Colt Cabana is the undisputed grandfather of the modern-day wrestling podcast format. Before Stone Cold, before Chris Jericho, Cabana took the traditional shoot interview format and modified it into a wrestler on wrestler weekly interview series that was a first of its kind back in 2010. Since the debut of Cabana’s The Art Of Wrestling, the AOW Format has been duplicated over and over as Cabana spent the better part of the decade interviewing wrestling's finest. Years after Cabana’s original podcast series came to an end, he has returned with another great podcast concept that is unlike what anybody else is doing in wrestling.
The new podcast from Colt Cabana, Wrestling Anonymous, is inspired by Chris Gethard’s “Beautiful Stories From Anonymous People”, and continues the legacy of quality podcasting laid down by the Art of Wrestling. It is an anonymous hot line show where anyone can call in and leave a message or send in an audio file of a wrestling-related story from their life. Examples have ranged from having to explain to your father why the phone bill was so expensive from WCW hotline calls, encountering Virgil and inevitably giving him money, Jerry Flynn liquor store sightings, Bobby Eaton showing off his drawings to a stranger in a hotel room, and even saving a life with the common ground of NJPW.
Cabana explains the idea and reason behind the new podcast on the first episode:
“Over ten years ago I started hosting the Art of Wrestling podcast, where I sat down with wrestler and wrestling personalities. I helped provide them with a voice, I shared their stories. As it grew in success, fans constantly reached out to me and asking if they could be on the podcast, asking to share their stories, but that was not what the Art of Wrestling was. But that is exactly what Wrestling Anonymous is. This is a hotline show, this is your show, this is your stories.”
Colt Cabana Changed Wrestling Podcasts
The original run of the Art Of Wrestling maintained its shoot-style interview format from 2010-2017, interviewing legends like Mick Foley, Terry Funk, William Regal, Roddy Piper, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and Johnny Saint among numerous others. During its time it also featured time-capsule interviews of contemporary wrestling favorites of the last decade such as Kenny Omega during his time living in Japan and wrestling for DDT, Kevin Steen (Kevin Owens) toward the end of his time on the indies contemplating retirement, PAC before his WWE run and his struggle with confidence, and CM Punk fresh off his run in WWE with a story to tell.
Beginning in 2018 Cabana changed the format that he had innovated, feeling he had exhausted it, and began the “Road Diary Series” still under the AOW banner in which he would record intimate backstage moments before and during shows. Essentially turning into a traveling audio blog of a modern-day independent wrestler until that series too did end in the winter of 2019. Cabana would briefly return to the classic format for one final run of ten or so interviews in 2020 before putting it back to rest for the time being.
Colt Cabana's Podcasts Stand Out In A Crowded Genre
With Wrestling Anonymous comes a completely different show injected into a world of very similar personality-based podcasts. Just as Stone Cold and Chris Jericho followed suit in 2013 others such as Renee Paquette have done the same since, and we now see the Jim Ross’, the Jim Cornettes, and the Arn Andersons of the world sharing a similar format as each other also. A variation of podcast that comes in other flavors like Jeff Jarrett, Kurt Angle, Tony Schiavone, Eric Bischoff, and let's not forget the short-lived E&C Pod of Awesomeness. Easy to see why an anonymous call-in show of crazy wrestler interactions and other stories of wrestling culture curated by the fun-loving Cabana finds a way to stand out.
Cabana has now brought to fans the wrestling hotline show they never knew they needed, and thus far it has been an undeniable hit. A simple, but effective idea that has legs to it for as long as wrestling fans have a story to tell and the courage to anonymously tell it. If readers have a story to tell of their own you can submit a story of your own, you can do so by calling into 87-CABANA-34 and leaving a message. Wrestling Anonymous can be found on iTunes, Stitcher, and anywhere else podcasts are found.