him on. Same with Mike Mondo, who was my key in the Spirit Squad for old school Spirit Squad fans. I’m one of them. And yeah, it’s just, I’ve suddenly…

I go to shows, people know who I am, which is terrifying with someone who has tripling social anxiety. And I am a horrible person to meet in real life because I just like, this is a nice conversation. If we met in real life at Ocon, I would have very little to say because I’m like, oh no, I don’t have a safety net of my office here or a camera or anything like that. But no, I keep coming back and I’m probably into next year, early next year, I’ll hit 350 episodes and we’ve done

weird and wonderful things like we’ve done quizzes, I do an annual day of birth bonanza. was supposed to be called Billy’s birthday bash but in our podcast, the Scottish Wrestling Related, took that about a month before and I thought, oh well I can’t steal it now, I’ve got to make it something a bit more pretentious. We do that, we’ve started doing like movie episodes with wrestlers because there’s always so much we can speak about wrestling wise. So I’ve had Ian Skinner on, we’ve talked about Goldmember, Austin Powers film and Charging Troopers.

Billy S (43:46.057)
and coming up we’re going to speak about The Batman because he keeps insisting I watch it. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone. I thought it was absolute rubbish. We’ve done things like Guardians of the Galaxy with Alex Webb who’s quite a big YouTuber as well and it’s just yeah, I’ve made it a fun thing to do at eight o’clock in the evening every couple days just to get a wrestler on and just have a chat for about an hour and then even though our YouTube numbers aren’t great

They were and then the algorithms just kicked us out. My audio was fantastic. So I’m just taking that as the thought of they don’t want to see my face, but they like hearing their stories. So I will take that as positivity out of it. now I’ve four years I’ve done it and I’m still enjoying it. I’ll have an odd moment where I go, that’s it, I’m wrapping up at the end of the season. Yeah, I’m still making plans and I’ve already kind of booked half booked folk in for 2025 already. So I’m just like, it’s going to keep going until

I don’t say anything particularly scandalous online or do anything particularly like anything that will get me cancelled but I’m sure someone will find a reason and I’ll be cancelled by end of 2025. I’ll just run it until the wheels fall off.

Now I think one last question, I don’t know, this is directed probably at both of us, what would the costs, what are the costs involved in bringing a show to the Western Isles with some of bigger name indie workers? I wouldn’t have the first idea, you might have an inclination or?

No, not really. I’ve always wanted to, I’ve always had the idea, it never gets past a name of a show and bought my card at me. Like, because I was a kid who had wrestling figures as a jotter that would have all my champions and the pay-per-views, know. But, so I’ve always had like, I want to try it. But as far as Weston Isles, I’m terrible at geography, so I’m apologising in advance here. But the Combat League,

Billy S (45:35.726)
wrestling after Thurzo, they’ve done a couple shows when they were under their old name, which is Keith Ness Pro Wrestling. They did a couple shows in Orkney and they’ve tried to maybe get something going on the aisles and you know, just trying to get something going. I don’t think it turned out to be profitable enough for it to work. in that respect, I don’t think they’ll be able to get like a big import in, know, like, yeah, try to think of an example, like a grado, we’ll say grado. Grado is probably as good, I think.

Honestly, if someone set up a show and they could set up the travel, I Greedo would do it. So if someone’s got the money and the funds and the transport links to do it, I would think just for the thrill of being able to say that you’ve wrestled in these places and all that, I bet Greedo would probably do it. He would be trying to find the time for them. you know, would be… Because I remember I’m totally tangent. I’m sorry, Graeme, whoever asked this question. I’m just going to just ignore your question now.

But remember when Drew came back and he wrestled a show in Aberdeen and then think the end of that year he wrestled a show in Inverness and I was quote unquote security for his signing which is hilarious because I if anyone goes at Drew I am not doing a lot here to stop him. He’ll do more work than I will when it comes to stopping someone coming at him. And he was saying that yeah this was as far north as he’s been as Inverness for wrestling. So the fact that

K-Thes, sorry, Combat League are still operating. Pretty good show apparently, every couple months up in Thurso. mean, nothing’s impossible when it comes to wrestling. I don’t know the financial side of things, but I think if you’ve got the dream to do it and you think that you could sell enough tickets to break even at the very least, nothing’s impossible. Go contact your local community centre. Let’s see what you can get set up.

Yeah, because it’s like we said before, like we did have like Giant Haystacks and all that coming up. It wouldn’t be impossible to get like one of these independent promotions over. don’t think we could, like, and that was just, just sort of pre the world of sports. Once that had ended with Giant Haystacks was up here, which was still quite a big name at the time. It was like a household name back then. I couldn’t see why not. It’s just.

Cal (47:55.33)
Probably they’d just be saying, well, has anyone asked us to come over to the Western Isles? That’s probably the thing they’ll ask. They would say to us.

Because you see, there’s a breakneck comedy, Elprey’s House in an Aberdeen-ish area, and they bring up a lot of spoken word tours. And seeing the weird and wonderful places that these people are booked on. Karen Dunbar is booked in Granton Forest. It starts to sound like The Simpsons when they’re the monitor rail on the map. know, it’s that kind of thing where have these guests going, why are they there? Why are they going to Boat of Garten?

This is a weird thing. This is a weird lineup of towns. So I think, it’s a case of you don’t ask, don’t get, you know, it’s all about good me going, I’d love to book a show kind of thing. Well, I haven’t done the groundwork to do it. You know, I haven’t checked the cost of an area. haven’t checked a company to hire a ring. What would they want? If I hire a ring from that company, will they want a couple of their guys on the show? Which would make sense, you know, they’ve built a they could wrestle in the ring.

advertising costs, flyers, do do word of mouth, all that stuff. I’ve done none of it. So I have no idea what the financial side of it is, but it’s a case of if you want to do it, then price it. Try it.

Yeah, because I know like even Wrestle’s own day, I saw them was only one day was in Aviemore for the Thunder and the Glen and they were doing an open air show there that day. So like it shows even they’re willing to travel quite far for them to do a show here and there. it’s let’s say Graham butt heads with some because I know there is quite a lot of wrestling fans up here Kenny, isn’t there?

Kenny Mac (49:34.518)
Yeah, it always surprised me when I talk to someone I haven’t seen for a long time and they say they’re into wrestling, know, or just random, know, random people you meet and yeah, I’ve got a few wrestling t-shirts and anytime I have one on, especially like Mr. Perfect t-shirt, like I’ll…

talked to someone who’s around my age or like, I remember him, you know, like whatever happened to him. And it’s like.

Danny, you keep dragging this into some really dark subjects.

Yeah, we’re quite worried for you, Katie.

Well, he’s dead.

Kenny Mac (50:17.518)
It’s like, just that. Just start talking and Even just showing clips to my wee cousins and they’re just watching it. How are they doing that without hurting themselves? How are twisting their bodies like that?

I’m just like, I don’t know but it’s cool.

But yeah, I do think there would be an audience if there was a decent enough show. I do think we could pull something off. Again, maybe, Graeme, that could be something you could do for us. don’t know. we’ve managed to pull off a Comic Con up here, which I think that was pretty much against the odds. don’t think anyone thought you could have a Comic Con in Stornoway, so why not get a wrestling show up?

And you see these Comic-Cons in Glasgow and that, or even North East as well, because Comic-Con North East and Acti-Comic-Con, they’ve always got a wrestling ring, you know? Just get the Comic-Con up, get to… If you’re looking to maybe save a little bit on fuel and fare, Combat League over the… on the ferry over with their ring, then start with that and they’ll put on a… they’ll put a fantastic couple shows on, they’ve got a wild cast of characters that they can pull up on and…

All of us wrestlers are not, sorry I just called myself a wrestler there, is absolutely horrific. All of us wrestling fans and wrestlers are absolute nerds. So I bet if you set up a show that’s going have a ring at Con and you can contact a couple of wrestlers and go, would you like to wrestle at Comic Con? They’ll go, yes please. Yes, yes, I will do that. And then a booth, it could be whole thing. I’ve kind of made you try to do this now. Con, look forward to it.

Cal (52:08.002)
So obviously if it happens next year you can just walk in. Thank you. you. Exactly. You take all the credit for it.

I’ll host your panels if you’re doing any wrestling panels. I’m all in on this. I’m well for it.

All you ask is just, you get all the credit for everything?

I take, mean, I will even, as long as you pay me to get, as long you get me there, I will waive everything else. I will not charge a fee. just, you just get me there. I will do everything. me for a job now. Take me for a job now. Screw the podcast. We’re just going to talk about me getting work. Come on now. Let’s do this.

Well, I’ll just say watch the space then for the time being. Never know what can happen because, like I said, I’m pretty sure people thought you can have a comic con up here so having a wrestling show up, why not? Anything’s possible really. If enough people get together it can happen I think. So with that we are coming up, we’re right on the bang of the hour mark which is perfect so thank you very much for turning out Billy, it’s been great, it’s been a good laugh as well.

Billy S (52:59.95)
Absolutely.

Billy S (53:10.798)
Yeah. Thank you. Well, give me an hour to speak about wrestling and I’ll speak about wrestling for an hour. Don’t you, Winnie? But no, I’ve had an absolute blast. I feel like my accent’s gotten thicker as well as the hours go along. So I apologise to anyone listening to this and just hear me getting more chuchter as I go.

Well, I don’t know, are we the tukters or are you the tukter here? I don’t know that because whatever. Yeah, anyway, just so people know, we can define you.

I

Billy S (53:40.142)
to my home first of all that’s the first thing I ask. I’m mainly on, fortunately I’ve got a smartphone and I cannot stay off social media. If you look up at Scott Resnet that’s where I am most of on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, that’s where you’ll find me. Otherwise swnscotland.com that’s a website where I have daily match announcements for promotions in Scotland, results if I can find and get them, podcasts on YouTube.

Spotify, Apple Podcasts, pretty much if you put Scottish Wrestling into the Google machine you’ll probably find SWN in the first couple searches. If not, I’ve done something very worrying to my SEO. But no, if you want to know anything about Scottish Wrestling within reason give me a shout and I will hopefully have an answer for you.

And we’ll include all of these links in the description as well. So please go give Billy a follow on a listen and like review all that kind of good stuff as well and Like we usually end up asking our guests what they consider coming to Oak on but I think we’ve already got it

police.

Billy S (54:45.486)
I’m getting hired. I’ve accepted the booking already. But no, absolutely. I’ve never actually been to Comic Con. So I mean, wanted to go first, it’s going to be OCon. Oh well, I’ll take it.

Well, like I keep saying everyone, we’ll just watch this space. Kenny, have you any final thoughts there?

No, just, yeah, it was pretty heavy. Pretty talk.

Thanks.

And just for everyone to let you all know we now have an official Ocast WhatsApp group so head on in there and you will see announcements about upcoming guests and shows and you can leave your questions there and voicemails and if you want to send us a flying carrier pigeon all that kind of stuff you’re more than welcome to. Thank you everyone for tuning in again big big thanks to Billy for coming on the show it’s been fantastic loved it see you soon question mark

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