I Listen So You Don't Have To: Steve Austin Show Ep. 230

Austin is in listener Q and A mode this week
Photo Credit: WWE.com

If you're new, here's the rundown: I listen to a handful of wrestling podcasts each week. Too many, probably, though certainly not all of them. In the interest of saving you time — in case you have the restraint to skip certain episodes — the plan is to give the bare bones of a given show and let you decide if it’s worth investing the time to hear the whole thing. There are better wrestling podcasts out there, of course, but these are the ones in my regular rotation that I feel best fit the category of hit or miss. If I can save other folks some time, I'm happy to do so.

Show: Steve Austin Show — Unleashed
Episode: 230 (June 18, 2015)
Run Time: 1:55:26
Guest: None

Summary: Steve Austin is still on location filming Broken Skull Challenge. Between his actual open and a “true story” monologue, it takes nearly an hour before he gets to listener questions. Topics include life lessons, being a hermit, if he’ll finish his college degree, filming Recoil, superheroes, soft drinks and video games, The Walking Dead, life on the road, Rick Rude and tree huggers.

Quote of the week: “There’s some dumb motherfuckers in the world, Bruce, you got to understand that.”

Why you should listen: Austin is in full on “theater of the mind” mode for most of the first hour or so, and a handful of the listener questions are interesting enough to evoke the early days of the podcast when we were getting to know the person behind the persona. As stale as the Q-and-A shows can be, this one was, by and large, fairly refreshing.

Why you should skip it: The “true story” monologue, as it were, is quite unpleasant, at least to my ears, exacerbated by how long it drags on into the episode. There is very little wrestling talk, and what there is of that is rehashing old material.

Final thoughts: By now most listeners know what they’re getting into with an Austin listener question show, which leaves little room for my advice. They’re not for everyone, but they’re free. So if you have the time and you love you some old school Stone Cold, this is exactly what the doctor ordered.