Just kidding, this is an hourlong podcast with “Bad Ass” Billy Gunn. About fourteen minutes into it I start trying to put my head through the computer monitor and die from blood loss.

But no, welcome to episode 2 of the (thankfully) ongoing With Leather pro wrestling podcast With Spandex. In episode 2 we go from pro wrestlers to people who write about them on the Internet and talk to David Shoemaker, “The Masked Man” of Deadspin’s Dead Wrestler Of The Week column and “David Shoemaker” of Grantland.com. We talk about our favorite and least favorite dead wrestlers, our experiences at WrestleMania 28 and the upcoming WWE Extreme Rules pay-per-view. It’s gonna be extreme~!

You can listen to the podcast below. We’ll have it up on iTunes as soon as they stop finding reasons to turn it down.

A direct link to the podcast for your downloading pleasure: Click here.

Your likes, comments, shares and plus-whatevers are greatly appreciated. Worst case scenario, let’s hear your early predictions for Extreme Rules. It’s gonna be EXTREMELY RULED.

Last month, I introduced you to Celebrity Guest Dugout Week, a week full of Dugouts written by the biggest and brightest names in sports journalism. Well, there ended up only being one, by Bill Simmons of Grantland.com.

I was disappointed in the turnout (Peter Gammons didn’t return my calls, the guy who runs Bleacher Report just snail mailed me a box of crayon drawings and Spiffy Sean Styles of Lethal Entertainment is horrible), so I called Simmons up and asked him to find me another guest writer. After a four hour phone conversation wherein he compared his wife and kids to Kevin McHale, we found our next author — American poet and novelist Charles Bukowski. His unique brand of transgressive fiction and dirty realism is perfect for my webcomic about baseball players cursing, and here we are.

Today’s Dugout follows. People are finally going to start taking us seriously.

[editors note: Today's Dugout is actually guest written by a good friend of mine, Mr. William Hanstock of Progressive Boink and Baseball Feelings fame. Be sure to follow him on Twitter, or at least let him know what you think.]

[secondary editor's note: Today's Dugout about how nobody talks about the Angels was written before the Angels decided to pitch a g.d. no hitter.]

Read the rest of this entry »

Today on With Leather: I wanted to call it “Celebrity Dugout Week!” or “Guest Dugout Week!” but I’m always swamped on Mondays, and I’m not sure how many readers would buy Wednesday to Tuesday as a legitimate theme week. Anyway, welcome to Celebrity Guest Dugout Week!

Today’s comic is by “That Sports Guy!” Bill Simmons, of ESPN and Grantland.com fame. Simmons is an incredible talent and the only person in the history of sports journalism to have seen movies or watched TV shows. Can you imagine Peter Gammons dropping “I Love Lucy” references into his columns? “Vlad Guerrero hacked at the ball like Ethel Mertz desperately stuffing chocolates into her mouth to keep the chocolate factory from firing her.” It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for anybody else!

Enjoy the strip, which we hope to be the first of many. The first of many, or the first part of one really, really long one.

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Sports (mostly)

LeBron Congratulates the Mavericks - Whoever wrote this did a really good job! [Sportress of Blogitude]

This Week in F**k You: Footnotes - This is how big of a dork I am: the article references David Foster Wallace’s footnotes, and my only frame of reference for them is Dave Barry. You’re ripping off Dave Barry, Bill Simmons! What’re you gonna do next, write 20,000 words about boogers? [Kissing Suzy Kolber]

The Best and Worst of WWE All-Star Raw 6/13 - I had my first ever Podcast interview last night with TH’s The Wrestling Blog, and if I learned nothing else, it’s that I should stick to writing paragraphs and not try to talk to people about things in real life. I am a rambling interrupting machine! [With Spandex]

TNA Wrestler Qualifies for Food Stamps - and about 3/4 of the roster can qualify for disability, what’s your point? Jesse Neal should qualify for being a professional wrestler by being better at wrestling professionally. Shannon Moore has like eight houses, and he’s terrible. [Camel Clutch Blog]

Not Sports (but oh man)

The Kate Upton Guide To Becoming An Internet Sensation By Your 19th Birthday - Whoops, here’s Kate Upton again, because I don’t have any qualifiers or precedent for who gets to be my Morning Links Lovely Lady of the Bottom Half. Also, every time I post a link about her, I’ve got an excuse to Google image search the sh** out of her. [Next Round]

Good For Health, Bad For Careers: A Gallery Of Careers That Suffered From Sudden Weight Shifts - Already getting tired of seeing people refer to Fat Joe as “Not So Fat Joe!” As someone who has lost 100 pounds in his life (twice, nearly) I appreciate rappers getting in shape, and D’Angelo looking like Kimbo Slice. [Smoking Section]

Scene Breakdown: Cool As Ice - Good for health, bad for careers: signing up to be in a movie with Vanilla Ice. I think my version of this scene breakdown would just be a big picture of Vanilla with “owns motorcycle, is bad boy” under it in big letters. [Film Drunk]

Sean Bean Stabbed in Bar Fight, Orders Another Drink - Not as good as the headline from a few years ago, Sean Bean Dropped Onto Satellite Dish From Great Height, Orders Another Drink. (note: he ordered it shaken, not stirred) (professional comedy writer) [Warming Glow]

TV Show Names According To My Mom - One of my least favorite memories of all time is playing Charades with my family. My Aunt guessed “The Bart Simpson Show” and my family gave it to her. Almost killed myself in front of them. [Buzzfeed]

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