Hard Times Podcast

Megan and Elle catch up with the end of the Summer, featuring Candice LeRae vs Io Shirai at NXT TakeOver Toronto, SummerSlam, Tyler Bate vs Walter at NXT UK TakeOver Cardiff, All Out, Longhorn Steakhouse, Sasha and Bayley’s heel turn, and more!

This episode was recorded a while ago, so we don’t cover SummerSlam, but we’ve got plenty to say about AEW’s last two shows, plus we answer a bunch of listener questions!

Hard Times has been resurrected by the power of All Elite Wrestling’s Double Or Nothing PPV! But before diving headfirst into that, Elle and Megan spend a few minutes talking about the women’s events at Money in the Bank.

We’re welcoming back our friend Lauren Moran, the artist behind the famously bloody “The Man” T-shirt, to talk about Elimination Chamber, and everything else that’s been going on lately.

We’re back with our first long meaty regular episode in a long time! TakeOver Phoenix, the Royal Rumble, a woman in the men's rumble, the Man in the women's rumble, the problem with men in general, Women of Wrestling, and more!

Live to tape from inside a car in the parking lot of The Impact Asylum in Nashville Tennessee, Elle and Megan are joined by Stella Cheeks and Erin Cline, co-hosts of our sister podcast Not Your Demographic. Anything we lack in sound quality (we really did record in a car), we make up for in enthusiasm (we really had just watched the show live).

Let’s have a quick discussion about WWE TLC on our way to see Impact Homecoming!

In which we discuss Survivor Series, WarGames, Total Divas, our exciting January plans, and of course, The Man. Plus Elle’s controversial picks for the hottest wrestlers of the ‘80s.

Let’s talk about WWE Evolution, and some of the other weird stuff that’s going on in wrestling lately.

After months of various troubles, we’re back with our long-promised fantasy booking based on the draft we did back in July! Plus, we talk about Total Divas!

It's time to talk about Extreme Rules, an oddly paced show with some weird finishes, and Slammiversary XVI, a show that was just about perfect. Along the way we also talk about Miz and Mrs, WWE Evolution, and more.

In addition to talking about RAW, SmackDown, GLOW, and the Mae Young Classic, we draft our own WWE rosters, just for fun. Next time, we'll book them! If you listen, it all makes sense (probably).

Chicago street fights, ladders and briefcases, the two gayest matches of the year, undead bridesmaids, murder in the woods, and of course Sasha and Bayley.

A double episode, which means twice as much Hard Times as usual! Elle and Megan talk about the series of poor decisions that was Backlash, plus Elle and Stella Cheeks of Not Your Demographic talk about Impact Wrestling, which Elle just started watching and Stella's been watching for years. Also wrestling crushes, a new opening theme, and more!Support the show on Patreon!Follow Megan, Elle, and the show on Twitter.Listen on iTunes.

It's WrestleMania! And also TakeOver! Two hours of Elle and Megan's thoughts and feelings about ten hours of wrestling! Plus some thoughts about Raw, but SmackDown hadn't happened yet when we recorded!

Elimination Chamber! Fastlane! The last two split-roster PPVs (at least for a while)! Also, Kimbler Lee! Ultimate Deletion! Mixed Match Challenge! Elle's birthday! (nothing about Daniel Bryan, because the news literally broke five minutes after we finished recording)

We have plenty to say about Takeover Philly and the Royal Rumble. Promising up-and-comers, returning legends, and invading MMA fighters.

We've returned for 2018! WarGames, Survivor Series, Clash of Champions, Wrestle Kingdom, and Total Divas! Promises we'll hopefully keep! Paige and Absolution and Riott Squad and more!

We're back! We talk about TLC at length, plus stuff we missed during our hiatus: Hell in a Cell, Sami's heel turn, the return of the Shield, why Elle stopped watching Total Bellas, and more!

The Mae Young Classic has come and gone, and you know we're never going to run out of things to say about women's wrestling! All our favorite matches, the wrestlers who won us over (plus the ones we already loved), a complete discussion of the last three rounds, plus the usual "but is WWE bad actually?" segment. And then Total Bellas!

We finally found the time to talk about Summerslam and the show that always surpasses it, NXT Brooklyn! Great tag team matches! Excellent women's matches with questionable booking! Men's title matches of varying quality! Large men with beards!

Rather than talk about Battleground, we decided to put together a list of wrestling and wrestling-related videos that make us happy when we're feeling blue, and share that happiness with you the listeners. Check the website for the complete list and links to stuff you can watch online.

It's time to talk about the PPV with the most ridiculous name, in which Dean Ambrose fights the Miz for the 400th time, Roman does his best to murder Braun, and Brock falls in love with Samoa Joe. We also talk about the Mae Young Classic, but this was recorded last week so we didn't know anything yet, including how to pronounce Princesa Sugehit.

Elle and Megan talk about Money in the Bank, the whole big mess that grew out of Money in the Bank, and why it's time for Ellsworth to leave. After that, we talk about GLOW on Netflix and how much we love it and everyone involved with it.

Extreme Rules isn't very extreme, which leaves us some time to speculate about Money in the Bank. And of course we have some thoughts about the recent Bayley discourse.

NXT Takeover Chicago (it was amazing!), Backlash (it had its moments!), the season finale of Total Divas (it had Mr. Belding!), plus the long-awaited return of Wrestle Crush of the Month.

We recorded this two weeks ago, so it's a little dated now (the Total Divas season hadn't ended and Birdie Bella Bryan had yet to enter the world), but better late than never, right? Anyway, we both liked Payback a lot.

Continuing our glacially-paced series of bonus episodes, we're discussing the very first Chikara show, The Renaissance Dawns. In which everyone is so young that Ultramantis is wearing red and Colt Cabana isn't even funny. Then we spend almost as long talking about recent episodes of Total Divas, because how could we not? The Chikara discussion is hopefully interesting even if you haven't seen the show, but if you want to skip ahead, the Total Divas convo begins at 01:02:50.

Stella Cheeks and Erin Cline from Not Your Demographic team up with Elle and Megan to cover the year's biggest weekend of wrestling! You can hear us talk about the Hall of Fame ceremony and NXT Takeover Orlando on this show, and then we're moving over to Not Your Demo to discuss WrestleMania itself. If you're not already a subscriber to their show, now's a great time.

For another donor-requested bonus episode, we're going back for the first time to the Attitude Era to talk about Fully Loaded 2000! Lita's style, Edge's face, Undertaker's motorcycle, and a complete lack of discernible babyfaces!

Shocking revelations about why there was no Elimination Chamber episode, Fastlane just about makes us give up on positivity, Megan went to a Chikara show, and more!

We run through the cards of Takeover and the Royal Rumble, and discuss Peyton and Billie's relationship, Seth Rollins' injury, why the Rumble needs surprised, and more.

Megan and Elle spend a little time talking about the WWE UK Tournament from a couple weeks back, and a lot of time talking about the Chikara Finale from December. Plus a long digression about intergender wrestling, and plenty of other stuff along the way.

It's a new year, and Hard Times is a year old! So we figured it makes sense to talk about our favorite people and events from the year in wrestling that just ended. Plus some discussion about indie stars arriving in WWE, the resurgence of relationship angles, and more.

In the first full length bonus episode requested in our King of Trios fundraiser, we discuss the show that followed the promo that gave our podcast its title. Dusty Rhodes shows Ric Flair what hard times really are, Magnum T.A. and Tully Blanchard are hardcore as hell, and the Atlanta Street Fight is bananas. CONTENT WARNING: Wrestling was an even nastier business in 1985 than it is today. Consequently this podcast contains (mostly brief) discussions of bloody violence, racism, domestic abuse, possible sex abuse, and probably other terrible things I'm forgetting to name.

It's time to talk about TLC, the show where most of the matches are between people who've fought several times before, but this time they fall off of stuff and hit each other with things. All this and Total Divas too.

It took us a while to get an episode together about the Thanksgiving week shows, but we've made up for it with a double-length episode featuring special guest Steve Orlando. Over the course of just over three hours, we talk about NXT Takeover Toronto, Survivor Series, and a million other things, most of which are wrestling-related.

We're not covering Survivor Series and Takeover until next week, so this week we're answering some questions from GoFundMe supporters and talking about Total Divas. Also there's holiday travel going on so things are a little askew and Elle is juggling more pets than usual.

Megan and Elle are back to talk at length about Hell in a Cell, the RAW women's division, Chikara and more.

It's been a while! So we talk about Clash of Champions, No Mercy, a Chikara show Megan went to, what's going on with Paige, and more.

Plenty to say about Backlash, and a bunch of other things too: The prestige of the Intercontinental Championship, indie wrestling feelings, queer people (and homophobes) in the WWE, and a quick primer on Appalachian geography.

Live to tape from a hotel room in Bethlehem PA! It's our King of Trios special! Featuring guests Kieran Shiach, Helena Hart, Aidan Sullivan, and Chris Sims. We recorded on night two, so that's as far as our spoilers go. But we have a lot to say about Sendai Girls, Team Original Divas Revolution, Mustache Mountain, Missile Assault Man, Vlad Radinoff, Jigsaw, and lots more. Thoughts on our favorite matches and at least one that didn't work for us.

Ashly (you may know her better as @NewAgeAmazon) is our special guest as we discuss Summerslam, Takeover Brooklyn II, Talking Smack, Holy Foley, Ashly's extremely brief in-ring career, and a bunch of other stuff. And then at the very end we discover how impossible it is to remember the name "Backlash."

Surprise! It's a bonus episode, in which we talk about Sasha becoming Champion, everything else going on with the brand split, the whole first round of the Cruiserweight classic, and in which we announce our first ever fundraiser!

We both enjoyed Battleground, but that doesn't mean there aren't some things to pick apart along the way. Plus the brand split, Cruiserweight Classic, gas masks, indie wrestling, the return of Daniel Bryan, and why John Cena identifies with Enzo Amore.

In which we have our first ever guest, the delightful Lauren Moran. The three of us discuss NXT Takeover: The End, Money in the Bank, Adorable Trash Possum World Heavyweight Champions, the upcoming Brand Split, Elle's movie pitch, Joshi werewolves and more. There's some audio issues toward the end, unfortunately. Just when we were starting to work them out, we had to jump into recording three people in three corners of the continent.

Extreme Rules! No DQs! Asylum Match! Submission Match! Best Fatal Fourway Ever! The Nature Girl Dana Brook! The Architect Returns! Also Elle reads a book, and we're both totally wrong about what's going on with Apollo and Jericho on RAW. Oh well!Follow Megan, Elle, and the show on Twitter.Listen on iTunes.

Payback has come and gone. Megan and Elle worried a lot about Enzo, enjoyed the hell out of the mid-card matches, and got pretty frustrated with how far the women's division has fallen since Mania. Plus an indie match that's all about candy.

Wrestlemania weekend has come and gone, and Elle and Megan are left with feelings. Feelings about the Women's Championship belt, feelings about Shinsuke Nakamura, feelings about Dean Ambrose and Bayley and Charlotte and Sasha and oh man, the feelings about Stephanie McMahon. Not many feelings about the Hell in a Cell match or the main event, though. Weird.

Elle went to three live indie shows in two days! Elle talks a lot about Chikara and Queens of Combat, Megan talks a bit about indie wrestling in Alaska, and we both talk about where else you can hear us on this exciting road to Wrestlemania.

Sorry, Ryback.