Center Stage Chronicles Ep. #29: September 1991

Kris Zellner (0:30)

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Center Stage Chronicles, episode number 30

Kris Zellner joined, as always, on this show by my co-host and two of my favorite people in the world. Joined by, first of all, my birthday brother, and, man, we're going to have an interesting show this month, so I can't wait to get your thoughts on a lot of these things that's going on. My dear friend, Rob Naylor, Rob, welcome back.

Rob Naylor (0:57)

What up, how's it going?

Kris Zellner (1:00)

We're here. It's going great, I guess.

Yeah, and then the hardest working man in the wrestling internet, the man that runs the wrestling playlist newsletter, puts out amazing content, as does Rob with his amazing music videos, which is, what, 50 now, right, Naylor?

Rob Naylor (1:18)

You know, I said that the other day. I don't know, I don't do math too good. I just know that you look at the months, but then there's so many extra ones that I forget I even did. There's all these little extra ones. So yeah, probably over 50, so it's really good.

I got to just eventually sit down and watch them all, and just take a couple of hours.

Charles (1:42)

Yeah, as far as the total, you're not quite at my mother's age yet, but you're pretty close, so.

Rob Naylor (1:48)

Oh, there you go. That's nice.

Kris Zellner (1:49)

Well, they're a perfect compliment to the Rest In Playlist newsletter, and yes, we are joined by our dear friend, Charles. Charles, welcome back to the show.

Charles (1:58)

Thank you, Kris. Let's do some WCW.

Kris Zellner (2:02)

Yeah, this has been a tough week, and let's do something that's going to go back to some better days for us here as we go back to September 1991

And as we left off, WCW is in a state of flux still. You know, after Rick Flair has left, they've done all this, you know, cartoonish type stuff that Jim Hurd has wanted to implement. And we're at a period now in September where we've already started the whole gift box angle with Sting. And so Cactus Jack is back and Abdulla the Butcher is back. And we're gonna have the Clash of the Champions coming up. And we talked about this off the air and the show will, as it goes on, will, you know, talk more about it. But it seems like Naylor that this month here is like the beginning of a turnaround for WCW.

You know, as far as their presentation, as they kind of become more of, you know, I wouldn't say just a wrestling product, but they get, they start to get a little edge here. You know? Yeah.

Rob Naylor (3:23)

In real time watching it, I just remember, I just remember thinking like, it was just totally different, both federations. You know, you had Sid and Flair and the other one, and all the postscript of Summer Slam. Because Summer Slam is like the end of the road for one era, and then there's a whole other one. Exactly. Yes. And then Great American Batch was the end of the road for one era. But then there was like that buffer month in between with August, where there's like a whole lot of nothing kind of happening. And now September is where obviously stuff is going to get laid out, and we're going to add some new people and ingredients. And then October, it's even more ingredients, and then we're off to the races. But yeah, you're right. It's both companies are very much changing of the guard in a good way. Like as a kid, I remember I had a tape, like every, I had a tape. I had numerous tapes as a kid. And of course, since I'm fucking ADD-rific over here, I would just tape high spots. So like a tape of a tape of wrestling for me could be two years, or it could be like a month, depending on what I take. Because I would know when a big leg drop would happen. I would know when there's going to be a powerbomb. I would know when a finisher might be done. I was very not, I wasn't a big interview guy, but I, oddly enough, even pre-newsletters, I knew what good interviews were from bad interviews, because I have a lot of good interviews on tape, so I guess I just figured it out. But yeah, so like I just remember watching my September, the tape where September and October 91 were on, I would watch it a lot, because I like the angle with Vince and Macho and Flair and Piper and all that on the one show. Taker was getting in the mix.